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Comment by andreyz4k | Hacker News Reader

I'm from Russia, so I guess I could add some context here. A while ago our parliament created a pack of laws to "protect personal data of russian citizens". One of them ordered internet services to store all of the user data of russian citizens on servers, that are physically located in Russia. This law is in power since the beginning of 2016, but many big sites like LinkedIn and Facebook just ignored it. State authorities did nothing about it, but finally, in November they blocked LinkedIn in Russia, so now we ought to use some VPN or proxy to access it. And now they want to remove their apps from stores, despite they don't work without proxy as well.

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Russian here too.

I used to hold similar position on evil west vs. free and for people Russia.... Before I immigrated to the West. I got access to a whole lot more information, I got to live outside of that mentality for a long period of time now.

I saw the 90's first hand. My family struggled through it. I was in one of the top schools (a la Russian MIT), making 20$/month.. Barely enough to cover metro cost and not enough for food 3x per day.

At the same time as my family was struggling, the president and his oligofriends were stealing and robbing the country. As poor as I was, being at one of the top school allowed me to have friends ... Who had friends - kids of the elite. You see, they tend to send their family abroad, kids go to private British schools. They often have dual citizenships, own real estate and investments in the "evil west".

It's a two faced reality, with one face they are critics, with another - they pose for foreign citizenship application.

To your comment on the power grab by the "west" and the international elites - yes, it is real IMO. But be careful - watch who is using who to gain that control. The government over there and the judicial systems are not to be trusted.

The information grab here is obvious - why give up info on Russian citizens for free to linked in , Google etc.? Of course Russian GRU/FSB etc want to have their hands in it too.

> I saw the 90's first hand.

The 90's were courtesy of the west, who sent 'advisers' to Russia to help with the transition to capitalism. Most of the issues the west has with Russia today have to do with the fact we wanted them to stay in the 90's... That was the ideal as far as our leaders are concerned.

> I got access to a whole lot more information

No, you just got access to a different kind of propaganda.

You think families don't struggle here, while the elite take in bribes, engage in cronyism, and send their kids to elite schools? The Clinton's weren't worth hundreds of millions before Bill took office, where did they acquire their wealth? All our corporate 'elite' control our governments, they bribe them (sorry, 'lobby'), and get favourable business deals. The only thing the west has going for it is that people are distracted enough by our relative wealth (enough to buy iPads and shit) to be complacent to all these issues...

The 90s really weren't courtesy of the West. I understand this line of thinking, and I don't want to suggest that the West's handling of Russia in the collapse of the Soviet union was ideal. I know that it wasn't.

But the idea that west successfully privatized Russia in the malignant way you describe would require the existence of institutions powerful enough to enact such a change in the collapsing Soviet union. This has no basis in fact. The West did not have this kind of influence, in large measure because the West did not have viable agents or institutions to mediate such power.

The truth is that the kind of plunder that occurred was a natural consequence of the Soviet economic order, as well as the lack of institutions (and norms) required to sustain a functioning market.

If you are genuinely interested in this topic, please do reach out to me via email – it's in my profile. I'd be really happy to talk more about this topic, and even send you a book or two on it!

Some books have been written on the subject by a great many figures, and while my comment may be slightly hyperbolic, it's not entirely wrong.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/cohen-crusade.html

While I don't think the west necessarily intended for the Russian economy to collapse, they definitely tried to impose certain policies on Russia in an attempt to remake it into an American-style capitalist state, 'shock therapy' and the 'Washington consensus' were real things that were prescribed, and of course there was also military action taken to weaken Russia's influence as well (NATO expansion).

Anyhow, there were a number of American economic advisers who worked for the Russian government during the 1990's, and to say they had no influence is plain wrong.

I'm happy to talk about the ways in which NATO expansion was a questionable choice, as I am inclined to agree, but that's not what you originally contended.

Russia had a Rust Belt orders of magnitude larger than the United States. It had a factory system optimized on quotas decades out of date. It had no real infrastructure for resolving economic disputes in legal terms. It had a factory manager class with little accountability.

You say these Americans worked for the Russian government. What departments? Do you think those departments had adequate control of their own police forces to enforce such policies? How do you suppose these forces would have been funded?

My point is that you are mistaken about the extent to which a Russian state was a viable entity during this period. Without an effective state, there is no real way for the west to exert the kind of influence you describe. The Washington Consensus was real, and its importance exaggerated by its exponents in the US.

To say Americans had substantial influence on Russian economic policy is indeed plain wrong. I would be honored to send you a copy of some books that explain this, and include abundant primary source documentation of my claims.

