Vk Tops List of Most Popular Websites in Russia
December 2, 2016
For anyone interested in Internet usage outside the U.S., VentureBeat supplies a run-down of the most-used websites in Russia in its piece, “Russia’s Top 10 Websites Include Facebook, Google, Instagram, and YouTube.” Reporter Adrien Henni writes:
Russia’s top 10 websites 2016 ranked by SimilarWeb tell us how Russians are spending their time online. Russia’s top 10 websites of 2016 consist of four social networking sites, three search engines, email, video entertainment, and classifieds. As opposed to some other markets, domestic sites dominate Russia but international websites still play a major role in the RuNet ecosystem. This blog walks through the top sites, defining the domestic sites and elaborating on some of the Russian uses of internationally well-known sites. … The ranking has not seen a large shift since last year.
Though the VentureBeat headline emphasizes U.S. sites, the top four entries are Russian. In fact, the most popular site is one we’ve been examining—the Russian answer to Facebook, Vkontakte, a.k.a. VK. The write-up describes the site:
Vkontakte (VK), Russia’s local social media site, is at the top of the list, making it the most popular website in Russia. This is no surprise with the increasing popularity of social media, not only in Russia but all over the world. Beyond staying connected with friends and family, VK offers entertainment services as well. Users are able to create playlists of videos and music.
Henni does not mention the looser restrictions on things like hate speech, which is apparently one of VK’s major draws (at least for now.) Unsurprisingly, innovative search engine Yandex is second on the list, followed by social-media site Odnoklassniki (OK), and Mail.ru. Facebook barely made the list, on the heels of Google and Instagram. See the write-up for details on each site, and how Russians utilize it.
Cynthia Murrell, December 2, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
The Zen of More Tabs from Yandex
September 5, 2016
Serendipitous information discovery has been attempted through many apps, browsers and more. Attempting a solution, Russia’s giant in online search, Yandex, launched a new feature to their browser. A news release from PR Newswire appeared on 4 Traders entitled Yandex Adds AI-based Personal Recommendations to Browser tells us more. Fueling this feature is Yandex’s personalized content recommendation technology called Zen, which selects articles, videos, images and more for its infinite content stream. This is the first time personally targeted content will appear in new tabs for the user. The press release offers a description of the new feature,
The intelligent content discovery feed in Yandex Browser delivers personal recommendations based on the user’s location, browsing history, their viewing history and preferences in Zen, among hundreds of other factors. Zen uses natural language processing and computer vision to understand the verbal and visual content on the pages the user has viewed, liked or disliked, to offer them the content they are likely to like. To start exploring this new internet experience, all one needs to do is download Yandex Browser and give Zen some browsing history to work with. Alternatively, liking or disliking a few websites on Zen’s start up page will help it understand your preferences on the outset.
The world of online search and information discovery is ever-evolving. For a preview of the new Yandex feature, go to their demo. This service works on all platforms in 24 different countries and in 15 different languages. The design of this feature implies people want to actually read all of their recommended content. Whether that’s the case or not, whether Zen is accurate enough for the design to be effective, time will tell.
Megan Feil, September 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden Web/DarkWeb meet up on September 27, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233599645/
Snowden Makes Rare Comment on Putin’s Politics
August 15, 2016
I off hand heard a comment from someone living in Russia that President Vladimir Putin was returning the country to a time resembling the Soviet days. To my western ears, that does not sound good. Things are about to get worse for Russian citizens due to a new law the government signed into law. Yahoo Tech reports in the article that “Putin Signs Controversial Anti-Terror Measures Into Law” that these new laws are meant to be anti-terror laws, but are better referred to as “Big Brother” laws.
The new laws give the government greater surveillance powers of its citizens. This means that under the guise of providing extra security communications-based companies will be forced to store people’s calls, messages, photos, videos, and metadata for three years. The companies must also allow security services full access to all the data and any encryption tools necessary. It gets even worse:
“They also criminalise several offences, lower the age of criminal responsibility to 14 for some crimes and extend prison sentences for online crimes like abetting terrorism. The passage of the bills through Russia’s lower and upper houses of parliament sent shockwaves through the internet and telecoms industries.”
Communications-based companies are worried that the new laws will cut into their profit margins. It is predicted that the new infrastructure necessary to store the massive amount of data will cost four times the industry’s annual profit. It is recommended that a tax on the entire industry, then use that money to build the infrastructure would be a better option.
The US whistleblower Edward Snowden, currently in Russia for asylum, made a rare comment on Russia’s politics via Twitter about the new laws:
“ ‘Signing the #BigBrother law must be condemned,’ he said, adding that he would criticise the law despite fearing retaliation from Russian authorities.”
Snowden wrote what is already written on the wall when it comes to Russia: Putin is changing the country for the worse and it is scary to imagine where it will go next.
Whitney Grace, August 15, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
There is a Louisville, Kentucky Hidden /Dark Web meet up on August 23, 2016.
Information is at this link: https://www.meetup.com/Louisville-Hidden-Dark-Web-Meetup/events/233019199/
Sci Hub May Be Relegated to Dark Web Only
March 18, 2016
Academics are not done with innovating when it comes to the dissemination of free knowledge. Science Alert recently published Researcher illegally shares millions of science papers free online to spread knowledge. The article details Sci-Hub, an online service opened up by a researcher in Russia offers free access to more than 48 million journal articles, which is almost every peer-reviewed paper in existence. Additionally, it describes how Elsevier has sued Sci-Hub. The article summarizes how Sci-Hub works,
“The site works in two stages. First of all when you search for a paper, Sci-Hub tries to immediately download it from fellow pirate database LibGen. If that doesn’t work, Sci-Hub is able to bypass journal paywalls thanks to a range of access keys that have been donated by anonymous academics (thank you, science spies). This means that Sci-Hub can instantly access any paper published by the big guys, including JSTOR, Springer, Sage, and Elsevier, and deliver it to you for free within seconds. The site then automatically sends a copy of that paper to LibGen, to help share the love.”
