On February 24, Cyberdom in Moscow hosted Runet Today, an online forum of the Regional Public Center for Internet Technology (ROCIT). Leading IT experts answered questions about the development of the Russian internet and discussed the topical trends in internet regulation. Popular prank journalists Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) and Alexei Stolyarov (Lexus) interviewed the guests.
ROCIT Board Chair and Deputy Chair of the State Duma Committee on Information Technology Anton Gorelkin spoke in his remarks about the registration of bloggers with over 10,000 followers. Roskomnadzor has received almost 195,000 applications to date, with 120,000 approved and 68,000 rejected – mainly because the applications were filled out incorrectly.
When asked about the registration of channel owners, the State Duma member stressed the importance of countering anonymity:
“Anonymity today is the biggest problem of the internet as it opens doors to manipulating public opinion and spreading misinformation, fake news and prohibited content. Every anonymous channel was created for certain purposes. We know that fake news, rumors and provocative posts often come from channels whose owners prefer to keep a low profile.”
Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ and ROCIT board member, continued the topic of online fraud. In his remarks, he spoke about the development of country domain zones, the growing popularity of .RU and .РФ among Russians, and about the upcoming 15th anniversary of .РФ.
Participants specifically focused on the protection of intellectual property. Andrey Vorobyev extensively covered the issues that stakeholders face and also spoke about the methods used by cybersquatters to seize domains, and how trademarks can help protect brands. He talked about typical mistakes that registrants, companies and even government bodies make when registering or extending the validity of domains. However, security was one of the key discussion points. Andrey Vorobyev reported on ROCIT’s efforts to ensure the security of country-level domains.
He noted that scammers often use domains for phishing attacks, but Domain Patrol participants already know how to block them promptly.
“The Russian domain zone holds an absolute world record [for phishing prevention]. It takes about 15 hours from the moment a [malicious] domain is spotted until the moment the registrar blocks it. The average time across ICANN (the domain name and IP address governance corporation) is 24 hours. On the one hand, this mechanism is constantly being improved. On the other hand, we can see that scammers are moving away from creating fake websites to creating phishing accounts on messengers,” Andrey Vorobyev added.
Alexei Goreslavsky, Director General of the Internet Development Institute and ROCIT board member, answered questions about deep fakes. According to the expert, regulating this technology is possible and even necessary in certain cases such as human rights protection or prevention of unauthorized use of a person’s image or voice. However, Goreslavsky believes that such measures must be prohibitive:
“Excessive restrictions may create difficulties for the film industry where the content generation technology is widely used for non-malicious purposes. They operate within the legal domain, without the negative context typically associated with the concept of a deep fake.”
Other forum participants included Kribrum President and ROCIT board member Igor Ashmanov, Director of the Industrial Mining Association and Chair of the ROCIT Commission on Blockchain Technology, Mining and Cryptocurrency Sergei Bezdelov, Cyberdom Director General Sergei Kalmykov, and Rambler&Co Executive Director for Media Andrei Tsyper.
Watch the recorded live stream of the forum on ROCIT Rutube channel.
