Policies

From import substitution to autarky to military confrontation? Russia’s high tech strategy in questions

In mid-October Dmitry Marinichev, the Kremlin’s Internet Commissioner, made controversial statements concerning Russia’s options for further technological development in the current international context. Initially reported by Russian business daily Kommersant, these statements were widely discussed in Russia in the subsequent weeks. Speaking to Russian scientists at Russia’s Civic Chamber, Marinichev underlined America’s monopolistic and hegemonic position in …

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‘No, thanks,’ responds Yandex to government assignment to operate in Iran

On Oct. 25 Russian and Iranian communications ministers Nikolay Nikiforov and Mahmoud Vaezi announced that Yandex, the Russian search giant, was to start operating in Iran. “We are familiar with the powerful Russian search engine Yandex. We agreed that Yandex will open an office in Iran. The system will be adapted for the Iranian people and …

‘No, thanks,’ responds Yandex to government assignment to operate in Iran Read More

Russia’s leading anti-corruption activist accuses the Kremlin’s Internet Commissioner of profiteering

The Kremlin’s Internet Commissioner, Dmitry Marinichev, earned billions of rubles on uncontested government IT contracts, and then helped engineer a law that “blackmails” foreign companies into renting data servers in Russia, according to a nonprofit group run by anti-corruption activist and Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Marinichev has fired back, accusing Navalny of misunderstanding Russia’s data-localization …

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Moscow subway’s wireless network honored as “Best Wi-Fi Deployment in a City or Public Area”

Earlier this month in San Jose, California, Maxima Telecom’s WiFi network in the Moscow subway was honored at the WBA Wi-Fi Industry Awards as the “Best Wi-Fi Deployment in a City or Public Area.” Task complexity and scale, the approach to monetization, service quality, and market impact were among the jury’s key criteria. Open to the whole industry, …

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Russian firm to create new cloud platform to rival Microsoft and Amazon

Russian software company Parallels has launched a project to develop a locally built cloud computing platform, the Kommersant newspaper reported Monday. The new cloud service, used to store data online, will challenge existing US platforms such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Cloud, the paper reported, citing a video presentation of the project by Parallels. The move comes …

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Russian government hired people to hack the Tor browser – but they failed

A company hired by the Russian Interior Ministry to identify users of the Tor network, an anonymous Internet browser, has announced its plans to terminate its state contract without finishing the task. According to the Russian business daily Kommersant, the Russian Interior Ministry signed a series of contracts in 2013 and in 2014 with a company called “the …

Russian government hired people to hack the Tor browser – but they failed Read More

Snowden criticizes Russia for crackdown on Internet freedom

Edward Snowden, the U.S. intelligence leaker granted asylum in Russia in August 2013, has criticized his country of residence for its crackdown on Internet freedom and gay rights in a speech after receiving a Norwegian prize, British daily The Guardian reported Saturday. Snowden, 32, was awarded the Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression’s Bjornson prize for his work on the right to privacy, the report said. The former NSA contractor, who is …

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Russian Internet censorship: A journey into the belly of the Kremlin’s media watchdog

This summer, for a short while, pages on Reddit and Wikipedia were technically banned in Russia. While the ban targeted only individual pages of these popular websites, roughly a third of Russian Internet providers lacked the tools necessary to block specific content within a site built on the https protocol. As a result the entire Reddit and Wikipedia became inaccessible …

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Russia to develop augmented reality technology for the military

Last month the Advanced Research Fund (FPI in Russian), a state-run organization which some compare to the DARPA in the USA, announced plans to develop a national augmented reality technology. Several domestic tech companies responded to a call from the FPI and offered their action plans to implement this project. The project will be carried out in stages, each new …

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Russian lawmakers want government to develop automated system for hunting Internet trolls

Vadim Dengin, who sits on the Duma Committee for Information Policy and Communications, has submitted a formal request to police and the Communications Ministry asking officials to develop software capable of automatically detecting Internet trolling. Dengin told the newspaper Izvestia that it’s especially necessary to counteract online trolling when it leads to offline criminal activity. He cites …

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Report: Venture investment in Russia grew in 2014 thanks to state support

Venture investment volumes in Russia remained at a rather high level in 2014, but state funds accounted for an important fraction of this activity while many foreign funds decreased or ceased operations in Russia. This is one of the key findings of the 2014 report by RMG, an independent Moscow-based investment company, whose English version has just …

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