> This is exactly how Russia built its surveillance state. It began with the quiet centralization of telecommunications data, followed by the rollout of SORM, which gave the government mass interception and geolocation powers, and ended with the targeted use of those capabilities against political opponents, journalists, and civil society. Immigrants, ethnic minorities, and marginalized groups were the first targets—people with little power to resist.
While I agree with the overall premise, but to best of my awareness (and I worked at an ISP in Russia in '00s) those statements are not entirely accurate.
SORM is Russia's Room 641A, except that it's legislated and all done in the open. It started way before telecom consolidation (which started mid-'00s, when large enterprises with strong government ties started to absorb smaller companies) and initially crept in slowly. At first smaller telcos were able to step around the requirements and just promise to cooperate "if something" (essentially, looking up flow logs and/or running tcpdump after being served a proper warrant).
AFAIK, SORM's first targets were mostly CSAM distributors and people who leaned towards neo-nazi views to various extents. That's how it was legitimized in the eyes of those who knew about it: look, FSB is going against pedophiles and nazis, yay! Don't know about journalists or minorities.
Shit started to hit the fan with mid-2010s rapid acceleration towards authoritarianism, when mandatory censorship and drastic expansion of online surveillance became a law.
And mass/non-targeted phone tracking is a relatively modern development in Russia, mostly post-pandemics.
> AFAIK, SORM's first targets were mostly CSAM distributors and people who leaned towards neo-nazi views to various extents. That's how it was legitimized in the eyes of those who knew about it: look, FSB is going against pedophiles and nazis, yay!
Sounds similar to ChatControl, right?
Not saying that the EU is turning authoritarian at all, but just that it is a tool that may turn evil in the future.
Somewhat similar in the "think of the children" and "we want this to fight the baddies" arguments. Both SORM and ChatControl have stated goals of mandatory warrant-less eavesdropping.
That's about all in similarities, though. AFAIK, there's a difference in the system architecture: Russian SORM was a push from an existing agency (FSB) who became it's sole operator (and basically took over the country: Putin is KGB/FSB spawn), EU proposal seem to establish a clearinghouse-like system for various law enforcement agencies to access through. There's also a difference in oversight: FSB has none, EU proposes some, though I'm not really knowledgeable on the details.
And - yeah - any tool that allows government to violate citizen rights is inherently dangerous if the government becomes hostile. This is clearly the case in Russia, and I'm not knowledgeable about EU at all so I cannot possibly tell.
While I agree with the overall premise, but to best of my awareness (and I worked at an ISP in Russia in '00s) those statements are not entirely accurate.
SORM is Russia's Room 641A, except that it's legislated and all done in the open. It started way before telecom consolidation (which started mid-'00s, when large enterprises with strong government ties started to absorb smaller companies) and initially crept in slowly. At first smaller telcos were able to step around the requirements and just promise to cooperate "if something" (essentially, looking up flow logs and/or running tcpdump after being served a proper warrant).
AFAIK, SORM's first targets were mostly CSAM distributors and people who leaned towards neo-nazi views to various extents. That's how it was legitimized in the eyes of those who knew about it: look, FSB is going against pedophiles and nazis, yay! Don't know about journalists or minorities.
Shit started to hit the fan with mid-2010s rapid acceleration towards authoritarianism, when mandatory censorship and drastic expansion of online surveillance became a law.
And mass/non-targeted phone tracking is a relatively modern development in Russia, mostly post-pandemics.