Russian intelligence seeks new ways to monitor social media

© RIA Novosti

13:04 27/08/2012

MOSCOW, August 27 - RAPSI. The Foreign Intelligence Service has announced three closed tenders amounting to over 30 million rubles ($943,300) for the development of new methods of monitoring the blogosphere, as well as for publishing messages on social networks aimed at influencing public opinion, Kommersant newspaper reported on Monday.

The newspaper reported that Military Unit No.54939, the state customer, requested the development of systems named Dispute, Monitor-3 and Storm-12.

"They are planning to monitor the blogosphere with the Dispute system, while Monitor-3 will analyze the acquired information. Based on this new data, Storm-12 will publish any necessary information on social networks," Kommersant reported.

Kommersant's government source reports that Military Unit No.54939 is part of the Foreign Intelligence Services system. Kommersant has not received a reply to its request for further information on this issue from the intelligence agency.

The newspaper also reported that the company Iteranet won all three tenders; Company director Igor Matskevich is the former deputy head of the Institute of Cryptography, Communication and Informatics of the Academy of the Federal Security Service.