Kazakhstan: tech giants stand up for Internet users
Tech giants Apple, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla have blocked Kazakhstan’s “security certificate”, because this certificate has nothing to do with security, but is intended so that the special services of Kazakhstan can intercept users’ data.
As ACCA has already reported, on December 6, the authorities of Kazakhstan made another attempt to establish total control over Internet users, forcing them to install a security certificate on their devices. Without this certificate, the users of Kazakhstan couldn’t access sites such as Google, Twitter, Instagram and Netflix. Meanwhile, IT specialists said that the certificate allows the government of Kazakhstan to intercept and decode HTTPS traffic. That is, to actually monitor how citizens use the Internet and what sites they visit.
Since the authorities of the republic have been pushing this idea since December 2015, despite the resistance of citizens and criticism from both Kazakh and international experts in the information and communication industry, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla made a joint decision to completely block Kazakhstan’s certificate on their browsers. This was announced on the official Mozilla blog by the Senior Director of Trust and Security Marshall Erwin. According to him, the tech giants consider the Kazakh authorities’ attempt to impose this certificate on users as an act of undermining their safety.
“This is in direct opposition to Principle 4 of the Mozilla Manifesto, which states: ‘The safety and privacy of Internet users is fundamental and should not be considered a side issue.’ In this regard, Mozilla, as well as Apple, Google and Microsoft will block the use of the Kazakhstan’s root CA certificate on their browsers. This means that Firefox will not trust Kazakhstan’s certificate, even if the user voluntarily installes it. When trying to access the website, users will see an error message stating that this certificate cannot be trusted. We strongly recommend that everyone, who has installed the root certificate of the government of Kazakhstan, remove it from their devices and immediately change their passwords,” Marshall Erwin said in his statement.
