FOCUS: Russia wants to create govt messenger, waste of money for analysts

By Yekaterina Yezhova

MOSCOW, Aug 15 (PRIME) -- In pursue of its policy to become less dependent on foreign products of all kinds, Russian authorities in partnership with state-controlled telecom giant Rostelecom are approaching the creation of a secure messenger for the government. But the expensive idea seems a sheer waste of public money to analysts, who say that state employees could safely use the existing means of communication.

“The Internet Development Institute (IDI), the Communications and Mass Media Ministry and Rostelecom have formed a working group, open for joining by companies-developers of messengers. The group’s task is to create a technical assignment for the future state messenger,” Anton Troshin, head of the IDI press office, told PRIME.

The group has already received 14 applications from messengers’ creators in the last several days. “Bids will be accepted until September 4, but we are getting ready already now to start testing messengers in various pilot zones,” Troshin said.

“It’s still early to outline any functions of the messenger as they will be formulated during tests. So far we can say that the product should have a high level of code protection, most likely an authorization with an electronic signature, a looped list of contacts and a hierarchical lineup, determined by an authority. It means a user could not add addresses to the base of contracts, and an ordinary employee could not write to a minister.”

The IDI plans to wrap up tests this year, complete the technical assignment and choose a short list of projects. The government will be able to hold tenders in 2017 for suppliers of the state messenger.

The roles of the three initiators are distributed accordingly. The IDI’s experts will test offered solutions and take part in forming the technical task, and the ministry will be responsible for the project’s compliance with requirements of certification and crypto protection.

Rostelecom’s spokesperson Andrei Polyakov said the telecom company will provide the project with expert and technical back-up. “Besides, upon elaboration of the technical assignment and choosing a contractor, the company will study various options of further participation in the project,” he said.

Troshin from the institute said tests and creation of the technical task will be absolutely free for the government. “An approximate cost will be sized during trials, and state agencies will be guided by it when finalizing tender terms,” he said.

Vitaly Solonin, head of the wireless department at J’son & Partners Ñonsulting, said the design and launch of the messenger could cost the budget at least several millions of U.S. dollars. “Private investors would unlikely take part since it’s unclear how they could get their money back,” the analyst told PRIME.

The country’s state agencies, municipal entities and election committees counted almost 2.2 million officials as of the end of 2015, according to the Federal State Statistics Service. “Evidently, it’s the upper level of audience for the projected messenger,” Solonin said.

The main idea of the project is to launch a special domestic secure messenger if the use of foreign services in the state sector on working matters is banned and contradicts internal rules. “However, in my view, such plans to introduce a special messenger is an effort to spend budget money inefficiently and, in essence, the money of taxpayers,” the analyst said.

“There is no burning need in such a product in the period a federal budget deficit. Traditional connection means – like landline and mobile phones, e-mail or messages from official Web sites – would suffice for professional communications. They are controlled for possible leakage of confidential information.”

The initiative reminded the analyst of a project of national search engine Sputnik, unveiled in 2014. “Its creation consumed huge money, but Sputnik hasn’t ‘been properly put into orbit’ and its traffic is at the lowest,” Solonin said.

Sputnik, launched by Rostelecom, is identified as socially-oriented with a strong focus on state services, housing matters, medications, vacancies and the like.

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