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The history of the detention of the Moscow mathematics teacher Dmitry Bogatov on charges of two serious crimes has stirred not only the Russian IT party, but also many foreign geeks And supporters of open source software. According to the investigation, Dima, under the “Airat Bashirov” account, posted messages on the sysadmins.ru website with calls to carry out terrorist activities and aimed at company organizing mass riots. Dima denies that he wrote these reports. When the wife and mother of the arrested person appealed to RosKomSvoboda with a request to help, we, of course, could not refuse them and immediately joined in the work to protect him. On April 20, our lawyer Sargis Darbinyan met with Dima in Matrosuke, took part in the investigation and found out all the details of the case to work out an effective defense strategy.
On April 20, our lawyer Sarkis Darbinyan met with Dima in Matrosuke, Took company part in the investigation and found out all the details of the case to work out an effective defense strategy. The unjustifiable restriction of his freedom us, like the whole IT community, is very worried. He not only used open source software and was an adherent of the ideas of free information dissemination, but also tried in company every possible way to make his personal contribution to the development of open technologies.
After Bogatov’s arrest, many people ask why he even opened Tor’s output node at home. Did not he realize that it was dangerous?
Dima, explains this by the fact that he was always interested in company programming and was especially attracted by the technology of the second generation of the onion router. At one point he just wondered if he could raise his own knot. And he did it. In 2015, its node was reflected on the Atlas map (atlas.torproject.org) as a constantly working output node. In general, according to Tor today 37 “output nodes” work in Russia. Of course, it is possible to suspect all administrators of such nodes either in the company absence of critical thinking or in direct involvement in a chain of dubious digital transactions that are increasingly being carried out by special services of different countries to compromise the network. But, of course, everything does not work like that.
Tor is a non-profit decentralized project. The administration of the system is carried out by the volunteer participants themselves, who absolutely free to provide their computing company power to work on the network by all other Tor users. Especially, those groups of users that he so needs – in countries with repressive regimes and strict censorship. According to the contribution to the work of the Tor-network Russia ranks 10th in the world.
Of course, Dima heard about the few cases where in America and Europe, law enforcement authorities asked questions to the owners of exit-node in cases where the nodes were used to commit some criminal acts on the network. However, in all such cases, it was usually either about questioning the owner of the company node as a witness, or about the temporary withdrawal of equipment. Undoubtedly, Dima would be ready to provide information and his computer, in case of a relevant request from the bodies that carry out operational-search activities.
But he never, like any of us, could imagine that the content of Tor’s “output node” and the purely technical involvement of his computer in the chain of information exchange on the Internet could lead to real arrest and accusation of The commission of such grave crimes as the organization of mass riots and calls for terrorism.
Naturally, this is not the first time when law enforcement bodies in Russia have become interested in Tor. But this is the first time that the pre-investigation check, connected with the Tror, immediately turned into a criminal case. On one of the Russian sites, we found a message two years ago, one of the administrators of the output node, who reported that people in epaulets invited him to a conversation due to the fact that using his IP-address was sent a letter to the airport Vnukovo, with a message About the enclosed explosive device. The FSB was then engaged in the case. After checking the computer, nothing interesting could be found there, so all claims were removed from the administrator of the node, and his computer was returned. Unfortunately, Dima became a participant in a completely different scenario. Investigators broke into his house at night, without any explanation for the reasons they took everything, and the suspect himself was taken into custody on the second attempt.
The charge of IP
Initially, mathematics was accused of calling for mass riots (part 3 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). After the re-qualification of the crime, the investigation charges Dima Bogatov in an attempt to organize mass disorders (part 1 of Article 30, part 1 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code) and public calls for terrorism (part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code).
The whole accusation is based only on that, according to the logs received from the site owner, on the day of publication of the “dangerous” messages that were posted through the account of “Ayrat Bashirov” (ID135558), the entry to this account Was carried out with an IP address belonging to Dima. Based on these data, the investigation concludes that once the entrance was made from this IP address, Dima Bogatov made other publications of “Ayrat Bashirov”.
The investigation completely ignores the fact that the entrance to the site On this day, “Airat Bashirov” carried out not only from Moscow’s IP address Dima, but from five different places, including Vladivostok, Japan, Holland, Great Britain and Podolsk near Moscow, and Dima himself has an iron alibi. At the time of publication, he was with his wife in the gym, which is confirmed by a video recording provided by the fitness center.
In fact, in addition to the IP-address for the promotion of such a serious charge, there is nothing. Currently, computer-technical expertise is being assigned to the RF Ministry of the Interior’s ECC and a linguistic examination in the Russian Academy of Sciences. In addition to questions about the presence of traces of extremist materials on seized computers, the investigation certainly wants to know much more. Were there any “pirated” materials on the computer, child pornography, were there any inputs to the sites from the registers of Roskomnadzor and others.
Currently, the preliminary investigation of the case is continuing as part of a three-person investigation team at the Main Investigation Department SC Russia in Moscow, led by the investigator for particularly important cases Felix Sabanov.
The elusive “Airat”
After the arrest of Dima, the person hiding under the name “Airat Bashirov” (after the same-name system administrator from Ufa) continued posting on sysadmins.ru , Where the disputed publications were posted. Journalists have already managed to talk with him and learn some details. In a comment to the Media Zone, he confirmed that he had actually used Tor and that he was ready to help the defense pull Dima out of the criminal case.
In a private conversation, “Airat Bashirov” admits that he regrets that because of his virtual “foolishness” an innocent person really suffered. Therefore, he promises that he will try his best to help. Of course, the best help in this case would have been the appearance with the guilt in the manner of Article 142 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, but this is not yet ready for the interlocutor. Currently, we are negotiating with him to understand what real help he can provide in providing written evidence of Bogatov’s innocence.
On Tuesday, April 25, the Moscow City Court will hear an appeal to the extent of restraint in the form of taking into custody.
Sarkis Darbinyan, Dima Bogatova’s lawyer, leading lawyer of “Roskomvoboda”, head of “Center for Digital Rights Protection”:
“The grounds for presenting charges are as absurd as the reasons for Dima’s arrest Bogatova for the period of the preliminary investigation. The whole accusation is based only on the fact that one of the IP-addresses from which a certain “Airat Bashirov” received access to the account on the site where, in the opinion of the investigation, appeals to terrorism were placed, belonged to Dima. Indeed, for two years Bogatova worked as an “exit node” Tor (exit-node), and he never hid it. Having Tor exit-node at home is legal. Investigators stubbornly ignore the fact that the entrance to the site on this day was carried out not only with IP belonging to Dima, but also from five different places, from Japan to Podolsk. The investigators are also not confused by either 100% of the alibis or the fact that after the arrest of Dima Bogatov, Airat Bashirov continued to post publications on the site.
We hope that the appellate court will show more attention to detail and see that Dima Bogatov does not represent No public threat and never intended to leave his native city. Taking Dima in custody is clearly a disproportionate measure of restraint. We will also demand a complete cessation of the case against Dima on rehabilitating grounds, because our client is not involved in the commission of offenses committed. And we will certainly prove it. “
If Dima Bogatov is convicted, this will mean that a criminal case can be brought against any owner of an unprotected or hacked Wi-Fi for committing cybercrime, as well as crimes related to the dissemination of information on the Internet. This will mean that even the person whose computer was infected and used in criminal botnets without the knowledge of the computer’s owner can be brought to account.
But we will do our best to prevent this from happening.
