

Russia Uses Microsoft to Suppress Dissent - timr
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/world/europe/12raids.html?hp

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motters
These days there's no reason why people should be pirating Microsoft software
anyway, since free software is much better. This applies especially to non-
profit organizations or charities, where spending money on software licenses
is wasteful of scarce financial resources.

Probably the best strategy for charities and non-profits in this situation is:

a) Encrypt your data. In Linux systems like Ubuntu it's really easy to encrypt
your home directory or create an encrypted disk. You don't have to be an
expert.

b) Back up your data in "the cloud" or on servers located outside of your
country. This makes it harder (but I assume not impossible) for data to be
seized arbitrarily.

c) Do as much as possible out in the open anyway (published somewhere on the
web) so that there is little or no "secret sauce" to be seized, except perhaps
private emails. For charities being as transparent about your operations as
possible makes good sense in terms of reassuring donors that their money is
being well spent.

~~~
osivertsson
That is all good advice, but we should remember that Baikal Environmental
Wave, which is the main focus of the article, did have genuine Microsoft
software, including receipts, boxes, and stickers on their computers.

Yet their computers were seized for five months and meanwhile Microsoft denied
to help them prove that the software was genuine.

What is upsetting is that Microsoft is helping the authorities when the
targets of these anti-piracy raids clearly is on organizations and journalists
that peacefully oppose the Russian authorities in some way. They may run only
legitimate software but still a raid is carried out.

'Mr. Kurt-Adzhiyev said he now realized that the authorities were not so much
interested in convictions as in harassing opponents.'

~~~
motters
Yes, which means that the raid and confiscation of computers, etc, isn't
really about copyright enforcement but about grabbing data, making data
unavailable for use, or otherwise as the article suggests causing general
hindrance. Verifying the legitimacy of Microsoft software, as far as I'm
aware, is a fairly trivial matter of checking serial numbers, so this isn't
something which would require computers to be seized for significant periods
of time, or necessarily even moved from their desks.

That Microsoft declined to facilitate the checking of serial numbers after
claims of piracy is reprehensible, and all the more reason not to use their
software in the first place.

------
credo
The evidence seems to clearly show that Microsoft Russia is colluding with the
Russian government to sustain a fraudulent case against the environmental
group.

I hope the NYT report results in pressure on Microsoft, Redmond to stop
ignoring what their Russian subsidiary is doing. They need to put an end to
Microsoft participation in the "the persecution of civil society activists."

~~~
rbanffy
Governments are clients far bigger than NGOs. Their choice is not surprising,
considering who they are.

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nickpp
I guess this would be a great case for Ubuntu desktops with in the cloud
backup/software.

Treat the workstation as a dumb terminal and be ready to discard it if needed.

But I guess the computer sophistication required to do this is currently
beyond the abilities of the targeted people.

~~~
narrator
In this case, Linux really does mean freedom.

~~~
rbanffy
If the authorities are corrupt enough, they may opt for keeping the Linux
boxes until they find the pirated Microsoft software.

------
streamline
why MSFT operating systems, they can just go and catch everyone with jail
broken Apple ipods. and seize all computers, including linux and unix boxes
stating that they were used for jailbreaking.

~~~
riffic
what law would they be breaking?

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nice1
There is also another aspect worth mentioning. A lot of effort world-wide goes
into Global Warming Alarmism instead of fighting against real environmental
atrocities. I understand why the financial industry and the green-industrial
complex are doing this, but a lot of people concerned about the environment
get GW bullshit fed to them and spend their energy on a wild goose chase while
real environmental criminals have a free hand.

------
earl
While I lived there, the police did something similar -- seized computers,
copied confidential emails, returned the computers half a year later -- to a
support group for women raped by the police. I'd laugh at the irony if it
weren't so awful.

That's just how Russia is.

~~~
spot
The story here isn't that Russia does this stuff, it's that Microsoft is
participating.

------
hristov
NYT uses a free subscription wall to make sure I don't read their articles.

