TSZI certification.

Certification of TSZI.

Certification of TSZI

In the early 90s, hardly anyone could have imagined that small private enterprises would ever completely take over the initiative in developing and producing complex and high-tech technical means of information protection from large state research institutes and design bureaus.

However, the impossible happened, and the reason for this is the unwillingness or inability of the state to finance the production of the equipment it (the state) needed. This situation caused a mass outflow of the most qualified and energetic personnel from state institutions, some of whom went down the path of private entrepreneurship.

The high level of scientific and technical training of the heads of new enterprises allowed them to first intuitively, and then economically justifiedly organize their teams in such a way that they were able not only to withstand, but also to successfully develop in the conditions of a virtually direct state economic ban on activities in the field of science-intensive production.

Today, in such areas as technical means of radio interception and control of radio airwaves, non-linear location, search for explosives and a number of others, domestic manufacturers have forced foreign products out of the domestic market, which turned out to be uncompetitive both in technical parameters (which is most important) and in price. At the same time, the state has not spent a single ruble on the development of world-class technology.

However, the situation in which small professional teams are leading was not to the liking of some government officials, who decided to urgently correct their omission in an old, tried and tested way — BAN! Since it is no longer possible to do this directly today, a new universal method of prohibition was used, which consists of adding to the word «license» (licentia, Latin — freedom, right, permission to conduct a type of activity) a short addition: «under STS» (special technical means).

According to the licensing law, this means that from now on such products can only be sold to the state. Okay, enterprises agree to comply with this requirement, but selling means receiving money for the products, which the state does not have! Translated into simple language, «licensing under STS» means simply transferring non-state enterprises to the rank of state enterprises, but without entering them into the State Register!

Of course, this step is justified by concern for the protection of state interests. Yes, in certain areas of activity such restrictions are necessary. Thus, it is impossible not to agree with the licensing of activities in the field of development and production of means of data collection and in a number of other cases determined by the Decree of the President No. 21 of 09.01.96 and the Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 770 of 01.07.96, since these acts practically directly implement the provisions of the article of the Constitution of the Russian Federation on the protection of citizens' rights. But, excuse me, what does this have to do with technical means of information protection? After all, their use serves to protect the constitutional rights of citizens who may have them at their personal disposal to exercise these very rights!

They are trying to convince us that this equipment, when it falls into the hands of criminal elements, is used both against the state and against the «civilian population». In our opinion, this is simply one of the components of the latest campaign that followed the President's harsh demands to step up the fight against crime. The easiest way in this situation is to shift the blame onto those who produce the equipment and thereby allegedly stimulate the growth of crime. Meanwhile, life has repeatedly proven the ineffectiveness of prohibitive methods. We don't have to look far for examples: licensing the production and sale of data collection equipment has not led to any noticeable decrease in the crime rate! All high-profile (and not so high-profile) cases of recent times are somehow connected with the use of STS. The latest example is the case of G. Starovoitova, in which information was received that someone tried to install a «bug» in the telephone line right in the corridor. However, not a single investigation has revealed the fact of these STS falling into the hands of bandits from firms with the appropriate licenses. Consequently, the ban (i.e. licensing under the STS) in no way affected the level of technical equipment of criminal structures with devices of this class, which means that they purchased them not from license holders, but in other places.

Another attempt to combat crime by transferring information security tools to the category of STS will lead, in the author's opinion, to the following.

First and foremost, criminals will still be armed with these means, and having lost access to domestic ones, they will import foreign ones through the open borders of neighboring states. Russian law enforcement agencies will hardly be able to control this process. The fight against crime will be complicated by the complete uncertainty of what means criminals will use in each specific case. Secondly, manufacturing enterprises become completely dependent on government orders.

At first glance, the consequences here consist only of the loss of a significant share of independence by the enterprise, although this is not so little. Let us, however, look at this problem more broadly.

Due to the lack of funds from the state to purchase technical equipment subject to licensing, manufacturing enterprises will self-liquidate in a short period of time due to unprofitability, and this is the fate of ALL enterprises operating in this area. There is no hope that someone will survive while waiting for a random one-time order: firstly, no one will have enough money to maintain mothballed production, and secondly, the funds received from a one-time transaction will be immediately spent, and everything will return to normal. Mass unemployment will begin among the most qualified specialists. This process will cause a similar reaction in the service sector, because now between the manufacturer and the buyer, as it should be in trade relations, a wholesale and retail network has been created and is functioning very effectively, the employees of which are also well versed in technical issues.

Perhaps many of these unemployed top-class specialists, in search of a piece of bread, will literally go to work for criminals! This is not the author's fantasy, this is the financial reality of 1999. Another part of them will simply leave Russia, and not for the rich West, knowing that work as garbage collectors or taxi drivers awaits them there. These scientists will move to neighboring countries. The most attractive in this regard are Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Kazakhstan has just elected a president, which guarantees political and economic stability in the country for the next seven years, and there is a powerful production base here. The only thing that is lacking is competent specialists with their own ideas and ready-made technical solutions, since in the Soviet Union this work was traditionally carried out only in the RSFSR. Economic requirements in Kazakhstan are softer than in Russia. Almost the same can be said about Azerbaijan.

These «emigrants» will not need much time to expand their activities in a new location, since, firstly, these countries have enough local qualified personnel to form new teams, and secondly, unlike the initial stage of work in their homeland, these people have already managed to earn start-up capital, which will be taken out of Russia. In a year at most, Russian criminal structures (and for these new manufacturers — ordinary foreign clients-buyers) will again deliver «prohibited» Russian equipment to their homeland, but this time as import.

There is another significant consequence of this step that cannot be ignored. In the current situation, government agencies — the FSB, FAPSI, the Presidential Security Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal State Statistics Service, the State Customs Committee — will be left alone with themselves. The surviving research institutes and design bureaus are no longer able to meet even the meager needs of the state for such equipment, for which the latter sometimes finds funds. The reason is that many of them are still listed in the State Register only on paper, but in reality have long lost their scientific, technical and production potential. Their resuscitation will require both large funds and time, but the state no longer has either.

Today — and no one can refute this — equipping government agencies with technical means of information protection in most positions has been undertaken by non-governmental enterprises. In the absence of such, government agencies will be faced with the need to fill the gap by purchasing imported equipment. In other words, Russian money will once again go to supporting foreign manufacturers. In addition, imported equipment has lower technical characteristics, and the enemy, knowing this, will be able to use higher-level equipment. So, let's sum it up. The collapse and liquidation of many firms that provide significant assistance to many government agencies in providing technical means of information protection, the subsequent wave of emigration of highly qualified specialists, the outflow of fairly large financial resources from the Russian economy, unjustified spending of currency on the purchase of lower-quality Western equipment — isn't the price of ambition too high for a number of officials eager to bring independent domestic developers and manufacturers of technical means of information protection, working within the law, under their control?