back to article Russia to crack down on abuse of .ru addresses

The organization that administers Russia's .ru top-level domain names will soon begin verifying the identity of its customers in an attempt to crack down on cybercrime, according to reports. Starting April 1, Russia's Coordination Center for will require individuals and businesses applying for a .ru domain address to provide a …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Passport???

    Will my UK ID card do?????

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Passport???

      Oh! yes (in a churchill type voice) please scan a copy of your ID so we can steal your identity and import more russian brides to the lovely UK :-P

    2. Etrien Dautre

      Half of a Kingdom for a .ru!

      Russisch ausweiss bitte, AC, if you don't wanna show your British one.

  2. Steve Roper

    Well, we'll see

    I currently have .ru and .cn domains, and the Russian and Chinese IP address ranges, blocked at the firewall to prevent emails coming through from there, to prevent staff from visiting sites hosted there, and to prevent any connection to servers located there. Whether I choose to unblock them depends on how effectively the Russians and Chinese implement their cybercrime control measures. It's all very well to talk, but only when I see the spam and malware levels drop from these domains will I consider opening back up to them.

    1. Paul 4

      Sounds like

      You work for one of the few companys that dosen't work with China then. Most of us can't just block like that.

      1. Steve Roper

        @Paul4: Fair enough

        You're right - most of our business is in Australia, and we have dealings with the UK, USA, France, Italy, Spain, Canada and New Zealand. So blocking China and Russia is a non-issue for us. But for those like you who have to deal with them, given the enormous amounts of spam, malware, and hack attacks that pour out of those two countries - all I can say is, I feel your pain!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    freedom

    Identity documents are stolen en-mass, they are then used to create companies, accrue loans, tax registrations - quite a widespread problem. now, a crim will have 3 ports of call with a stolen "internal" passport (like a normal passport, but in Russian only, one literally cannot live home without one, needed for absolutely everything) 1. the registrar of companies 2. the bank 3. the internet registrar ;-)

  4. Keith T
    Thumb Up

    I praise Russia for this

    I must give Russia praise Russia for this. It won't fix everything, but it shows Russia is at least beginning to accept its duty as an internet connected nation.

    Good for China too.

    These countries have a long way to go on human rights, corruption, democracy, and so on, but progress is good news.

  5. adrian727

    In Soviet Russia ...

    ... domain name registers YOU!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just got my site approved

    Thought it was a scam at first when I received the request to register. Plus it was a hassle digging out a suitable document. Once uploaded it took about 7 days to approve.

  7. Nigee

    Just another

    business opportunity for law enforcement. Means they can more easily id the crooks in order to shake them down for a slice of the action.

  8. Tom Ring

    Not a chance

    The Russians will crack down on abuse when the Chinese do.

    On an absolute zero day in Hell.

    tom

  9. Neal 5

    re passport???

    Have ye not not got yorrself on the DNA database yet then????

  10. ElReg!comments!Pierre

    So,,. Russia, China... who's next?

    The US maybe?

    Right after they ratify a couple of UN treaties, i bet. In a couple decades, if we're lucky.

  11. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Grenade

    Perspective ....Messing with Perception for Creating Alternate Reality. ARGonauts into JASON*

    .... and Boldly Going into Brave New Wwworld on SurReal AIMissions of Accomplishment .... Change you will have Difficulty Believing in**.

    Err..... can someone please remind everyone of how much Enron and Madoff screwed out of the System in their super crooked haven? And was there not recently/is there not an ongoing multi trillion dollar banking scam/collapse there too?

    It seems like a very good idea for national identity to be well known in the Virtual Domain so that the дерьмо can be rejected/excluded/quarantined/flushed away/dumped from systems.

    *Spooky SMARTer AIgent Stuff .... http://jason.sourceforge.net/JasonWebSite/Description.html

    ** Have you any idea how far One can can Travel with Lead Pioneers whenever Second and Third Party Doubt Blinds Both Opposition and Competition to their Shared Transparent Progress in Full Sight of their Own Obvious Ignorant and Arrogant DisBelief in an OmniPresent Omniscient Global Operating Device Network ......... and CyberIntelAIgent Chain of Command and Control in Communicating Computers? And have you any Notion of what they are Capable of Doing for You/4u, and it should also be Shared and Clearly Stated, ..... to You too/2u2, with their XSSXXXXPerience? Are you XSSXXXXPerienced? ............... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQHtPC7OFIE ..... "If you can just get your Mind together, then come on across to me...... "

    Are you Receiving the DCoded Bigger NEUKlearer Picture yet, El Reg? You have the Inside Track for All of Your Support. Would you Care 42 Dare Hazard a Guess at what Man is Really Capable of in Live Operational Virtual Environments?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    BFD

    This won't change much - all that'll happen is a few grannies and homeless people will have their passport details stolen and everything will be registered in their names, as now happens for odnodnevki ("one-dayers" i.e. shell companies that are registered in a false name, used for a nefarious purpose and then dumped) or mobile phones that you don't want in your own name.

    Anonymous Coward, for obvious reasons.

  13. jamieathom
    Joke

    In Soviet Russia...

    ... domains dot are you!

  14. Nigel Callaghan

    so what?

    The bad boys will just carry on registering .com addresses in Hong Kong and hosting them in Russia. What kind of idiot scammer would use a .ru address anyway - no-one trusts them!

    1. ravenviz Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: so what?

      Phishing victims evidently do.

  15. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Sounds good to me

    Anything that puts roadblocks in place to keep spam from getting to me is good in my book.

    Unfortunately, I'm not going to believe that this is going to solve the problem - spammers and other Internet lowlifes will just sign up with another country to do their business.

    The question is : which country will take over as spammer haven ?

    1. Etrien Dautre

      Hot Days In MVD

      Must be a competition, Pascal Monett.

      "...I'm not going to believe that this is going to solve the problem..." -

      and you're not alone in thinking so. It's definitely an PR action for to "keep the country tidy" on its way to WTO + some moves on taxation and, well, a "counter-terrorism/counter-anarchy" pedal is being pressed, too.

      Got another question: how many police personnel and how much of the machine time does it take to verify ALL copies of ALL registrants' passports? ППЦ НАХ!

  16. Jacqui

    nominet

    Anyone bothered to review spam rDNS for nominet registered domains - almost all of them have obviously invalid addresses that are easy to check automatically.

    Reporting these to nominet gets you nowhere - unless you are the police and want to look good oncracking down on "e-crime".

    IMHO Nominet takes money from these thieves and does not bother to check addresses because if they did so they would lose a LOT of money. Anyone who knowingly takes money off crims and supported thier activities is (in my mind) a crim themselves.

    And lets not paint russia and china with the police state brush - in some ways we are WAY ahead of both countries - we are *proud* of the fact that we have more CCTV cameras per head than any other country and already log and track everyones movement by car, plane and train.

  17. Eugene Goodrich
    Paris Hilton

    Accessibility

    Will you be able to pay your bribe to bypass this check online?

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