
LinkedIn is now officially blocked in Russia - DyslexicAtheist
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/17/linkedin-is-now-officially-blocked-in-russia/
======
pfarnsworth
Honestly, if LinkedIn disappeared today worldwide, I wouldn't miss it one
second. It's really more of a chore than anything else. When you're looking
for a job, or looking to recruit, it's helpful, but they haven't made the case
of general everyday use, and I doubt they ever will.

~~~
jasonkostempski
Last month I had to spend an hour making sure someone hadn't opened a LinkedIn
account under my 8 year olds name after his aunt asked us why LinkedIn is
suggesting she connect with him. Turned out she had his iCloud email in her
contacts because she FaceTimes with him. LinkedIn thought it was OK to use her
contact list to make it appear like he had an account there. The bastards
found a way to waste my time even though I have no account with them. Humanity
would be generally better off without LinkedIn.

~~~
FT_intern
I assume that LinkedIn has made deals with third party social networks to get
the creepy connection suggestions. I'm curious how much $$$ is involved

~~~
jonathankoren
You would be wrong.

It really isn't hard to build PYMK. It's basically just triangle closing on
common friends and address book import.

------
tobltobs
I didn't know about this crazy new regulatory requirements until now. Quoting
from an article [1] describing the new law:

> “When collecting personal data, including through information and the
> internet telecommunications network, the operator is required to provide a
> record that the systematization, accumulation, storage, updating and
> retrieval of personal data of citizens of the Russian Federation, is held on
> databases located in the territory of the Russian Federation.”

I could imagine that complying to this regulation wont be worthwhile for most
companies.

Edit: The interesting thing is, that the law seems not to forbid to store the
data outside of Russia, it "just" dictates that the data has to be stored in
Russia also.

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/02/russia-moves-to-ban-
online...](https://techcrunch.com/2014/07/02/russia-moves-to-ban-online-
services-that-dont-store-personal-data-in-russia/)

~~~
devoply
At the end of the day, creating many of these services is trivial. Creating a
LinkedIn clone is trivial, and one will pop up in Russia giving some Russian
owners profit and creating jobs for Russians. So how it's bad for the Russian
economy, or the economy of any country to do this, is beyond me. On the other
hand, dictatorships and capitalist democracies love to gather as much
information as they can on their citizens, so it will allow Russians to get
more information on their citizens. Which may be bad for some of them.

~~~
nkrisc
It's not about the economy, it's about control. Give them control or get out.
Eventually the only companies left are those that will acquiesce to Russian
demands.

~~~
dualogy
From how I understanding "Russian state philosophy" (if there's such a thing)
I'd even intuitively assume they're not necessarily _primarily_ interested in
gathering everything-about-everyone but in ensuring no other party (especially
private western/multinational corps) gain potentially such an information
advantage over them. We've arrived in an age when non-sovereign entities can
gain leverage over sovereign entities and thus become "geopolitical players",
to be "reckoned with".

~~~
paganel
That's my understanding of it, also. Just the other day I was discussing with
a work colleague about what would have happened had FB not been blocked in
China almost from the very beginning. Imagine all the Chinese' people data
sitting on a server a couple of keystrokes away from entities like the NSA.
Our example, made half-jokingly, was something along the lines of: "Imagine
how much information you can gain just by tracking the GPS positions of the
personal secretaries attached to important Chinese Communist Party power
figures".

------
LeonidBugaev
Worth noticing that court blocked only HTTP version
"[http://www.linkedin.com/"](http://www.linkedin.com/"), HTTPS works just fine
:)

However some providers, who had no smart hardware, may block by IP instead of
URL, and https version will be blocked as well (not my case).

~~~
degorov
Already not true as of 2016-11-18 10:50 MSK. All protocols/ports should be
blocked by ISP's for both www and apex.

------
hal9000xp
As a Russian citizen, I used LinkedIn heavily to find jobs in Europe (along
with stackoverflow.com/jobs). I keep a lot of contacts there (e.g. former
colleagues and European recruiters, some of them are very helpful).

I found it's alarming that LinkedIn is blocked in Russia. Blocking LinkedIn
significantly reduces chances to find a job in Europe.

But I expected that since I watched closely on new laws restricting internet
freedom in Russia.

Official motivation behind this law is to prevent US spying on Russian
citizens (this law was proposed after Snowden's scandal).

Of course, this motivation was a lie as everything else which came out of
dirty rotten mouths of nasty Kremlin bastards.

