A Market of Black Boxes: The Russian Internet Industry of Censorship and Surveillance

• In Event: Advocating for Science in Contemporary States of Authoritarianism

Abstract

The Russian Internet has recently seen a swift increase in both juridical control and centralization of technical infrastructures. A “sovereign Internet” vision is taking hold (Nocetti 2015), implying a strong push for control-aimed infrastructures and equipment to be “made in Russia”. Internet service providers (ISPs) bear a large part of these costly injunctions, while a promising market is open to Russian manufacturers of surveillance and filtering hardware and software.
This work relies on a multi-method qualitative investigation among Russian ISPs and “middleboxes” vendors. It shows that the technologies at stake are “boundary objects” (Star and Griesemer, 1989) of a particular kind. Indeed, oftentimes, there are no identifiable material boxes, but myriad software solutions and distributed artefacts, interweaved with existing infrastructures and complying with several techno-legal measures. Furthermore, market configurations or agencements (Callon, 2013) associated with these boxes involve translating political and legal constraints into technical solutions and commercial innovations. These artefacts thus raise several core issues at the crossroads of STS and economic sociology.
The purpose of this study is threefold: (1) to analyze how these boxes are embedded in a nexus of social, economic and political relations, and thus de-construct the simplistic image of a State-led direct control via technology; (2) to account for the specific type of economic rationality that takes place in a context of strong technical, political and legal constraints, but also of uncertainties and opportunities linked to their interpretation; (3) to show the articulation between techno-legal requirements and the negotiation strategies of ISPs vis-à-vis surveillance.

Authors

• Ksenia Ermoshina, CNRS

• Benjamin Loveluck, Télécom ParisTech

• Francesca Musiani, CNRS