Re: Dmitry Bogatov arrested in Moscow

[Michael Tokarev <mjt@tls.msk.ru>]

11.04.2017 12:49, Alexander Gerasiov wrote:
> Hello Dmitry,
> 
> On Mon, 10 Apr 2017 21:43:36 +0300
> Dmitry Shachnev <mitya57@debian.org> wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I have a short (and sad) notice: Debian Maintainer Dmitry Bogatov has
>> been arrested for two months today. He is accused of “organizing
>> riots” and “calling for terrorist activities or justifying the use of
>> terrorism via the Internet”. The court hearings will take place
>> later, in the worst case he would have to spend up to 7 years in
>> prison.
>>
>> A detailed story in English (though a bit outdated) is available here:
>> https://meduza.io/en/feature/2017/04/10/mathematics-teacher-accused-of-inciting-mass-riots-now-also-accused-of-supporting-terrorism-and-once-again-detained
> 
> Half a year ago we had similar case with one of DD from Moscow (don't
> know does he want I call his name or not):

It was me.

> Security service and police came to his house and took away all the
> computers, cause he had Tor exit node on his PC which was used by some
> black-hats to attack government's site.
> 
> Fortunately he was not arrested and everything was fine.

I had to explain to the police experts what Tor is, how it works,
stuff like that. Not that they didn't hear about tor, but their
knowlege was a bit too low on the subject.

Generally with the situation like we live in (I mean whole world,
terror treat, attempt to fight with it, even current "groups of
death" in social networks who lead children to suicide, and other
"pleasant" things), running tor exit node is sort of insane.
Many people told me it's insane but I didn't believe them, until
I faced something else.

> I mean, according to some details from press, this could be the same
> story. But unfortunately this time the case is political one (that
> means unfair trial), so he may have problems.

If the case is political, the first and logical question to ask is -
what "politics" want to do with this person, the motivation?  I can
think many reasons when "politicals" come after some other politic
or activist, but is this really the case here? Do we have enough
evidence it _is_ political? For me there's no evidence at all, so
far, maybe plain incompetence? Maybe something else as stupid as
that?

Note that you basically own your equipment, and are in charge of
its actions. If there's a gas explosion in your house, which damaged
nearby houses, you might be ordered to pay the expenses. Ditto for
a water leak resulted in damage of lower flats. That's why I can't
understand position of some computer users who think that computer
viruses is not an issue, "as I don't have anything to hide, I don't
care, the maximum I can have is slow internet" - to me it's completely
wrong approach, this way you knowingly allow other bad guys to use
your resources for possible bad things (eg for DDoS attacks and stuff
like posting various bad info).

The article referred to here _is_ "political" for sure, it is not
how journalists should do their job. It is full of whines trying to
paint Dmitry as suffering and everyone involved as "just bad".
There's little facts but too much tears and emotions. It starts
with a whole paragraph about Dmitry's broken glasses and how
Dmitry's mother was unable to exchange them with a repaired ones,
written in colors. Next they repeat several times that judge
reads stuff from paper when answering questions, as if it's
some bad sign. With all my sympathy to Dmitry situation, it's
not how journalists should work, in my opinion.

> Of course I don't know the details about his connections with VK posts
> and I second that Debian project should be careful in it's official
> position. Anyway, imprison person only because he is suspected in
> posting some calls for riot is very bad practice and should be
> declaimed.

In our world, unfortunately, it is a very difficult question.
We _have_ to do something with current threats. And it's not
simple.

/mjt