Internet traffic can be monitored using deep packet inspection equipment.
There is a building in Moscow.
Sandvine and Procera were both based in Silicon Valley. Both companies sold a powerful internet monitoring tool called deep packet inspection technology that can manage network traffic, block malicious software and help national governments to censor the web. Sandvine relocated its headquarters to the US and began marketing itself in Russia, a country that it had tried and failed to conquer.
Sandvine representatives promoted the advantages of deep packet inspection in Moscow. They told prospective clients that it could be used to block or slow access to specific websites, discover the location of particular people and support local law enforcement, according to company documents.
Sandvine sold its equipment to Megafon, Russia's second-largest mobile operator, and Tele2 Russia, a company controlled by the Russian government. The company's equipment was used in Russia to bill and not to censor the internet.
The use of deep packet inspection equipment is under scrutiny. There are many legitimate uses for the technology, but it has been used in other countries for internet censorship.
According to three people familiar with the discussions, some Sandvine employees were concerned that the company's technology could be used to enable censorship in Russia. Some articles detailing Sandvine's business ties to Russia were removed from the company's website.
The US Commerce Department recently finalized a rule that would control the export of deep packet inspection systems that could enable large-scale government snooping.
The EU introduced export controls on deep packet inspection equipment and other technologies last year, but the new rules only apply to governments and their proxies.
It’s not clear how the new export rules would impact Sandvine, which has deferred to customers on what websites should be blocked, not wanting to play “world police,” according to records reviewed by Bloomberg. There is a company spokesman.
The goal of the company is to make the internet work better.
Sandvine did not agree to provide tools for Russian censorship. Sandvine would have terminated the contract if a company tried to change the technology.
Natalia Krapiva said it's difficult to monitor how Russian businesses use technology. She said that Sandvine put its trust in a Russian state controlled company.
She said that this has been going on for a long time. It wasn't a secret for everyone.
The need for tighter controls on exports of US technologies was highlighted by Sandvine's business in Russia.
Washington needs to do more to stop the sale of American technologies to dictators if it wants to have credibility in trying to block the sale of Chinese surveillance technologies to autocracies. It's that easy.
Russia's Foreign Ministry didn't reply to a request for comment
Sandvine cut ties with the country after it was reported that they used the company's equipment to restrict access to outside news and social-media websites.
Sandvine's equipment was used to block LGBTQ websites in Jordan, as well as independent news sites in Egypt, in addition to being used for a social media blockade in Azeri.
A member of the European parliament said that deep packet inspection equipment was mentioned in the EU's regulation because of the abuse of Sandvine's equipment inBelarus.
The U.S. tech used to block the web from Algeria to Uzbekistan.
Sandvine, founded in 2001 in Waterloo, Canada, tried for years to sell to leading telecommunications providers in Russia but backed off after it became clear it would have to follow government censorship requirements, according to a co- founder.
The Russian government had a blacklist. Canadian export controls may have been a factor. Prospective Russian clients were asking for the ability to track emails and messages sent using the social media app Telegram and we didn't have that technical capability.
Sandvine was acquired by Francisco Partners and merged with another company. Procera had established a foothold in Russia in 2012 and had the first installation of its kind in the country.
According to four people familiar with the company's business in the country, Sandvine used Procera's contacts as a way into the market after the Francisco Partners takeover.
Sandvine has never had a big presence in Russia, according to a representative for Francisco Partners.
Alexey Telkov, Tele2 Russia's chief technology officer, said his company began integrating Sandvine equipment about four years ago; a second phase of the project was completed in 2020, according to the documents. He said in a recent interview that the company originally intended to use Sandvine’s gear partly to enforce government internet censorship blacklists. The telecom had problems installing Sandvine’s equipment, he said, adding that it ended up being used to manage network traffic and ensure customers pay correct fees for internet use.
A representative of MegaFon didn't reply to questions.
While Sandvine says it has monitored its technology to ensure it wasn’t misused, the spokesperson acknowledged it was worried about that possibility. In 2021, as Russia tightened its grip on internet freedoms, Sandvine’s senior executives held meetings with Tele2 and Megafon and “received assurances” that Sandvine’s technology “was not and would not be misused in order to aid Russia’s internet censorship,” according to the Sandvine spokesperson. The meetings had been arranged after “it became known that the Russian government was using internet blocking technology to suppress free speech,” the spokesperson added. A business ethics committee is one of the things Sandvine has.
An internal document presented during an ethics committee meeting in 2020 shows that it is not the committee's job to censor. The document says that every country has its own policy.
The ethics committee was told that it wouldn't be able to control customers' use of the technology to block access to websites. We want to control our products as much as possible to protect against legal, ethical and reputational risks. The problem is that we don't want to be world police.
Last June, Haväng praised Russia’s internet regulator on LinkedIn after it fined Facebook and Telegram for failing to remove content banned by Russia’s government.“In the ‘my-country-my-rules-and-I-will-keep-my-country-safe-first’ corner today we find Russia,” according to the post, which was later deleted. “All governments have the safety and security of their citizens and the sovereignty of their nation as priority #1, not profits.” The Sandvine spokesman said that the post wasn't representative of Sandvine's views.
While Sandvine’s work has received recent scrutiny, there are many other manufacturers of deep packet inspection equipment. In 2012, Wired reported that California-based Cisco Systems Inc., Israel’s Allot and China’s Huawei Technologies Co. sold deep packet inspection equipment to Russia. In response to questions for this article, Amy Lucas, a Cisco spokesperson, declined to comment on specific sales in Russia, but said the company “is stopping all business operations, including sales and services, in Russia and Belarus for the foreseeable future.” Allot and Huawei declined to comment. Researchers at Censored Planet, a group at the University of Michigan that monitors internet censorship, reported in 2019 that internet providers in Russia were building a “national censorship apparatus” using commercially available deep packet inspection equipment. The researchers said they had identified more than 130,000 websites that Russia has blacklisted, which included some news and politics websites. Since invading Ukranian, Russia has increased those restrictions. Alp Toker, director of London-based internet monitoring firm NetBlocks, said that the country began blocking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in February.
Governments on both sides of the Atlantic tried to control the technology that may be facilitating the oppression in Russia. The EU reformed export regulations for dual use technology, which can be used for civilian and military purposes. She said that the EU rules leave a lot of gray area because the onus is still on the customer to not abuse the equipment.
She wanted to know how to distinguish commercial use from evil use. The customer has final say in the matter.
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