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The title is outright lying in action. The law being cited only talks about civil offences. Didn't see anything about criminal offence.

The law in question seems to be vague, stupid and prone to interpretations, but that doesn't make lying right.



"The tax authorities, together with the police and secret police, are authorized to initiate, investigate, and prosecute such violations."

This sounds like criminal prosecution, no?

Edit: or maybe just a bad/misleading translation.


Субъектам хозяйствования, осуществляющим деятельность по реализации товаров, выполнению работ, оказанию услуг на территории Республики Беларусь с использованием информационных сетей, систем и ресурсов, имеющих подключение к сети Интернет, следует обратить внимание: если эти сети, системы или ресурсы не размещены на территории Беларуси и (или) не зарегистрированы в установленном порядке, к субъектам может быть применено административное взыскание в виде штрафа от 10 до 30 базовых величин.

Didn't see anything about secret service in the law. But административное means civil in Russian. Criminal would be уголовное.


Second lie: the cited law says nothing about individuals being liable. It says, that if you sell or provide services in belarus then your hardware should be located there.

The problem is, of course, that everything is a service. webmail? service. wikipedia? service! or not? interpretation.

And also that cloud hosting is pervasive yet becomes useless. It's stupid but still you should not lie.


edit: don't downvote guard-of-terra, according to goshakkk's comment [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3416018] the english note is incomplete and guard-of-terra is correct that this affects "networks, systems, or [hardware] resources"

> Second lie: the cited law says nothing about individuals being liable. It says, that if you sell or provide services in belarus then your hardware should be located there.

Can you read the law in the text? The english note only talks about domains:

> only domestic Internet domains for [...]

Furthermore, this is only a constraint for belarusians providing services in/to belarus:

> The Law requires that all companies and individuals who are registered as entrepreneurs in Belarus

> The problem is, of course, that everything is a service. webmail? service. wikipedia? service!

Essentially all internet communication yes, there's a (non-exhaustive, I assume) list:

> for providing online services, conducting sales, or exchanging email messages.

> And also that cloud hosting is pervasive yet becomes useless.

Yes it looks like there's a blanket ban on using services external to belarus if there's a business transaction involved:

> It appears that business requests from Belarus cannot be served over the Internet if the service provider is using online services located outside of the country.

although it's not clear whether the offense would be put on the user or on the service provider. The final paragraph hints it would be the latter.


The Law states that this provision may apply to private individuals if they allow other persons to use their home computers for browsing the Internet.

I can't read Russian, but a machine-translated version of the official notice (linked in the article) also mentions home use.


Can you provide a quote that caught your eye? I'll try to figure it out.


http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js...

Administrative penalty of a fine (ranging from 5 to 15 basic units) may be imposed on officials of the centers for collective use of the web services (computer clubs, Internet cafes, home networking,


As already stated, this means commercial home networks. They deliver connectivity via Ethernet, colllect fees and are subject to regulations. It doesn't mean your house LAN unless you provide paid service to unrelated people.


домашние сети is really not home networking. It's like an LAN used in several apartments of one or several houses.

So if you're using ADSL (yeah we mostly use it here in Belarus), that shouldn't apply to you.

Just saying.


So why is the offense described as a misdemeanor?




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