US Company Faces Backlash After Belarus Uses Its Tech To Block Internet (bloomberg.com) 52
Senators Dick Durbin and Marco Rubio are criticizing Sandvine Inc., the U.S. company whose technology helped Belarus block much of the internet during a disputed presidental election last month. Bloomberg reports: The private-equity-backed technology firm demonstrated its equipment to a government security team in Belarus in May, two people with knowledge of the matter said, and its marketing materials boast of the blacklisting capabilities, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. The Sandvine equipment is also used to manage and secure networks, and its website blocking feature can prohibit users from accessing content deemed illicit, such as terrorist propaganda or child pornography, according to the documents. For several days in August, however, Sandvine's "deep packet inspection" equipment played a central role in censoring social media, news and messaging platforms used by protesters rallying against President Alexander Lukashenko's re-election, Bloomberg reported last month. On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany called the Aug. 9 election "fraudulent."
The documents and product demonstration, as recounted by the people familiar with the company's affairs, lend added insight into Sandvine's work in Belarus, showing that company representatives met directly with officials in Belarus and later shipped the equipment, via a contractor, to be installed at data centers in Minsk. Sandvine declined to comment. A company spokesman had previously directed a Bloomberg reporter to its corporate ethics policy, which says that a committee reviews sales to determine the risk of its products being used in a manner "detrimental to human rights."
During a Sandvine conference call on Thursday, which sought to address employee concerns about its work in Belarus, executives said they had been working with a government organization in the country for more than a year. Sandvine had provided Belarus with technology that is filtering about 40% of all internet traffic moving in and out of the country, the executives said. They said the work didn't violate U.S. sanctions. A recording of the call was shared with Bloomberg. Alexander Havang, Sandvine's chief technology officer, acknowledged during the call that Belarus may be using the company's equipment to block websites and messaging apps, but he said that Sandvine had concluded that the internet, and access to specific material on websites, wasn't "a part of human rights."
The documents and product demonstration, as recounted by the people familiar with the company's affairs, lend added insight into Sandvine's work in Belarus, showing that company representatives met directly with officials in Belarus and later shipped the equipment, via a contractor, to be installed at data centers in Minsk. Sandvine declined to comment. A company spokesman had previously directed a Bloomberg reporter to its corporate ethics policy, which says that a committee reviews sales to determine the risk of its products being used in a manner "detrimental to human rights."
During a Sandvine conference call on Thursday, which sought to address employee concerns about its work in Belarus, executives said they had been working with a government organization in the country for more than a year. Sandvine had provided Belarus with technology that is filtering about 40% of all internet traffic moving in and out of the country, the executives said. They said the work didn't violate U.S. sanctions. A recording of the call was shared with Bloomberg. Alexander Havang, Sandvine's chief technology officer, acknowledged during the call that Belarus may be using the company's equipment to block websites and messaging apps, but he said that Sandvine had concluded that the internet, and access to specific material on websites, wasn't "a part of human rights."
Honest question for free market capitalist America (Score:4, Interesting)
What if an American business makes its profits, manufacturing something that destroys American democracy?
What do you choose?
A free market? Or democracy?
Because I don't see how they could ever be compatible, and don't want to accuse you of being anti-democratic or secretly anti-capitalist, without fully understanding your mindset. Anyone care to explain?
(How else can an enemy become a friend, but by understanding one another?)
Re: (Score:1)
Freedom in America (as in speech, for instance) has never been absolute. You can take as much freedom as you want, so long as you don't encroach on mine. Observing the COVID-19 response in parts of the US, that too seems to be the threshold for freedom (i.e., you don't have the freedom to not wear a mask because you might be taking
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Observing the COVID-19 response in parts of the US, that too seems to be the threshold for freedom
It is also the threshold for free healthcare. This will be a big wakeup call for all.
Re:Honest question for free market capitalist Amer (Score:4)
Taking money out of my pocket, at gun point, for someone else to get free healthcare sure sounds like freedom alright.
OK, I'll bite.
Why are you objecting to your taxes paying for healthcare, and not objecting to, for example, the armed forces, the interstate highway network, food and drug safety, workers protections or the legal system? All of those contribute to the well being and safety of the countries citizens. It seems like you are only objecting to paying for healthcare because of a personal bias and not what may be best for the country at large (EG consider how expensive US health care is to the rest of the world, and the affect of bankruptcies due to medical bills.)
And the only reason you get healthcare through your job is because of an antiquated system that dates back to the WWII where companies couldn't raise wages but wanted to reward workers. That situation is a huge anomaly.
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Without access to basic healthcare, people don't really have equal opportunities. We're not talking about fancy dentistry work here, but things like basic immunizations, flu shots, health check-ups. Low-wage workers often don't get medical benefits, and hence may have a harder time keeping up with their job (i.e., not the same opportunities to advance at their job as you do, having said healthcare).
