The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has made an official order for the development of programs designed to constantly monitor the blogosphere and other online media. At the moment, developments are already underway, and the project will be launched next year.
In 2012, it became known that the Russian foreign intelligence service would monitor the so-called "new media": social networks, the blogosphere, online information publications. The authorities are concerned about the influence that the network space can have on society, as well as the formation of network communities associated with the rapid dissemination of various independent information.
In the winter of this year, a tender was announced for the development of programs designed to research the information and social sphere on the Internet. Customers have already published the code names of the programs: "Storm-12", "Monitor-3", "Dispute". The development will be carried out by the Iteranet company.
Under the code "Dispute" is a program with the help of which the blogosphere and social networks will be constantly monitored. The analysis of diverse information will be carried out by the Monitor-3 program. The results of the analysis will be used by the SVR to manage the virtual community and find the most successful sources of influence on the online media. The program, codenamed "Storm-12", will be responsible for posting the necessary information on social networks and blogs in order to create sources of influence on the minds of Internet users.
More than thirty million rubles will be spent on development and research. According to the military departments, these measures will help to timely make an objective assessment of public opinion, collect statistics, disseminate various messages and data that require urgent press coverage.
The Iteranet corporation, which won the tender, was entrusted with the execution of all three orders. It is reported that the programs will start working in 2013. It is likely that the first tests will take place this year. Based on their results, the further research strategy will be clear, and the programs will be able to prove their effectiveness in practice.
