Roskomnadzor will fine-tune its Internet monitoring system to identify illegal materials

Roskomnadzor, through its subordinate structure, announced a tender to improve Internet monitoring systems to identify illegal materials. We are talking about finalizing the information system for monitoring Internet resources (IS MIR) in terms of its integration with new systems – “Clean Internet” and “Oculus”, as well as adding botnets to the monitoring mechanism for collecting data on social networks.

On September 28, the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Main Radio Frequency Center” (GRFC, subordinate to Roskomnadzor) placed on the government procurement portal a tender for the modification of the MIR IS, which has been operating since 2021, as well as its integration with the new automated system “Clean Internet” (AS HI) and a violation detection system in images and video materials using neural networks (IS “Oculus”). From the terms of reference it follows that the work is being carried out to increase the coverage of analyzed materials, identify “complex signs of violations of the law” and reduce the time for identifying prohibited information on the network (from 10 thousand requests for collection on each social network per hour to at least 20 thousand) .

Roskomnadzor launched the Oculus system in February. The department explained that Oculus recognizes images and symbols, analyzes text and can automatically find extremist materials, calls for riots, suicide, drug use and LGBT propaganda (see Kommersant on February 13). The system is capable of processing 200 thousand images per day. In the first half of the year, Roskomnadzor blocked more than 885 thousand websites, which is 85% more than in the same period in 2022.

The tender documentation of the GRChC states that AS CHI must include a “Bot Farm” subsystem, which will allow, for example, to automate the creation and maintenance of accounts on social networks for further downloading the materials needed by the system from the network. AS CHI must also be synchronized with the operation of the Oculus IS. Modernization of systems is necessary for GRCHTs, including updating monitoring for versions of nine services: “VKontakte”, “Odnoklassniki”, “My World”, “[email protected]”, Dzen (part of VK), LiveJournal, YouTube, Likee and Yappy (“Gazprom Media”), as well as Telegram messenger channels. Roskomnadzor and GRChTs declined to comment.

The terms of reference for the tender imply an increase in sources of information, including in the direction of instant messengers, and in the future, possibly, the darknet, says Igor Bederov, head of the Internet Search company. In other words, the money is used to increase the capacity of indexing information on certain resources, he clarifies.

As for the “Bot Farm,” we are probably talking about building botnets (networks of artificial automated users). “They are necessary to collect data more efficiently—without registration, the user cannot see all the information on a page on a social network—and also to get into closed channels and chats,” explains Igor Bederov.

Increasing the scale of data processing will require significant computing resources and data storage, which leads to serious investments in equipment and infrastructure, warns Dmitry Parshin, director of the Artezio development center (Lanit Group of Companies). If we talk about obtaining data from social networks using a botnet, then it is not enough to create algorithms for automatic registration and maintenance of accounts; you also need to bypass the platforms’ protection from bot activity, the expert reminds.

Tatiana Isakova