UN mulls Russia's pitch for cybercrime treaty

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine rolls through its second week, a United Nations committee has begun hearings on a proposed new cybercrime treaty Russia has been pushing. The proposal has been heavily criticized by the United States, the European Union and other Western countries. For several years, Russia has been vying for a …

[Anonymous Coward]

If Russia is for it

It's probably bad for everyone but the Russian State. Like banning pesky stuff like encryption, and making criticism of Russia a criminal offense.

[Martin Gregorie]

Re: If Russia is for it

What is this "Russian State" of which you speak?

Surely you meant "The Russian President and his gang of oligarchs".

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: If Russia is for it

The oligarchs aren't all that important. For very rich people, they have pretty minimial involment in Russian politics. All they're allowed to do is become regional governors and spend their cash on smartening up the regional towns and cities.

The real power in Putin's regime is with the security services. Rosvgardia (internal security), FSB and SVR (the domestic and foreign successors to the KGB), GRU (military intelligence plus special ops), the armed forces and the State Security Council and Putin himself of course.

Being an ex KGB colleague is the big way to get ahead. One of Putin's problems is that lots of his people aren't much younger than he is - and because he doesn't get out much he's not meeting new people to refresh his regime with.

[Cederic]

Re: If Russia is for it

Well, compare and contrast to the proposed UK legislation that includes banning pesky stuff like encryption, and making criticism of the Government's agenda illegal.

[IGotOut]

Well...

... Considering saying that there is a war in Ukraine, or that its an invasion, now carries a 15 year prison sentence, I think we can safely file this in the bin.

This is just more theatrics by the Kremlin spy master.

[Doctor Syntax]

"It seems Russia's aim is to keep the international community busy and distracted negotiating a new cybercrime convention as a way to stall practical global cybercrime cooperation just at the time it's needed most,"

Exactly the conclusion I'd come to by the time I got half way down the page. It looks as if they've been taking the UK's iterations on investigative powers as a model.

[gitignore]

My borders are your borders, for now.

"arguing that the language [...] violated the idea of state sovereignty." Russia owes me a new keyboard for that one.

[Potemkine!]

law enforcement cybercrime operations to cross nation borders violated the idea of state sovereignty.

But for Russia, sending tanks to cross nation borders doesn't.

Who can believe a country whose leader is saying that Russian troops weren't bombing Ukrainian cities, when everybody can see it's a lie?

Which countries sided with Russia on this one?

[I ain't Spartacus]

Acronym Issues at the UN

The UN's Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes

So that gives us: UNAHCECICCUICTCP

Hmmm. Needs more work methinks. As it's Putin's idea, could we call it the Cybercrime United Nations Treaty?

[Binraider]

It would not surprise me if some of their motivation for this is to use these tools to censor critics within their own regime and push their own agenda, dismissing others as "cyber criminals".

I'd say a major motivating factor why I haven't stopped using certain communication platforms is in order to keep the fight against mis-information up. But the scale of the cesspits and actually using comms platforms for communication with people I want to talk to is getting frustratingly awful.

Certain individuals and orgs earn cash on advertising views regardless of the source of the view and as such have more than proven they do not want to clean anything up unless ordered to do so by a court. The fact that they have the ability to do such things, and actively choose not to will see more fleeing from said platforms.

Now, to find a suitable replacement...