UPDATE: 19 hours UTC Monday – Author and cyber-security expert Jeffrey Carr reports on his blog “Digital Dao” that lists of the sites attacked, and the botnets employed, are now being released.  Additionally, he reports suspicions are now turning to a group known as “the Nashi.”

Who are the Nashi?  Carr writes:

“The Nashi was the brainchild of Vladislav Surkov, Chief Ideologue and First Deputy Chief of Staff of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev. Shortly after the Russia Georgia War of 2008, Surkov reportedly told a roomful of Russian spin doctors that “August, 2008 was the starting point of the virtual reality of conflicts and the moment of recognition of the need to wage war in the information field too.“

Carr is tracking this story very closely – head on over to his blog for all the latest.

James Brooke | Moscow

A massive hacker attack knocked Russia’s most popular opposition newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, off the internet Friday.  Earlier that week, three days of hacker attacks repeatedly knocked out LiveJournal, the nation’s main platform for blogs.

As Russia’s roughly 40 million Internet users digested these attacks, the nation’s top communications security official proposed Friday to ban Skype, Hotmail, and Gmail as uncontrolled threats to Russian security.  It is unclear if the official from Russia’s FSB, the successor agency to the Soviet KGB, will get his way.

With Russia’s Internet users expanding by 10,000 people a day, security officials fret about the internet – a vast, uncontrolled cyberspace.

After the youth revolts spread through the Arab world, the FSB proposed that every Russian user of Facebook and other social networks be required to sign user contracts that included passport information and home addresses.

“A direct consequence of the events in the Middle East and North Africa, in Tunisia, in Egypt,” said Andrei Soldatov, author of “The New Nobility“, a book on the FSB.  “Because for many experts and for many politicians, it seems that social networks played a crucial role.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Russian Internet community is widely discussing a recent encounter between one of Russia’s best known rock musicians, Yuri Shevchuk, and the country’s powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin. During a meeting in St. Petersburg, the singer confronted the politician with bold questions about the future of democracy in Russia.

Russian rock star Yuri Shevchuk was one of several cultural leaders invited to meet with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Long known as an outspoken opponent of the Kremlin, Shevchuk seized the day.

VOA’s Anya Ardayeva has more on what he did, and how Russian bloggers responded, here.