Putin gives federal security agents two weeks to produce ‘encryption keys’ for the Internet

After signing controversial anti-terrorist legislation earlier today, President Putin ordered the Federal Security Service (the FSB, the post-Soviet successor to the KGB) to produce encryption keys to decrypt all data on the Internet. According to the executive order, the FSB has two weeks to do it. Responsibility for carrying out Putin's instructions falls on Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB.

The new “anti-terrorist” laws require all “organizers of information distribution” that add “additional coding” to transmitted electronic messages to provide the FSB with any information necessary to decrypt those messages. It's still unclear what information exactly online resources are expected to turn over, given that all data on the Internet is encoded, one way or another, and in many instances encryption keys for encrypted information simply don't exist. 

For more about the technical impracticalities of these new regulations, see: The Duma’s new ‘Big-Brother’ legislation kills Russia’s Internet companies and hurts ordinary Web users. Here’s how.