Wiretapping, also known as wire tapping or telephone tapping, is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was an actual electrical tap on an analog telephone or telegraph line. Legal wiretapping by a government agency is also called lawful interception. Passive wiretapping monitors or records the traffic, while active wiretapping alters or otherwise affects it.
Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored locally on a computer or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. This monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be completed by governments, corporations, criminal organizations, or individuals. It may or may not be legal and may or may not require authorization from a court or other independent government agencies. Computer and network surveillance programs are widespread today and almost all Internet traffic can be monitored.
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides myriad services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned.
Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizations, but it may also be carried out by corporations. Depending on each nation's laws and judicial systems, the legality of and the permission required to engage in mass surveillance varies. It is the single most indicative distinguishing trait of totalitarian regimes. It is often distinguished from targeted surveillance.
Deep packet inspection (DPI) is a type of data processing that inspects in detail the data being sent over a computer network, and may take actions such as alerting, blocking, re-routing, or logging it accordingly. Deep packet inspection is often used for baselining application behavior, analyzing network usage, troubleshooting network performance, ensuring that data is in the correct format, checking for malicious code, eavesdropping, and internet censorship, among other purposes. There are multiple headers for IP packets; network equipment only needs to use the first of these for normal operation, but use of the second header is normally considered to be shallow packet inspection despite this definition.
Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storage, re-purposing, provision to third parties, and display of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy. Privacy concerns have been articulated from the beginnings of large-scale computer sharing and especially relate to mass surveillance.
FAPSI or Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information (FAGCI) was a Russian government agency, which was responsible for signal intelligence and security of governmental communications.
Data retention defines the policies of persistent data and records management for meeting legal and business data archival requirements. Although sometimes interchangeable, it is not to be confused with the Data Protection Act 1998.
The System for Operative Investigative Activities is the technical specification for lawful interception interfaces of telecommunications and telephone networks operating in Russia. The current form of the specification enables the targeted surveillance of both telephone and Internet communications. Initially implemented in 1995 to allow access to surveillance data for the FSB, in subsequent years the access has been widened to other law enforcement agencies.
Andrei Alekseyevich Soldatov is a Russian investigative journalist and Russian security services expert. Together with fellow journalist Irina Borogan he is co-founder and editor of the Agentura.Ru website.
Internet in Moldova is one of the fastest and least expensive in the world. The country ranks 3rd in the world by gigabit coverage with around 90% of the population having the option to subscribe to a gigabit plan. The overall infrastructure is well developed which allows many users to experience good quality services throughout the country. However, despite high speeds and cheap prices, the penetration level is quite low when compared with many EU or CIS countries. In 2018, 49% of Moldovan households had broadband access. In 2015, there were 80 registered Internet Service Provider's (ISP's) in the country, with the majority being local or regional with only a few offering their services throughout the country. Moldtelecom and StarNet are the country's leading providers sharing around 88% of the market. The remaining 12% are shared between other ISPS, like SunCommunications, Arax Communications and others. Almost all ISPs that offer their services across the country have their headquarters located in the capital-city of Chişinău.
Internet in Tajikistan became present within the country during the early 1990s. Tajikistan had just become independent in 1992, with Emomali Rahmon as the new ruler, when the internet was introduced to the country. Nevertheless, it was after over a decade that the country’s internet became more accessible. The history of the internet’s foundation in Tajikistan extends from 1992 to present-day Tajikistan. By 2009, internet penetration had developed since the initial conception of the internet in Tajikistan and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) had increased in number. For most of the applications vpn is necessary inside tajikistan except for government use
The Internet in Kazakhstan is growing rapidly. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of Internet users increased from 200,000 to 1 million. By 2007, Kazakhstan reported Internet penetration levels of 8.5 percent, rising to 12.4 percent in 2008 and 34.3% in 2010. By 2013, Kazakhstani officials reported Internet penetration levels of 62.2 percent, with about 10 million users. There are five first-tier ISPs with international Internet connections and approximately 100 second-tier ISPs that are purchasing Internet traffic from the first-tier ISPs. As of 2019, more than 75% of Kazakhstan's population has access to the internet, a figure well ahead of any other country in Central Asia. The Internet consumption in the country rose from 356 PB in 2018 to 1,000 PB in 2022.
In Russia, internet censorship is enforced on the basis of several laws and through several mechanisms. Since 2008, Russia maintains a centralized internet blacklist maintained by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor).
Oleg Vladimirovich Syromolotov was Deputy Director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor of the Soviet-era KGB. He has headed the DKR, the organisation's counterintelligence branch. He was chief of security for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Zakharov v. Russia was a 2015 court case before the European Court of Human Rights involving Roman Zakharov and the Russian Federation. The Court ruled that Russia's legal provisions governing communications surveillance did not provide adequate safeguards against arbitrariness or abuse, and that therefore a violation took place of Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights.
IT-backed authoritarianism, also known as techno-authoritarianism, digital authoritarianism or digital dictatorship, refers to the state use of information technology in order to control or manipulate both foreign and domestic populations. Tactics of digital authoritarianism may include mass surveillance including through biometrics such as facial recognition, internet firewalls and censorship, internet blackouts, disinformation campaigns, and digital social credit systems. Although some institutions assert that this term should only be used to refer to authoritarian governments, others argue that the tools of digital authoritarianism are being adopted and implemented by governments with "authoritarian tendencies", including democracies.
The Yarovaya law, also Yarovaya package or Yarovaya — Ozerov package is a set of two Russian federal bills, 374-FZ and 375-FZ, passed in 2016. The bills amend previous counter-terrorism laws and separate laws which regulate additional counter-terror and public safety measures. The public names the law after the last name of one of its creators—Irina Yarovaya.
A virtual private network (VPN) service provides a proxy server to help users bypass Internet censorship such as geo-blocking and users who want to protect their communications against data profiling or MitM attacks on hostile networks.