Please feel free to email me at my address as listed in my profile. I think you might really enjoy a copy of Armageddon Averted by Kotkin. It is a very enjoyable account of this era, and it quite deftly addresses your contention.

Perhaps decades later ex CIA operatives in their memoirs might reveal the extent to which the agency was present and involved in the events during that period. It's naive to think otherwise considering they were all over various banana republics with much less at stake..

Time will tell.

The CIA had virtually zero footprint in Russia throughout the Cold War. All in all, it is not a remarkably effective institution for collecting human intelligence or for sabotage – the United States IC is far superior with signals intel. Much of our history as a nation over the last 50 years reflects this; consider, who brought Khrushchev's secret speech to the United States? It wasn't a CIA officer or asset.

It is very naïve to think that the CIA is as potent as you do.

You seem to be assuming that there was a much better path that Russia could have followed, and that if the US had stayed out, it had leaders with the intelligence and good motivation to carry it out.

I find that quite dubious. For leaders it had Yeltsin who you have to admit was quite incompetent, and a bunch of greedy old Soviet officials who had been responsible for the collapse of the USSR. The liberals were weak and disorganized, and the public was simply lost.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I get the impression that you, like many, believe the West is not only entirely evil, but is the source of all the evil in the world. If I an reading you wrong, please make clear what you do actually believe.

What really is a shame is the waste, a number of industries collapsed simply because of negligence and greed, not just in Russia but throughout the former soviet block. Quite a lot of factories were very specialised and one of only a few in the world, instead of building industries locally they were sold to foreign companies (the examples I know of were Indian so it's not just US) where they were promptly shut. They were bought simply so that there wasn't competition.

A lot of effort and blood went into building the soviet union and it was very sad to see a lot of that work simply thrown away.

I don't idealise west. I see propaganda on both sides of the fence. If anything living in Russia for extended period of time ( my formative years) made Me distrust all authority. Yes, multinationals were involved in the robbery of Russia in the 90s and they were helped by many who are still in power today and in the government. That's my point.

The fact today in Russia is that all power and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a well connected corrupt circle of people. They and their extended families stand to gain from the policies of the current "regime". The rest of the country stands to lose. It hurts me to see this, as I am working hard to get the rest of my family outta there ( its not easy to immigrate despite what Trump and others say)..

As I said this two faced regime with one hand criticizes the west and with another buys up properties and investments abroad to eventually to retire to with their families.

How come Putin sent his own daughter to live and work in Europe for extended period of time? How come members of his cabinet own real estate in London, Spain etc? When Russian mafia was busted in Spain, how come no one from the gov went to jail even though connection was pointing all the way to the top? The judicial system is rotten. Judges are simply executing orders from the top!

Its sad what's happening there and I don't see a good ending any time soon unfortunately. I could stay and fight...but what for? Ruin my life? Jail time for speaking up? No thank you.

I grew up in the US and lived in Moscow for 6 months. The people aren't different -- just like Americans, most people are focused on jobs, paying rent, friends, their kids, dinner, lovers, TV, etc. They mostly don't pay much attention to what their/our government is really doing.

The primary use of America for Russia and Russia/Muslims for America is to have some Other to point the finger at and blame for the outcomes of the ruling class' economic policies.

ps -- For every pro-Putin Gopnik voter, I counter with southern white trash on Obamacare, Medicare payments for "disability", and meth who voted for President (I just threw up in my mouth a little) Trump.

Well, let's not under play the fact that Russia was and still is a resource rich country that everyone would love to have a piece of. At home and abroad. If you are interested - track down the story behind aluminum and diamond trade in the post USSR era. Very fascinating and reflects the general trend in the country.

To reiterate nooron's point, the West wasn't exactly helpful during the oil shock that ended the USSR and the transition to democracy, but to blame the US for the oligarchs / theft of public resources is going way too far.

BTW, if anyone is interested in the fall of the USSR, Yegor Gaidar, an economist, acting Russian PM from June '92 to Dec '92, and architect of the shock therapy reforms immediately post dissolution of the USSR wrote a book about it. I highly recommend it if you're interested in economic history.

This appears to be a brief summary of the argument: https://thetyee.ca/News/2013/03/13/Soviet-Union-Oil/

book: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Empire-Lessons-Modern-Russia...

Yegor Gaidar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yegor_Gaidar

Gaidar is not the person you want to listen to if you want an honest unbiased opinion on the events of that era.

Of course it's biased, I thought that was pretty implicit in it being his book. Primary sources are always interesting.