The real motivation is that the Kremlin loves to spy on its own citizens. And
they already did that for a long time.

The problem is that these anti-freedom laws do bother only very small
percentage of Russians. The rest of Russia won't even notice if Kremlin
completely shuts down access to the global internet. Heck, the majority of
Russians doesn't even bother to learn _elementary_ English!

 _Stupid_ people buy everything Kremlin tells them, including version about
protecting Russian citizens from US NSA.

The general principle is that any government is constantly trying to expand
itself and limit citizen's freedoms. The only force which can prevent
government from endlessly limiting citizen's freedoms is the majority of
citizens (definitely not a minority of non-rich citizens). Every freedom above
what masses asking for is only at mercy of the government's bueracrats.

It means that in absolutely any country _masses_ fully deserve their
government.

I wrote more details about this principle here:

[https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-living-in-
totalitarian-s...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-living-in-totalitarian-
states-love-their-dictators-1/answer/Eldar-Gaynetdinov?srid=xsEM)

So I consider myself as a part of absolute tiny minority of Russian citizens
which has no voice at all (thanks to backward masses).

That's why I left Russia and I hope forever!

I think LinkedIn could be unblocked if LinkedIn agrees to meet these crazy
requirements. Even if LinkedIn would be unblocked, it won't change sad state
of freedoms in Russia.

P.S. I hope to get rid of _toxic_ Russian citizenship in the future.

~~~
SanFranManDan
> That's why I left Russia and I hope forever!

> dirty rotten mouths of nasty Kremlin bastards

> Heck, the majority of Russians doesn't even bother to learn elementary
> English!

> Stupid people buy everything Kremlin tells them, including version about
> protecting Russian citizens from US NSA.

> thanks to backward masses

> P.S. I hope to get rid of toxic Russian citizenship in the future.

I think the only thing toxic here is how you write and view other humans and
your fellow countrymen as inferior beings.

I have no Russian heritage, but I lived in rural cities around Russia for a
year and was there another 6 months in Moscow after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Russia is definitely much different from the Western world and there are a lot
of things I disagree with, but I would never call anyone stupid for supporting
Putin or the government.

Calling folks stupid and backward for supporting stuff you dont support is
just you thinking you are better than everyone else when you are not. Don't be
a dick because some people are less fortunate than you and didn't have an
opportunity to learn critical thinking. Even people much smarter than you
might support what you don't like. The world isn't black and white.

You are in for a rude awakening if you believe that other governments don't
lie to their citizens. Whatever government you currently support and get your
new citizenship from, you are a pawn and part of the "backward masses" for
whatever fucked up scheme that government is cooking up to screw you over.

~~~
hal9000xp
This majority is totally fine to imprison unwanted minorities. This majority
is totally fine to restrict my freedoms. This majority thinks they are right
_because they are majority_.

So in short, the majority asks me to sacrifice myself for their sake because
I'm in minority and they are in majority.

If so, f##k them!

P.S.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged)

~~~
Dolores12
That's how democracy works. Are you against democracy?

~~~
bzbarsky
Yes. Any thinking person should be against democracy in the sense of "any time
we can get one vote over 50% for something we should pass the something".

This is why the US government was set up with various undemocratic features.
This is why there are things like constitutions that require supermajorities
to modify.

Protecting minorities from the tyranny of the majority is one of the main
purposes of good governmenance.

~~~
Dolores12
Yeah, thats why Trump won with minority of votes. Just as you like. And i like
it too!

~~~
Broken_Hippo
The US isn't even a democracy so it doesn't really apply, does it? He'd not
have won in a democracy.

Democracy screws folks over very easily.

------
EugeneOZ
Please block as many services as possible in Russia, it will motivate our
people to change government (by force, maybe) faster.

~~~
jwtadvice
Similarly, please continue to leak as many illegal activities of the United
States government as possible, it will motivate our people to change
government (by force, maybe) faster.

------
ivan_gammel
That was quick - it's already not accessible from Megafon cellular networks.

LinkedIn is quite popular among international HRs hiring software developers
in Russia. HRs may still have access, but the workforce now does not. What was
the point not to comply with regulatory requirements? Too small market? Too
hard to throw some user data to a server in some Moscow datacenter for
persistent storage?