Or, from a more selfish perspective, i
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Taking money out of my pocket, at gun point, for someone else to get free healthcare sure sounds like freedom alright.
Fair enough, but are you consistent?
What does taking money out of your pocket, at gun point, for someone else to get police protection?
Fire protection?
How about taking money from your pocket, at gun point, to bail out the poor decisions made by large corporations?
To fun the retirement of people older than you are?
To inspect food for other people to ensure it doesn't contain harmful ingredien
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Freedom in America (as in speech, for instance) has never been absolute.
Not for the "common man" perhaps, but for the ruling class there are pretty much no limitations.
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but for the ruling class there are pretty much no limitations.
Hyper-privileged anarchy, doing as they please. The one rule is self preservation
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You're saying free markets and democracy are not free, because freedom implies the ability to do anything, including undermine the very principles that set democracy, correct?
Democracy as an instrument of freedom has always been rather poor, IMHO. Democracy simply determines who the people have been manipulated to vote for. As we've seen time and time again, people can, do, and will vote in favor of their own oppression. Repeatedly. Since there are over twice as many people with IQs of 90 as there are
Re:Honest question for free market capitalist Amer (Score:4, Interesting)
Lenin probably didn't say that "the capitalists will sell you the rope with which to hang them".
But if he had said it, he would have been exactly right. It's the Achilles heel of a system in which making as much money as fast as possible is not only the best thing - it's the only thing.
Re: Honest question for free market capitalist Ame (Score:1)
Capitalists might sell you the rope with which to hang them. The problem for you is that, if you're a communist, you either won't be able to afford to buy it, or you'll end up too busy hanging all of your buddies instead. Either way, the capitalists aren't worried.
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As some of you keep pointing out, the Chinese are communists.
And they have a lot more money (and resources) than the USA.
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Companies make weapons all the time but we don't allow them to sell nukes and bio weapons to the highest bidder. This stuff can come back to bite you.
Software can easily be a weapon.
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Software can easily be a weapon.
As Phil Zimmermann will tell you.
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What if an American business makes its profits, manufacturing something that destroys American democracy?
Obviously a great win for American capitalism. MAGA!
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What if an American business makes its profits, manufacturing something that destroys American democracy?
What do you choose?
It's clear that many people already chose Facebook.
Well? (Score:2)
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DPI != SSL - story == BS (Score:2)
Sandvine makes a device for deep packet inspection (DPI), which is pretty useless against anything encrypted with SSL/TLS. Sandvine says so themselves, "One of the clear benefits that a widespread usage of encryption brings is the elimination of some of the use cases that have driven a negative perception of DPI."
That means the same blocking of particular sites in Belarus could be done with an unmodified router, and not need or use DPI at all.
To even use deep packet inspection for traffic analysis and s
Re:DPI != SSL - story == BS (Score:5, Interesting)
Your conclusion is wrong, sorry to say.
TLS still leaks the hostname you're trying to connect to, unless ESNI is in use; not widespread, last I checked. That usually goes quite a long way.
You _do_ kill the majority of the use case where you snag information out of the payload, thankfully - but you still retain a lot of blocking capabilities.
Additionally, don't underestimate the ability to apply traffic analysis even to encrypted payloads. We had the PacketLogic counting iMessages sent/received over Apple's umbilical cord connections back when iMessages was still a new thing. This is from a connection that also shuffles other non-messaging payloads. Depending on the application, you can glean a decent amount even if you can't see the bytes being transferred in the clear. /former lead, DPI signatures at Procera
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Thanks, I was thinking that TLS's leakage had been fixed, so that both Sandvine and a router would be reduced to blocking by IP address.
Mind you, that is sufficient (;-)) Blocking everybody on the same server as spring96.org or Radio Free Europe is fine if you name is Lukashenko.
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Damn, you bought that hook, line, and sinker! I'm always amazed at how much people will buy propaganda as long as it goes against their enemy.
DPI is about metadata. Governments have learned that it doesn't matter if you can't decrypt something, it's only important to calculate the strength of the connections.
Here is a nice article that even your old grumpy self can understand, https://kieranhealy.org/blog/a... [kieranhealy.org]
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DPI is about data content. It's literally in the name: Deep Packet Inspection. There are applications that can use it in ways you are talking about.
Your argument is "but cars can be used to kill people, therefore we shouldn't sell cars".
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DPI is about data content. It's literally in the name: Deep Packet Inspection. There are applications that can use it in ways you are talking about.
You people use circular arguments and it's exhausting. Since you seem incapable of continuity of context, let me be clear, I was responding to someone that claimed everything was negated by SSL. Why would the company even exist if that was the case?
It's all about connections, regardless of how they're formed; whether it be by content and metadata, or just metadata. But thank you for stepping in and adding nothing, as usual.
Your argument is "but cars can be used to kill people, therefore we shouldn't sell cars".
