On November 15, after a three-year break, the Belarus Internet Governance Forum - Belarus IGF 2023 - was once again held in Minsk. The Forum program included discussions on the false agenda in the media, digital literacy and inclusion, cybercrime and the protection of personal data. Among the Forum participants were government organizations, businesses, NGOs, representatives of the academic and technical communities and ordinary Internet users.
General Director of the Forum organizing company HOSTER.BY Sergey Povalishev, in his welcoming speech, noted the rapid growth of technology and emphasized the role of the global network: “The Internet is the most important part of our lives. A few years ago, we timidly discussed Artificial Intelligence, and today I tried to use a neural network to create the text of this speech. Unfortunately – or fortunately – I had to prepare the text myself.” He noted that the current and previous Belarus Internet Governance Forums were held with the support of the state and key players in the Belarusian Internet market. “The core remains a bottom-up approach and a focus on inclusion. We always take into account the opinion of the entire Internet community and collect proposals from everyone to form a program,” he said.
The present and future of the Internet were discussed at the plenary session “The Internet we want. Trends, problems, opportunities.” The discussion was moderated by the Director of the Tochka.by Igor Ruban. The dialogue was also attended by First Deputy Minister of Communications and Information of the Republic of Belarus Pavel Tkach, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ Andrey Vorobyev, representative of the National Center for Cybersecurity and Cyber Incident Response of the Republic of Belarus Evgeny Liplyanin, General Director of Belarusian Cloud Technologies LLC (beCloud) Oleg Sedelnik, Director of External Relations, Central Asia and Caucasus at RIPE NCC Vahan Hovsepyan ICANN Senior Stakeholder Engagement Manager for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Mikhail Anisimov.
Andrey Vorobyev identified three high-level problems among the main challenges and threats: fragmentation of the Internet, trust in the field of information security, cadre shortages and the lag of educational programs for training future IT specialists from the real needs of the market.
“At the international level, discussion continues about the future format of the Global Internet Governance Forum, which national IGFs are part of. The forum’s mandate ends in 2025, and there are different points of view on what this platform should be like next: a discussion one or with final legally binding documents. Also, a lot of difficult work is currently underway on the Global Digital Compact, which is planned to be signed in 2024,” he said.
The forum continued with the section “How a false agenda is formed in the media and social networks.” The participants talked about the mechanisms and technologies behind the creation of a false information agenda, and discussed how to verify data and counter fake messages in the media, social networks and other Internet resources.
Participants in the section “Digital literacy as a basic information security tool” tried to find a connection between low levels of digital literacy and cybercrime, and also discussed the problem of digital inequality and digital inclusion. As part of the section, a video was shown about a programmer with a musculoskeletal disorder, Roman Ponomarenko, from the documentary “Internet for Everyone”, filmed by the Coordination Center in 2019 as part of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the national domain .RU. This is a film almanac about 11 people whose lives have changed qualitatively thanks to digital technology. For some of the film’s characters, the Internet became a social elevator and helped them acquire new knowledge and take up their life’s work; for others, it helped them find a family, expand their social circle, implement environmental projects, and even become famous.
The section was attended by public relations specialist of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, Chairman of the Youth Council of the Center Andrey Aleinikov. He spoke about the project “Study the Internet & Govern It!” and the creation of a special module for the visually challenged users. Andrey noted how difficult it is to find developers who can adapt websites to the needs of visually challenged users, and that it is extremely important to understand the problems of working in the digital environment that they face. “If we talk about the topic of our section, it seems to me that information security is hardly possible without basic digital literacy and the development of online hygiene skills, which need to be instilled and developed from school years. Moreover, this is needed not only by users who do not have any health limitations, but also by people with various problems, and therefore it is important for educational initiatives and projects to become inclusive,” he said.
Phishing websites, calls on behalf of the bank, website hacking and massive DDoS attacks - the variety and number of cybercrimes is growing from year to year. At the section “Crime weapon in your pocket: cybersecurity and how to protect yourself from threats,” Forum participants discussed information security trends and new requirements for data protection. The moderator was Anton Trostyanko, Head of Information Security Department, Reliable Programs LLC (hoster.by). The discussion was attended by the Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ Andrey Vorobyev, the Head of the department for combating cybercrime of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Minsk City Executive Committee Dmitry Stasyulevich, Head of cybersecurity at Priorbank OJSC Sergey Menshikov and the Head of the Department of Legislation in the Field of Copyright and Related Rights of the Department of Legal and Personnel Support of the National Center for Intellectual Property Olga Ilyina.
“It is expected that a bill will soon be submitted to consideration in Russia, obliging the use of The Unified System of Identification and Authentication when registering domain names. Without solving the problem of anonymous use of the services of hosting providers and registrars, it is almost impossible to get rid of phishing,” Andrey Vorobyev said about the situation with phishing sites from the point of view of a representative of the Russian registry of national domains.
The final section of the Forum, whose participants talked about the most common mistakes of personal data operators, as well as the process of processing and protecting confidential information within the company, was the section “Personal data protection: practitioners’ experience.”
Belarus IGF 2023 has become an anniversary – the Forum is being held for the fifth time. This is the country's largest open platform for discussing key aspects of Internet development. Belarus IGF is one of the largest forums in the region and annually brings together more than 300 participants from all over the world - from the CIS countries to Canada and Australia.
