Russia is demanding that users of wireless devices that are hooked up to WiFi register and wait ten days or more before using laptops, PDAs, and smartphones or risk having them confiscated by the government. And that’s just the beginning. There is an even more bureaucratic red tape to cut before actually setting up a wireless network in your own home or business.

Imagine if every time you installed a router in your house, you had to go through a process of approval through your government that could weeks. You need to submit copious documentation, receive a license, and in certain urban areas like Moscow and St. Petersburg, receive special permission from the Russian Federal Security Service.

As TheOtherRussia.org is reporting, this is the next step in the technological backsliding that Russians are facing today. As one anonymous industry specialist reported on Fontanka.ru (and translated by TheOtherRussia), “Similar conclusions speak to the complete professional deterioration of a unified regulatory agency. It is now engaged in all manner of fields – protecting cultural riches, registering mass-media outlets, control of legal compliance on personal data, monitoring communications, allocation of radio frequencies and so on. The organization is led by a metallurgic engineer by background. It is unlikely that he can simultaneously manage communications personnel, fine art experts, journalists and attorneys.”

For a country with such a vibrant tech community at home an abroad, this kind of policy will only encourage Russia’s best technological minds to hit the road and avoid the scrutiny of unnecessary government regulation. What is the point? Merely control? Not a way to encourage innovation, and not a way to keep the best minds in the homeland.

Thanks to Ryan Paul at Ars Technica, TheOtherRussia.org, and Fontanka.ru for info and quote.

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