Thread: Belarus and foreign websites

Oh, I'd forgotten, thanks Seraph.
Forgot to also say that there is a sort of encyption war going on as well, whereby American companies are not allowed to sell any type of encryption that the CIA can't decrypt. The idea is that all encryption that exists should be within US intelligence's capabilities to decrypt. Seems to me that couldn't be the case since some of the best cryptographers in the world are not Americans. But I don't know much about this, or how it works. It's fairly sensitive though and there are some IT products that Europeans cannot buy due to this law, I remember hearing about it through work a few years ago.

Export of cryptography in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



This (below) is what I was talking about with regards to Sweden. It's a really creepy law which lets them spy on telco and internet in a really efficient way. Sweden should be red on that map, really. When people complained and demonstrated, the prime minister eventually alluded to the situation with 80% of Russian internet traffic passing through Sweden, and that the law was for "national security". This just pissed most sensible people off even more. Then, later, it emerged the law was the result of pressure from the US. RT in this case has the story exactly right but only geeky Swedes, like me, are aware of it.

So you don't have to be Belarussian to worry about this! Everyone has a reason to at least consider it, including Americans and people in the EU.

And everyone should consider what happens if Facebook or Gmail/Google goes "evil" with all your personal data. People talk about the creepiness of organisations like the German "Stasi". Then they happily give out 100 times more information then Stasi could have found out about them in their wildest dreams... to a privately owned corporation in a foreign country.

Originally Posted by Hanna

And everyone should consider what happens if Facebook or Gmail/Google goes "evil" with all your personal data. People talk about the creepiness of organisations like the German "Stasi". Then they happily give out 100 times more information then Stasi could have found out about them in their wildest dreams... to a privately owned corporation in a foreign country.

You see, the point is, "privately owned companies" just mind their own business, and are not up to pursuing people, throwing them in jail, executing them, etc. In fact, the "companies" that you should avoid giving out your personal information to are dictatorial governments/regimes that do have resources to ruin your life and feel like using them all the time.

PS. I've been constantly hearing from you the same thing repeated hundreds of times, like "everyone is waging an informational war on Belarus, etc." But why do you think they picked that country in the first place? There are some around it that are not NATO or EU members either. Let's say Ukraine. But the "informational war" is only being waged on Belarus. Doesn't it make you think there MIGHT BE something about it?

Originally Posted by Eric C.

You see, the point is, "privately owned companies" just mind their own business, and are not up to pursuing people, throwing them in jail, executing them, etc. In fact, the "companies" that you should avoid giving out your personal information to are dictatorial governments/regimes that do have resources to ruin your life and feel like using them all the time.

I don't agree with that at all!
Companies/corporations are driven by the need to constantly generate a profit for the owners/shareholders. In the interest of achieving this, they will do just about anything that is not likely to backfire on them and ruin their repution or cost a heavy price in fines.
But examples of companies routinely using unethical business practices are:

Companies that pollute. Essentially, they will pollute just as much as a government lets them get away with. Consider China for example.
Drug companies that knowingly sell dangerous drugs to poorer countries, or deliberately drum up the prices of life-saving drugs in richer countries.
Tobacco companies lacing cigarettes with extra nicotine to create a strong addiction to their products.
-The weapons and security industries in the US and UK quite openly lobbying for wars
-Infant forumula being pushed as miracle food in Africa, killing hundreds of thousands of babies.
-Food industry: Dangerous but cheap ingredients added to food to trick consumers to believe that the food tastes or looks better.
-The banks and their manipulation of world economics, irresponsible lending and wild speculation on the stock market. That brought about the current financial crisis.

And if you are afraid of data ending up in the wrong hands - if a company was faced with bankrupcy and being banned from carrying out business..... or handing over sensitive data to a government, I wouldn't want to bet my future on them protecting my privacy!

PS. I've been constantly hearing from you the same thing repeated hundreds of times, like "everyone is waging an informational war on Belarus, etc." But why do you think they picked that country in the first place? There are some around it that are not NATO or EU members either. Let's say Ukraine. But the "informational war" is only being waged on Belarus. Doesn't it make you think there MIGHT BE something about it?

Agreed. There may very well be valid problems in Belarus, I am almost certain of it. Lukashenko's government has probably carried on with a few practices from the Soviet era that most younger people don't appreciate. Sure, the Belarussian opposition groups are largely financed by foreign funds, but that does not mean they don't have valid points of complaints. I don't know the answers.
But whatever the problems or the solutions are, it is for the Belarussians to judge and take action on, isn't it?

Also, travelling through both Ukraine and Belarus I got the distinct impression that Belarus was in a much better state of repair, including the countryside and smaller places. Also, there were no unemployed people in Belarus whereas in Ukraine there were plenty. Both Latvia and Poland have over 15% unemployment. Belarus has under 1%. In this respect, the Belarussian gov't has done a better job. Prices to me were similar between UA and BY and I think that salaries are quite similar too.

I'd consider getting involved with the politics of another country and expressing a strong opinion if I heard about mass imprisonment of regular people for minor political offenses, politically motivated executions or brutal police oppression of the majority in the country. I have seen or heard about nothing like that so far. Likewise, if anyone from Belarus appeared on this forum and gave some concrete examples of having been seriously mistreated by the state there.