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In 2010, Russian authorities seized the domain of the country’s biggest BitTorrent tracker, Torrents.ru, in copyright related action. Now, just over a year later, police have swooped on its sister site, Pornolab – Russia’s biggest porn tracker – and seized its servers. With the recent demise of two other huge adult trackers, it’s possible that Pornolab was the largest adult torrent site in the world. For many years, when BitTorrent sites around Western Europe and the United States suffered legal pressure and were forced to look for new homes, fingers have pointed to the east. Russia is not exactly considered a market leader when it comes to copyright-related enforcement and neither is its western neighbor, Ukraine. In February 2010, however, an event occurred which rocked the boat. Citing copyright concerns, authorities seized the domain name of Torrents.ru, the country’s biggest tracker with millions of members. The site continues today under a new domain, Rutracker.org, with its troubles seemingly behind it. The same cannot be said for its sister operation, the adult torrent site Pornolab.net. Despite being Russia’s 93rd most popular site, Pornolab chose to operate out of a datacenter in Ukraine (MHOST). The authorities there say it was a huge operation, serving 2 million registered users. With the recent demise of Empornium and PureTNA, this may mean it was the biggest porn tracker in the world. In the last 24 hours, however, all that came to an end. According to police in the capital, Kiev, yesterday their officers swooped on the site’s datacenter and seized its servers. Unusually for a case of this type, the complaints that led to this action were not related to copyright infringement but to the unlawful distribution of pornography. The police are citing contraventions of Part 2 of Article 301 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine which covers crimes against children using the Internet – in this case the importation, production, sale and distribution of pornographic material without age restriction. In addition to attempting to bring the operators of the site to justice, the police say that they will also try to identify Ukrainian users of the site. Due to the nature of BitTorrent – downloaders automatically upload too – they too are being accused of the unlawful distribution of restricted material. In the past, Article 301 has been used by the government to shut down various publications deemed to be offensive, including literature aimed at the gay community. Punishments can extend from large fines to 5 years in prison. Ukraine is also home to Demonoid, one of the world’s largest BitTorrent trackers. Unlike Pornolab, Demonoid expressly forbids the tracking of any adult-related content. It also goes one step further, probably to ensure it stays the correct side of the Ukrainian authorities, by banning all local traffic. Pornolab did not and according to estimates, up to 700,000 of its members called Ukraine home. This is not the first time Ukrainian police have shut down a an adult themed torrent site. In May 2010, xsweet.net.ua was targeted for the same reasons and its 35-year-old operator arrested.

President Viktor Yanukovych has instructed the Cabinet of Ministers and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to develop and submit proposals for creating a national integrated system of counteraction to cybercrime to the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) by February 11, 2011, president's decree No. 1119 of December 10 declares. The president's decree put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of November 17 on challenges and threats to Ukraine's national security in 2011. The government shall have discussed improvement of the national information policy and put forward the related proposals to the president by March 11, 2011. The Cabinet of Ministers shall have developed and approved a plan for enhancing efficiency in coverage performance of executive power by March 11, 2011. The Cabinet of Ministers jointly with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) shall have outlined and approved a list of facilities which are important to ensure national security and national defense and which need urgent protection from cyber attacks. As Ukrainian News reported, in September, the Verkhovna Rada entitled the Ministry of Internal Affairs to maintain contacts with the countries signed the Convention on Cybercrime to provide assistance in investigation of crimes related to computer systems and data.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has filed a criminal case against the Odesa-based Intertelecom company, an operator of fixed-line telephone in the CDMA standard, on suspicion of smuggling telecommunications equipment.

The state-owned enterprise Ukrainian State Center for Radio Frequencies (Ukrchastotnadzor) cautions against buying iPhone 4 mobile devices in the Ukrainian retail chain, reads a statement made by the Ukrchastotnadzor press service.

Is Fring a victim of too much popularity or a startup that neglected to follow technology licensing procedures? Just days after announcing that Apple had approved the company's third-party video-calling application for the iPhone--running over AT&T Mobility's 3G network in addition to WiFi networks--Fring said it has been forced to stop its interconnection to Skype, because Skype is threatening legal action.