Well-Known Russian Hacker Gets His Twitter Account Blocked

Twitter has apparently blocked a well-known Russian hacker’s account following the government’s request. This apparently comes a week after the government stated it will not take any measures against so-called ‘extremists’ in the country.

The blocked account is said to be @b0ltai, a Russian Anonymous who apparently leaks government secrets and other sensitive state documents on a regular basis. The account is said not to be accessible to local users, however other people seem to be able to access it just fine.

There have been a few checks with Twitter and it is confirmed that the account is not accessible form Russia. Twitter’s location-specific censorship feature has been confirmed to be used on the account, an action which was performed after the request from the Russian government. The request letter is stated to have been logged at the Chilling Effects website, accessible here.

It is said that Twitter did not comment on the action at hand “for privacy and security reasons”, although the move is said to be a result of a lawsuit which is cited in the censorship request documents from the Russian government. They say that a court in St. Petersburg has granted the block due to a case involving “personal data”, though there is little information available o it in the public domain.

Also, @b0ltai‘s account appears not to be the only account the government wants to block. It is said that Twitter agreed to block 10 accounts in the country, though information gathered only points to this single request.

Thank you TheNextWeb for providing us with this information
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