Oh is this 242-FZ? If so, that ate up like most of my Q3 2015.

My cynical reading of the law was that it was aimed more at having data physically on hand if it needs to be subpoenaed. But IANAL, so maybe I'm just being too cynical. Also what I did or didn't think of the law doesn't matter really, since higher ups decided what was to be done about the law, and I just implemented it.

I think that law was just blatant incompetence. For one there is no process for verifying whether or not you actually store anything in Russia. And even then, there's not much of a point in having a physical access to that data unless somebody is stupid enough to store it in plain text.

This is reasonable and, as far as I remember, the EU required the same as well.

You have to account for market size the EU economy is huge Russian economy is about the size of large US city.

This is more about sovereignty than GDP

Higher GDP allows an economic region to make more demands surrounding their sovereignty.

Any country is free to make laws around their own sovereignty. Size and power has nothing to do with it.

Russia is still a large, connected, and tech savvy country regardless of average income in USD.

None is disputing that every country can pass whatever laws now having companies care about operating in a given country is very influenced by the GDP and the local laws.

The US-EU Safe Harbor Agreement requires that US companies follow the EU's requirements for preserving the privacy and security of users, but allows them to store data in the US.

Safe Harbor doesn't exist any more...

Replaced by this. Does anyone know if it is any sgnificantly different? http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-216_en.htm

I disagree that it is reasonable, but that's why these things are good for at least vote if not left up to consumer choice. I couldn't imagine if my country disabled access to worldwide internet services to protect my data. At some point, citizen choice is valuable, and I as a citizen would like to choose to have my data stored in another country if I wanted (and use services that do so).

I agree in principal but consider this. In real terms this law really only creates and UI/UX problem for LinkedIn at a fundamental level. Sort of like hiding some settings in a config file or behind an "advanced users only!" warning, LinkedIn now requires you connect via a VPN/Tor to use it's services. I feel that the users informed enough to setup a VPN are more likely to also understand the implications of giving personal information to LinkedIn.

This has a side effect. If LinkedIn wants to do business with Russia it has to allow access from VPN services. Thus allowing for greater piracy for internet users everywhere.

> Thus allowing for greater piracy for internet users everywhere.

I assume that's a typo for privacy, but expanding vpn/tor usage probably will help make piracy easier for internet users everywhere

I really really don't like this sentiment. "In real terms" meaning that you have to intentionally break the law. And only advanced users can get the benefit of worldwide internet services otherwise banned. Granted this is an easy opportunity for a whataboutist, hypocrisy point here concerning other countries, and I'd agree with those countries being incorrect too.

We should not be encouraging laws like this, and definitely not excusing them by saying that advanced users can circumvent them. If the Russian government really wanted to protect citizens, why not put laws in place on data protection requirements as opposed to data location requirements? (hint: it's because they don't want to protect the citizens)

Not quite. They just require that you adequately protect PII. Since that is very expensive to do, only large companies tend to do it. Smaller companies probably just ignore it...

https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2015/10/european-data-on-usa-...

Thanks for sharing. I believe this is entirely reasonable given the trend of data breaches, which occur everyday. LinkedIn suffered one of the largest breaches, which compromised millions of users.

Corporations think that they can disregard the laws of nations and act as independent entities. They use their financial power to influence legislation and steal freedom from individuals. Unbiased regulation is needed to stop expropriation.

It's a shame that the article depicted this as censorship. Russia has been under heavy and unjust criticism for quite a while now.

It wasn't a physical data breach, so I don't think it would make much of a difference. Presumably, it's a way to force Linkedin (and others) to have a subsidiary in Russia (legal entity), which can then be sued if there are problems with regards to Russian law.

On one hand, I fully understand your concern. I'm in Canada and the local governments pressure companies such as Netflix, Google and others to have registered legal entities here so that they can apply Canadian law (privacy, tax and language requirements).

On the other hand, Russia does not have a good reputation with regards to neutral application of the state of law. Furthermore, Russia does not have good privacy laws. Linkedin probably doesn't have the same resources/expertise as they do in the US. (as a Canadian, I never host my client data in the US for this reason.. it's not that the US is so terrible (although it kind of is w.r.t. privacy/NSA-stuff), but if something happens, we don't have the resources to deal with it)

This has nothing to do with security. If anything, maintaining data centers on a per-country basis would be harder to protect.

In-country data requirements add a level of bureaucracy to the web that is just bad for users, as well as companies trying to innovate. This is a combination of both censorship and protectionism.

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