Myths about Russian SORM-2

Well, last months were very hard time for human rights activists — the ghost of KGB was the reason. FSB, the KGB successor officially introduced its newborn baby — project SORM-2. Almost all foreign mass media and their Russian colleagues called it spying over Internet. But in Russia we couldn’t find any organized protest, like it was in old time, the society against the state.

Sure, this project produced some impression but people are tired of scandals and legends. Why I said legends? Because such projects appear from time to time. The State that spent about 70 years under total control couldn’t easily forget this. Ten years of democracy showed that liberty of thought couldn’t replace bread and butter.

«This liberty gave me nothing — only misery» — said ones. «I’m afraid to walk on the streets at night» — said the others. We need strict law, like it was before. Electing new president Vladimir Putin the Russians showed that they like to see strong man at the power. He ought to return Russia its strength and power. Some of such people are ready to loose a little part of liberty. What they understand under «little part» of liberty I don’t know. Don’t forget that in general Russians are not so well equipped with Internet and other sources of communication like other countries.

The facts said that only 3 millions of Russians use Internet. Well, it became less exotic and almost indispensable in big cities. But in general the population of Russia didn’t care such danger. Economic problems, life level, «how to survive» is more actual for them. Internet is exotic to them. Mobile phones’ tariffs became cheaper this year so we could speak about boom of mobile telephony. But using WAP is exotic even in Moscow. Outsides cities and towns the situation is completely different. Countryside people have an other problems then SORM or price for mobiles.

What is SORM? SORM, which in Russian stands for System for Operational-Investigative Activities. This system obliges each Russian Internet provider give the local FSB office access to all electronic traffic of the provider, and also made a special high speed line to the FSB headquarters and to establish some special equipment, which will help «special organs» control electronic traffic, and also spy in users’ mailboxes .

I would like to accentuate four features of SORM and to describe the situation around it in Russia.
First: the project SORM actually eliminates for FSB necessity to receive the court’s sanction for «listening» somebody. The technical limitations for FSB are also disappeared as the obligations to disclose any aspects of this activity. Thus confidential service appears outside of any control.

Second: SORM is not the law (and not the bill). Some foreign newspapers named SORM as the law, but it not so: SORM is departmental act. It means, that neither Parliament, nor President have no influence over acceptance of this document. It should be only registered in the Ministry of Justice. This process can appear swift and make unreal «prolonged» public campaign, and productive controversy in sources of mass-media, and ordinary practice of lobbying the bills in Parliament. Besides the bills passing through Parliament, published for general acquaintance, and the departmental instructions usually are «more confidential». Certainly, both departmental act and law start to work only after official publication. However, as the FSB activity is hidden by veil of secret, the ordinary citizen can not guess, when the «Record» button would be pushed.

Third (this one, I guess, is not the Russian invention): the public opinion in Russia is carefully prepared by the state. As the computer networks are still something new and unknown for overwhelming majority of the citizens, it was very easy to develop public opinion that Internet is used basically by terrorists, mafia , foreign spies, and distributors of pornography. These dark forces changed by absolutely «wrong» information and search new victims in the Web. A series of «evidences» in mass-media inspired by the State, «demonized» Internet describing Web as real threat for the Russian citizens.

The fourth distinctive feature of the project is those: the secret service calculates, that all consumptions will be covered by the providers. If such approach realizes, the providers will put the financial burden of monitoring’s support on the users. Some experts have already mentioned, that the cost of the «Large Brother — Online » will be rather high, as SORM guesses, high speed connection not less then with any other client of the provider. If we speak about dial-up the users, it seems rather small sum, but there are also corporate clients, which have lines with bandwidth 2 Mbit\s and more. It is a stiff price for Russia, where one hour of Internet costs from 1 dollar (day time) in Moscow up to 4 and more dollars in a province. Here I should remark , that due to Russian law, what exactly the State (instead of its citizens) is obliged to pay for operational-investigative activities of the secret services.
The first version of SORM has appeared in 1995. The 1995 Law on Operational Investigations gave the FSB the authority to monitor all private communications, from postal correspondence to cell-phone calls and electronic mail, provided the security service first of all to obtain a warrant from the court. In the new version SORM-2, which has appeared in July, 1998, the providers were obliged to give FSB access to all traffic in a real-time without any sanctions. Moreover, the listening equipment the providers should put at their own expense.

«Anyone from the providers will not speak about it with you — all of them are afraid » — said the chief assistant of the «Civil control » Yury Vdovin. The fact of anticonstitutional installation of overhearing devices was also confirmed by other sources. » All providers start to put for themselves equipment of SORM, in the other case they will lost the licenses » declared Helene Volchinskaya, a consultant the State Duma Security Council.

In Russia there is only one provider which decided to act openly against the installation of such system of the unlimited electronic control. Already more then six month the Volgograd provider «Bayard-Slavia Communications» is in the state of war with local authorities. Since March this company was closed by different occasions. At the same time company’s management declared constantly that the reason of such power pressure is one — «Bayard-Slavia» has refused to put SORM equipment.

Other providers prefer to keep silent. As informs Moscow Times, the representatives of «Glasnet» and «Global One» (two rather big providers) have informed the journalists, that they can’t speak about it. According to the information of «Civil control «, the equipment of SORM-2, already now permits FSB to read the electronic messages, is established in St. Petersburg’s provider Web Plus. The representatives of Web Plus have refused to comment these information.

The experts said that the installation of equipment for electronic supervision will cost to the provider from 10 up to 30 thousand dollars, not considering support and upgrades. It is enough sum to be a serious financial loss to the small-sized providers. Some spectators supposed that the large providers due to this reason even support the introduction of SORM as means of «clearing» the market from the competitors.

» If we don’t put such equipment we’d have problems with corresponding ministry. It doesn’t matter will our company be closed or not. The trial period will last at least a month and for that time will loose our clients and our place on the advertising market. It’s death for us» — said the representative of one big Moscow provider.

The introduction of SORM-2 make anxious not only human rights, but also commercial organizations in Russia and especially abroad. SORM compares with American «Echelon», which is also a global system of the electronic control integrating the whole group of satellites and stations of a radio interception in USA, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. One high level FSB functionary said that Germany has spent 300 millions dollars for such system and nothing happens. It remains democratic state. However experts pointed that SORM is less effective from the point of prevention of crime, but can be more dangerous as an anti-democratic and illegal system.
One of the first steps on protection of interests both providers, and their clients, could become creation of association of the providers. There was information that two Moscow providers have created something similar. However, from my point of view, this initiative is still too young to consider it as beginning of serious opposition to SORM. All other providers in the meantime store silence.

The other way is to use cryptology tools. There are a lot of them on the market. PGP (www.pgp.com) is rather popular in Russia. There is even a joke that there’s nothing horrible for FSB agent then to see the email begins with «beginning of PGP signature).

In the preparing of this article were used materials from Internet. Special thanks to Moscow Libertarium — the biggest and trustworthy source over this problem.