~~~
lisivka
Risk of leaking of databases, which are vital for their business, is too high,
IMHO. Did you remember closed government databases, with private information,
written on CD and sold at Gorbushka for pennies?

~~~
ivan_gammel
That risk isn't bigger than anywhere else since we are talking about private
company really concerned about security. How many leaks were there through
government channels from Mail.ru Group or Yandex? None, and the reason is
that, given all necessary security measures taken, you cannot just copy such a
database to CD. The access will be limited to few well-paid people in IT Ops,
the database can be secured using a solution certified by FSB (and even if FSB
will hack it, these guys do not expose themselves by selling CDs on
Gorbushka).

~~~
lisivka
AFAIK, you _can_ buy mail.ru databases[1]. Quote:

«A vendor going by the online handle of “saul_berenson” is selling 57 million
Mail.ru accounts on darknet in BTC 1.0000 (628.78 US Dollar).

The sold data includes emails and MD5 passwords of Mail.ru users. According to
the seller, “these passwords are very easy to crack.” Remember Mail.ru was
hacked twice, one in July and August 2016 when 27 million accounts were stolen
and before that in May 2016 when 57 million accounts were stolen. We suspect
that the stolen data is from May 2016 breach.

Yandex is another Russian Internet giant serving as the country’s largest
search engine and like Mail.ru the corporation has been under attack by
hackers numerous times. However, now, a vendor is selling 6.5 million Yandex
accounts containing emails and passwords. The total number of sold accounts is
659,5756 with both hashed and clear-text passwords.»

The whole idea of an government operation, like that, is to put finger first,
then whole hand. When data will be in Russia, government will demand 24x7
access to it. Then data will be copied somewhere, then sold.

[1] [https://www.hackread.com/utorrent-forum-mailru-yandex-
data-d...](https://www.hackread.com/utorrent-forum-mailru-yandex-data-
darknet/)

~~~
twelve40
> selling 57 million Mail.ru accounts

Seriously? I can give you free access to credentials from 164,611,595 LinkedIn
accounts right now. This data has been copied and sold many times over with
zero help from any government.

------
homakov
From Russia, can confirm. Finally roscomnadzor is preventing spam!

~~~
AlfeG
Unfortunatly, I still receieve emails from linkedin...

------
rdiddly
LinkedIn didn't just "get blocked" out of the blue. They got blocked after
many warnings and plenty of time during which they refused to take basic steps
to comply with the laws of a sovereign nation. Just set up some servers in a
Russian datacenter and be done with it! But instead they blew it off, or
created the impression of blowing it off, by going running to the Russian
bureaucrats on the last day -- as if the whole thing were a big surprise!

If you wanted to insult them, show them you didn't take them seriously and
didn't make a plan to comply with their laws, I can't think of a better way to
do it than going to them on the last day to ask for more time. If I were those
bureaucrats I would take especial relish in cutting them off. (And that's
aside from the fact that it's a worthless site in the first place.)

Sometimes when you get Tased it's because of crooked cops, but most of the
time it's because you're being an ass, disregarding the laws of the people,
despite many warnings, and not taking simple steps to comply.

~~~
meshr
LinkedIn denied to play by rules of idiots. Shame on Google etc who supports
and promotes censorship by accepting the rules of censorship. Internet ends
when every country will start to force everyone else to do what they think is
good.

------
bayesian_horse
Russia likes to copy EU strategies and uses them for other purposes. For
example, the EU and its members really like to go after US companies for
privacy protection. This is usually a good thing for the consumers, but can
feel like a targeted attack to the US companies in question.

However, when the Russian Federation does - on the surface - almost the same
thing, it suddenly has a very different impact...

~~~
supergirl
so you say if Europe does something, it's good. If Russia does the same thing,
it's bad, because it's Russia. OK.

~~~
bayesian_horse
Putin likes to make it look that way, yes. And on the surface it does. Beneath
the surface, there are lots of important differences.

The EU doesn't block websites. It doesn't control the media. It ensures
freedom of speech. It makes it possible even for US companies to do business
in the EU, without the fear that their servers are seized whenever some
corrupt regime decides to. The EU doesn't go after dissidents... and the list
goes on and on...

~~~
degorov
Why does then wikipedia have articles with lists of websites blocked in
different EU countries?

------
Taylor_OD
It still blows my mind that people are on linkedin. If you are not a
recruiter/hiring manager it's only real purpose (that I can see) is to be a
boasting board for achievements and a easy to ignore place to receive
recruiting emails.

