The US government is currently engaged in deploying the so-called “shadow” Internet and cell phone systems to help dissidents undermine repressive regimes that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

The United States made up its mind to develop shadow Internet as an alternative to traditional access methods following a wave of disorders that swept across Egypt. Ex-president Hosni Mubarak’s government then blocked the Internet in that country to prevent the opposition from using it. Social networks have had no small share in the Egyptian revolution as a source of coordinating the rebels’ actions. At present, the US State Department plans to fund similar networks in Iran, Libya and Syria, with $2 million already allocated for these purposes, The New York Times reports.

The Russian Foreign Ministry is deeply concerned, its commissioner for human rights, democracy and the rule of law Konstantin Dolgov said. If there is substance behind this information, he pointed out, a situation may be created that will run counter to the basic internationally accepted principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, the supremacy of law, and the observance of human rights and democratic standards worldwide.

Among other things, the creation of a shadow Internet system appears as an attempt to initiate and control color revolutions in other countries, business intelligence and economic security expert Alexander Mitrofanov said in an interview with the Voice of Russia. According to him, this is an instrument to be widely used by the American secret services. Especially given that a precedent already exists: the Syrian hysteria is suggested to have been fueled by an American IT specialist, who allegedly saw democracy being suppressed in Damascus, Alexander Mitrofanov said.

So will the US be able to implement its plans? There have been attempts to put revolution exports on a modern technological footing, but all of them proved fruitless, Russian competitive intelligence expert Yevgeny Yushchuk emphasized.

"As far as I remember, in the course of the South Ossetian campaign, the Georgian artillery managed to stay connected via single cell phones. Thus, mobile devices of this kind are far from being a novelty, even though previous attempts to develop this technology went down in flames. However, specialists will soon learn how to detect such tools, because only signals coming from alternative base stations will survive a sudden shutdown of all regular ones," according to Yevgeny Yushchuk.

It is also possible to counter alternative technologies at a judicial level. In a critical situation, owners of such devices may face the same sanctions and penalties as those who possessed radio transmitters broadcasting for the enemy during WWII, Yevgeny Yushchuk believes. The expert is sure: those hiding in the shadows can scarcely have any honorable and benevolent intentions.











July 4th, 2011 - 13:56 UTC
by A.Sennitt