Russia, China, Tajikistan propose UN "code of conduct" for the 'Net
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Not sure why this was posted here today, but this is "old news" in the sense that there have been many more such proposals submitted as the nations of the world gear up for the updating of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) treaties relating to telecommunications.
Links to news items about some of the newer proposals can be found here, among other places: http://www.scoop.it/t/wcit
But, yeah, it's still a terrible idea.
They aren't even trying to be subtle.
About the subtle aspect, this may very well be because they genuinely believe it's a good idea other governments may agree with.
Oh and Burma had the death penaty for some uses of cryptography - luckly we did not have a JV in Burma