What are Cyber laws?
Cyberlaw is the area of law governing computers and the internet, which deals with the internet’s liaison with technology. As a tourist in Russia, there are numerous cyber attacks you may encounter, like phishing scams, identity theft scams, and fraud. Therefore, to protect yourself from these attacks, cyber laws kick in as the best alternative while also taking personal measures to protect yourself.
How cyber laws are different
Internet laws are split into two. These are criminal and civil laws. Criminal acts target cybercrimes that are intentional for fraud, identity theft, malware, and many others. Civil laws, on the other hand, are general for people and state what you should do to avoid committing a cybercrime. As a tourist, you need to understand the two as a step toward protecting yourself. Cyber laws vary from country to country and, therefore, as a traveller going to Russia, you need to appreciate that the cyber laws there may be different from those in your country.
Some measures to take as a tourist
While following cyber laws, there are some other measures you can take as an individual. For example, using strong passwords, managing your social media settings, and using updated software. Cybercrimes do not necessarily target you as a tourist as the victim. To avoid being the perpetrator, be aware of the cyber laws in Russia.
Laws and policies on digital freedom in Russia
It is not that easy to be a campaigner for internet freedom. In Russia, both the appointed and non-appointed governments are trying to continually restrict freedom, take over the internet, and manage the flow of information. Dealing with these threats can be difficult. Therefore, some laws and policies have been put in place to fight against an open and free internet. They include;
Censorship
The Russian government has enforced internet censorship founded by several laws and mechanisms. It keeps a single register maintained by the federal service for the supervision of communication and information technology and mass media. A person’s domain name, URLs, and IP address is used for the censorship. The primary purpose of introducing it is to restrict sites containing contents of drug production and abuse, child pornography, and also sites containing different methods of committing suicide. Eventually, there came an amendment to allow restriction of materials that are classified fanatic by including the federal list of extremist content.
Other policies
Digital freedom in Russia has continuously declined, especially during the coverage time, the government has frequently disrupted connections. For example, in the year 2018, a law was enacted and restricted internet users for their online activities to a rate of approximately one eight per week.
Prices for Internet connections have increased due to the implementation of the Yarovaya law, which forces enormous data retention requirements on providers to consumers. The authorities have also tried to block encrypted messaging applications like telegram for violating the Yarovaya law.
The government has also introduced a variety of online expression categories, which are an excellent platform of data removals and criminal penalties as it promotes a campaign against users’ digital rights.
Finally, the government has introduced a sovereign internet whose aim is to centralize its grip of information and communication technology infrastructure.
Virtual Private Network(VPN) as an internet censorship circumvention
Internet censorship circumvention is the application of different tools as a way to detour internet suppression. Using a virtual private network is a technological way to evade censorship. A VPN connection occurs between a computer and a VPN server. You can circumvent censorship if you download a VPN to block all data traffic from your computer. All that the government and other authorities see is the sharing of data through a VPN connection and not the content. You request some data, and the VPN server redirects the data to you. Therefore, you can avoid censorship this way since the data is not directly from the Internet source. It comes to you as information shared between a computer and a VPN server.