The Silicon Review - Best Business Review Magazine 10 Best Security Companies 2019 | Page 25

where democracy and civil liberties
have been eroded constantly see
governments that impose severe
restrictions on internet usage. China
is perhaps the best example of
internet censorship stemming from
autocracy. However, Russia could
now be another entrant into the
list of countries where democracy
is threatened by attacks on civil
liberties and free speech.
The Russian parliament is set to
propose a highly controversial bill
which would essentially isolate
internet services in the country
from the rest of the world. When
news about this bill broke out, it
drew massive crowds, upwards of
over fifteen thousand people on the
streets of Moscow, Russia’s capital.
The protestors remain convinced
that the bill is an effort to find
and silence people who oppose
government policies and curb
dissent. Russia’s president Vladimir
Putin has been notorious in foreign
media for aggressively promoting
Russia nationalism and many
experts believe that he is slowly
transforming Russia into a police
state, similar to the former Soviet
Union.
When most corporations or
government express concern over
their cybersecurity infrastructure,
it is implied that they protect their
interests against outside aggression.
However, in the case of countries
like Russia, it is the government
that people need to worry about.
Having all the digital information
about its people with little to no
oversight can be worse than any
cyber threat posed by foreign actors.
When a hacker group gains access
to personal information about
people, it can perpetrate identity
thefts, credit card frauds, financial
crimes, etc. However, if a sovereign
state without any sort of regulatory
measures, oversight or checks
and balances is able to collect its
people’s data, it can effectively
establish a police state and erode
the privacy of the populace and put
an end to individualistic opinions of
people.
Democracy was conceived to keep
power away from the hands of
the few, but when a government
chooses to implement a mass online
surveillance program by curbing
internet privacy and gathering
information on the online activity of
its own people, it is a definite step
towards the end of democracy and
the establishment of a totalitarian
state. When people lose the right to
criticize and question their leader,
they lose something fundamental in
their government. Citizens in such
a country can be arrested without
trial for criticizing or even making
fun of their leaders online. This was
actually the case last year when
a Russian citizen was jailed for a
month for a tweet that condemned
the government.
The newly proposed bill could
gradually reduce Russia’s internet
traffic from being routed through
servers outside the country. Such
a move is definitely a step towards
establishing comprehensive
surveillance in Russia’s cyberspace.
We live in the internet age and
each user generates data. All that
data can be used to create a profile
about a person and determine if that
person would stir dissent among
people.
When a government curbs online
privacy, it is essentially putting a cap
on fundamental rights and freedom
of speech. It is nothing but state-
sponsored cybercrime perpetrated
on its own people on a nationwide
scale.
SR
Russia internet
freedom
Thousands protest
against cyber-security
bill