What is fascinating about this case is that whether Elsevier or Sci-Hub wins, there may still be a means for Sci-Hub to continue offering unlimited journal access. As other articles on this subject have alluded, the founder of Sci-Hub sees its relegation to the Dark Web as its worst-case scenario.
Megan Feil, March 18, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Facebook Exploits Dark Web to Avoid Local Censorship
March 9, 2016
The article on Nextgov titled Facebook Is Giving Users a New Way to Access It On the ‘Dark Web’ discusses the lesser-known services of the dark web such as user privacy. Facebook began taking advantage of the dark web in 2014, when it created a Tor address (recognizable through the .onion ending.) The article explains the perks of this for global Facebook users,
“Facebook’s Tor site is one way for people to access their accounts when the regular Facebook site is blocked by governments—such as when Bangladesh cut off access to Facebook, its Messenger and Whatsapp chat platforms, and messaging app Viber for about three weeks in November 2015. As the ban took effect, the overall number of Tor users in Bangladesh spiked by about 10 times, to more than 20,000 a day. When the ban was lifted, the number dropped..”
Facebook has encountered its fair share of hostility from international governments, particularly Russia. Russia has a long history of censorship, and has even clocked Wikipedia in the past, among other sites. But even if a site is not blocked, governments can still prevent full access through filtering of domain names and even specific keywords. The Tor option can certainly help global users access their Facebook accounts, but however else they use Tor is not publicly known, and Facebook’s lips are sealed.
Chelsea Kerwin, March 9, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Why Are Ads Hiding Themselves
June 25, 2015
The main point of an advertisement is to get your attention and persuade you to buy a good or service. So why would ads be hiding themselves in a public venue? Gizmodo reports that in Russia certain ads are hiding from law enforcement in the article: “This Ad For Banned Food In Russia Itself From The Cops.” Russian authorities have banned imported food from the United States and European Union. Don Giulio Salumeria is a Russian food store that makes its income by selling imported Italian food, but in light of the recent ban the store has had to come up with some creative advertising:
“Websites are already able to serve up ads customized for whoever happens to be viewing a page. Now an ad agency in Russia is taking that idea one step further with an outdoor billboard that’s able to automatically hide when it spots the police coming.”
Using a camera equipped with facial recognition software programmed to recognized symbols and logos on officers’ uniforms, the billboard switches ads from Don Giulio Salumeria to another ad advertising a doll store. While the ad does change when it “sees “ the police coming, they still have enough time to see it. The article argues that the billboard’s idea is more interesting than anything. It then points out how advertising will become more personally targeted in the future, such as a billboard recognizing a sports logo and advertising an event related to your favorite team or being able to recognize your car on a weekly commute, then recommending a vacation. While Web sites are already able to do this by tracking cookies on your browser, it is another thing to being tracked in the real world by targeted ads.
Whitney Grace, June 25, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Russian High Tech Propaganda
June 1, 2015
The Soviet Union was known for its propaganda, and Russia under Vladimir Putin seems to have brought the art into the digital age. The Guardian gives us the inside scoop in, “Salutin’ Putin: Inside a Russian Troll House.” Journalists spoke to two writers who were formerly among the hundreds working at the nondescript headquarters of Russia’s “troll army” in St Petersburg. There, writers are tasked with lauding Putin and lambasting the evils of the West in posts and comment sections on a wide variety of websites. Though the organization cannot be directly tied to the Kremlin, it’s reported the entity does not pay any taxes and does not register its employees. It does, however, seem to have grown heartily in the two years since Russia went (back) into the Ukraine.
It is said that working conditions at the “troll house” involve 12-hour shifts, a dreary environment, strict rules, and low pay, though that sounds no different from conditions in many jobs around the world. Workers describe writing a certain number of “ordinary posts” about things like music, travel, or dating advice; writers are responsible for coming up with those topics themselves. Interspersed with such bland content, however, they write pieces asserting political perspectives assigned to them each morning. Editors check carefully to make sure the stories are on point.
I’d recommend reading through the whole article, but this is the section that struck me most:
“‘I would go home at the end of the day and see all the same news items on the television news. It was obvious that the decisions were coming from somewhere,’ said Marat. Many people have accused Russian television of ramping up propaganda over the past 18 months in its coverage of Ukraine, so much so that the EU even put Dmitry Kiselev, an opinionated television host and director of a major news agency, on its sanctions list.
“After two months of working in the troll agency, Marat began to feel he was losing his sanity, and decided he had to leave. From the snatched conversations over coffee, he noted that the office was split roughly 50/50 between people who genuinely believed in what they were doing, and those who thought it was stupid but wanted the money. Occasionally, he would notice people changing on the job.
“‘Of course, if every day you are feeding on hate, it eats away at your soul. You start really believing in it. You have to be strong to stay clean when you spend your whole day submerged in dirt,’ he said.”
Sounds like some people I know who always have a certain U.S. news channel blasting away in the background. Writer Shaun Walker is unsure whether the site they found in St Petersburg is the only location for this activity, or whether there are other hubs throughout Russia. The effectiveness of such propaganda on Russian citizens, however, seems clear to Russian journalist Andrei Soshnikov (quoted in the article), especially with the older, less tech-savvy set. As disheartening as these revelations are, they should not be surprising.
Cynthia Murrell, June 1, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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