Uh, no. It's sad that you need to boil complex topics down to simplistic and incorrec
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For someone who's grandstanding on subject of moral superiority based on imagined things like "my people" and "my generation", you sure seem to be generalizing and extrapolating from data that doesn't exist really hard.
It's almost like you're trying to prove something to yourself.
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Yet again, you are the only person asserting moral superiority. I did not touch on that topic at all. I pointed out the real point of value.
And yes, the "data" exists; it's called your profile. You're not posting as an AC and I quickly browsed your profile. You come off like a classic late gen X that likes to counter-point everything and belittle the people you are commenting against. Sad.
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Sandvine makes a device for deep packet inspection (DPI), which is pretty useless against anything encrypted with SSL/TLS.
Nonsense. DPI can recognize, track, and drop encrypted packets at its pleasure.
they literally sold their tech to the KGB (Score:2)
Belarus is the only ex-Soviet state that decided they didn't need to rename their secret police organization, because, hey, they didn't think there was anything wrong with in the first place.
Belarus is not some neutral country, it's had a terrible record for 20+ years perpetrating all kinds of abuse.
If people do business with known criminals they should understand that it will be bad for their reputation.
think thats an old saying or something.
Rights, shmights (Score:3)
'...a committee reviews sales to determine the risk of its products being used in a manner "detrimental to human rights."'
Specifically, the rights of shareholders and executives to enormous profits.
Well, there's the problem ... (Score:2)
The private-equity-backed technology firm [Sandvine Inc] ... A company spokesman had previously directed a Bloomberg reporter to its corporate ethics policy, which says that a committee reviews sales to determine the risk of its products being used in a manner "detrimental to human rights." ... Sandvine had concluded that the internet, and access to specific material on websites, wasn't "a part of human rights."
Private equity companies buy/own other companies simply to make money off them -- yes, like most/all companies -- but it's their primary focus either by operation or deconstruction and sell off (think Sears). Their "detrimental to human right" clause is just PR bullshit, as evidenced by how easily they weaseled around it to make a few bucks
By EU Council: not controversial, not free (Score:1)
According to EU Council's press release, "the elections were neither free nor fair".
https://www.consilium.europa.e... [europa.eu]
In plain English in Belarus there is a bloody dictatorship by Lukashenka for at least 15 years.
The only real supporter is Putin, who practically does almost the same.
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It's always funny to watch people wake up to what was going on for many decades and then project propaganda of the day on it as if it's relevant or can explain something about the situation.
Reality, as it always is, is complex and doesn't really interact with propaganda of the day.
Question (Score:4, Insightful)
What does the company do if it finds its products being used in a manner "detrimental to human rights."? Does it wag its finger at the country and say stop using our product?
Re: Question (Score:2)
That all depends on the negotiated price.
would you go into business with the mafia? (Score:2)
i mean, people have known Belarus is run by crooks for, oh, about 20 years now after the president started "winning" elections by like 90% every single time, and all of his opponents mysteriously quit the race, were harassed by police, were put on house arrest, were beaten and tortured, or were in prison or chased out of the country, and their families the same.
i dont know what kind of business person you have to be to spend 5 minutes googling someone before you accept a multi million dollar business agree
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Yes I visited them and was aghast at what a horrible company it was.
They honestly don't care about anyone or anything. Absolutely souless.
And people think Canadians are 'polite' what a joke.
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British people are famous for brutal and polite take downs. Canadians have the same pedigree.
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This is no longer the case. Francisco partners bought Sandvine in 2017 and while there is still a development team in Waterloo, the execs are largely based out of Dallas, Texas.
Agree on the company turning evil. Sandvine 1.0 was a joy to work at. Sandvine 2.0 is a disaster.
remember when PGP needed a muntions license (Score:1)
there was a reason.
Letting people export weapons willy nilly created this
What? Sandvine doing interesting stuff again? (Score:3)
Previous story about Sandvine providing "interesting" capabilities in Turkey and Egypt: https://it.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
Secure deep packet inspection? (Score:1)
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You still see the packets on the wire. Every flow has a 5-tuple associated with it that uniquely identifies the flow. Sandvine also can correlate other orthogonal pieces of information such as subscriber, location, time-of-day, destination, etc.
So by itself, an SSL-encrypted packet means the device cannot decrypt the payload. That's not the point. I know already from the network that the packet came from some IMSI, which was connected to some eNB at a specific location, during some time of day where the
Human Rights? (Score:2)
So both the UN and the Council of Europe disagree and assert that internet access is not only a human right and go so far as to outline how that should work.
Of course the US wouldn't condescend to respect international governing bodies. :(
Well (Score:2)
"Sandvine had concluded that the internet, and access to specific material on websites, wasn't "a part of human rights.""
I'm glad Sandvine cleared that up, they get to be judge, jury and executioner. Fuck sandvine and anyone who works there. I won't ever hire anyone who lists sandvine on their resume.