Does anyone get any other value out of it?

~~~
afterburner
"receive recruiting emails"

That's pretty much it, right? That, and very easy job applications. Nowhere
have I had an easier time applying for a job.

------
dima_medvedev
"We wanted as good as possible, but it turned out as always" Viktor
Chernomyrdin, Russian politician

The law itself is more or less reasonable, but very poorly done and applied,
like almost all recent Russian internet laws.

------
cynoclast
>'It’s not clear why LinkedIn — which has out of its 467 million users, only 5
million registered in Russia — was targeted in this case. '

Probably because they keep getting fucking hacked:
[http://www.wired.co.uk/article/linkedin-data-breach-find-
out...](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/linkedin-data-breach-find-out-included)

And Russia is tired of Russians getting fucked by shitty American software
engineers.

------
w8rbt
It seems like a reasonable requirement. If you want to do business there, then
setup a data center and store data there.

~~~
meshr
Internet ends when every country will start to force everyone else to do what
they think is good. In digital world physical geo-location doesn’t matter
unless you want to fool someone. You can store data in Russia but give access
to it to CIA. You can store data in USA but make it impossible to access by
CIA.

------
kimshibal
My friend. We use ВКонтакте for everything.

~~~
sakopov
I'm not in Russia but I can pretty much confirm this. It feels like the number
of reposts on VK containing videos from small companies asking for referrals
to fill positions has almost quadrupled in last several months. I guess it's
working out quite well.

------
technion
Well I went to see if there was any news on this for an Australian, and all I
found when I logged into LinkedIn was this advice regarding "restricting" my
account from use:

[http://imgur.com/a/VOBQV](http://imgur.com/a/VOBQV)

I haven't sent out a direct message or "added" anyone in months, and the only
recently posted content was this blog:

[https://lolware.net/2016/11/17/requesting_bank_login.html](https://lolware.net/2016/11/17/requesting_bank_login.html)

Despite not being able to log in, I've received two separate emails from them.
I have a feeling I'll be letting LinkedIn go.

------
Mikeb85
> Amid a tense stand-off and attempt at negotiations, Russia’s communications
> regulator Roskomnadzor has started to enforce a proposed block of LinkedIn
> in the country, after the social network failed to transfer Russian user
> data to servers located in the country, violating a law instituted in Russia
> requiring all online sites to store personal data on national servers.

Not the worst rationale. Keep in mind that countries such as Canada and EU
countries also have different privacy laws that US corporations have ran afoul
of from time to time.

------
0xmohit
Given how LinkedIn works [0], it doesn't appear too bad.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11063178](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11063178)

------
julianozen
I feel like LinkedIn will find a way in. They're the terminator of social
networks

------
bikamonki
A similar law is about to pass in my country and we are 15 weeks away from
elections. I believe the targets are FB and Twitter.

So what is my best bet to rollout a Twitter clone fast and host it in-house?
Impossible?

~~~
btgeekboy
The magic of Facebook, Twitter, etc are not the technologies. Sure, as they
grow, they need more elegant than off-the-shelf solutions. But hacking
together a Twitter clone in a week is the easy part - getting people to use
it, building a community, etc, is the hard part.

~~~
gumernatorial
The hardest part is that once your Twitter clone functions well enough to
replace Twitter it will be banned just the same.

~~~
bikamonki
Unless I can do it sans central server, web torrent maybe? Any ideas?

~~~
kbart
The only effective solution I can think of is Tor, but then you automatically
lose probably >99% of users. Everything else can be blocked easily.

------
Pica_soO
Career has arrived? You must construct additional Tor-Nodes!

~~~
treebeard901
We require more vespene cash.

------
odbol_
Great! Maybe now I'll stop getting spam connect requests from all these
Russians I don't even know...

------
pc2g4d
Isn't this basically a protectionism move designed to strengthen local social
networks?

------
dz0ny
It should be blocked everywhere :)

------
duaneb
Lucky bastards.

/s

------
atria
I'm sure this has nothing to do with recent articles detailing how Russian FSB
agents successfully use LinkedIn to find, contact, groom, and network with
potential sources and agents on Wall Street.

------
tmptmp
I wonder, where is Snowden now? What has he to say about it? Has he ever
spoken anything against the oppression done by the Russian govt?

We should be asking him tough questions, not just joining in praising him to
be some sort of hero, who is cozying up with criminals in Kremlin.

~~~
icebraining
_Has he ever spoken anything against the oppression done by the Russian govt?_

If you'd bothered to look up, you'd know he has.

