A Russian hacker has pled guilty in a U.S court to aiding in the theft of $1.6 million, international media reported Monday. Vadim Polyakov, 32, was the leader of a $1.6-million international ticket-scamming ring. He hacked into more than 1,000 accounts on U.S. ticket sales website StubHub. Using the credit card details attached to the …
Russian hacker pleads guilty of ticket-scamming ring in US court Read More
More than six months after its launch, Russia’s national bank card MIR is already supported by more than a hundred Russian banks, 13 of which actually issue the card, according to the Russian central bank’s subsidiary NSPC (or NSPK), which operates the MIR card. Card acceptance is not ubiquitous yet in Russia, however, if judging by the …
Members of the Russian State Duma have approved the third reading of a new bill requiring foreign IT companies to pay value added tax (VAT) on the sale of online content, the Slon.ru news website reported Wednesday. The bill, nicknamed the “Google tax law,” requires companies which distribute or sell online applications, games, music, or …
Last week, the Russian State Duma approved the third reading of a law regulating the work of news aggregators, the Slon.ru news website reported. The law received unanimous support, with 319 deputies voting for the law and none against. The law holds news aggregators accountable for the dissemination of false information. The law reduces fines for …
Russian parliament passes law to regulate news aggregators Read More
The Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation officially recognized competitive video gaming (known as “eSports,” or “computer sports” in Russian) as a sport. The decision, published on June 3, will take effect on July 18, 2016. eSports will now benefit from support from the federal government while cyber-athletes will be able to receive such …
Competitive video gaming now officially a sport in Russia Read More
Russia has seen a dramatic rise in criminal prosecutions on charges of “Internet extremism” over the last few months. Yet most of these cases concern not the creation of extremist content but retweeting, liking or reposting it. Russia Beyond The Headlines, a publication owned by government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta and a syndication partner of East-West …
Jailed for a repost: The definition of extremism in Russia gets ever looser Read More
Like cities throughout the West with Zipcar service, Moscow is a city with great potential for the car-sharing business: its traffic is some of the worst in the world, and parking in the city’s center — within the “Garden Ring” — is prohibitively expensive. Under these circumstances, many people did not think much before signing contracts with Moscow’s major …
Be ready to scream on Facebook, before signing up for Moscow’s car-sharing services Read More
The billionaire Evgeny Prigozhin is demanding that Yandex delete from its search results an article about the Internet Research Agency, better known as Russia’s “troll factory.” Several news outlets, including the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, have published articles claiming that Prigozhin is the brains and money behind the troll factory. The billionaire has also demanded that Yandex …
Russia’s proposed bitcoin ban will hinder blockchain technology’s development in the Russian Federation, according to German Gref, chairman of the board at Sberbank, Russia’s national savings bank, and former economic development minister, speaking at the Skolkovo business school Saturday, according to Lenta.ru, a Moscow-based news site. Gref said blockchain is a new web technology comparable …
A group on Vkontakte, Russia’s leading social network, is being accused of encouraging teen suicide. A criminal case against the owners of the group has been launched in St. Petersburg, a statement published by the Russian Investigative Committee said Friday. If found guilty of promoting suicide, those involved may face up to five years imprisonment. …
Criminal case launched into Russian pro-suicide social media group Read More
Russia, which gave asylum to Edward Snowden after he exposed a vast U.S. surveillance program, is seeking unprecedented controls over its citizens’ communications. The lower house of parliament in Moscow gave preliminary approval to a bill that would require providers to store recordings of mobile-phone conversations and Internet activity for as long as three years. Since …
New law to achieve unprecedented control over Russian citizens’ communications Read More
InfoWatch, a company owned by Natalya Kasperskaya, the former wife of Russian cyber security guru, Evgeny Kaspersky, has developed a solution for monitoring employees’ mobile phone conversations at work. The monitoring device already has a prototype. Russian government officials, however, say this system may be used only with an employee’s consent. Otherwise, it can be considered a violation of the constitutional right to communication privacy. Labor contracts will have …
New Russian software monitors office mobile phones Read More
