X-Industry

SUMMARY

On 27 Dec 2019, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution proposed by Russia for the formation of an “ad hoc intergovernmental committee of experts to elaborate a comprehensive international convention on countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes.” The first meeting of this committee is scheduled for August 2020.

The US has objected to this effort, and many democratic countries have also spoken against this proposal yet is als

By 12 November 2019, hacker Alexei Burkov was extradited from Israel to the US to face major credit card fraud charges.  Originally arrested in 2015 for his role in Cardplanet, his extradition was delayed several times as the Russian government was fighting against his extradition to the US. Israel subsequently received a competing extradition request from Russia.  Then, Russia arrested and sentenced to prison an Israeli/US citizen and offered Israel to exchange her for Burkov.  This case show

Figure 1. Internet blackout area during Moscow opposition protests 

Governments, especially authoritarian ones, consider cutting the Internet as one of the ways to deal with political opposition and separatists.  Major Internet disruptions were recently detected in India (Kashmir), Indonesia (Papua), Sudan, and, on a smaller scale, in Russia. Severing or completely stopping the Internet becomes more popular, as more rude methods (DDoS, BGP hijacking, or fake certificates) get a stronger push back

On 1 May 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed “Internet sovereignty” bill.  New requirements to use ISPs to track traffic origin will likely force traffic decryption and support of internal censorship efforts.  In the future, Russia will develop its own DNS system to conduct special Internet controls.  Currently, LinkedIn is banned in Russia.  Russian national payment system, Mir, was developed after several Russian banks were denied services by US-based Visa and MasterCard.  Future st