Russia Moves to Allow Biometric Data Processing for Suspects and Convicts Without Consent
Russian law enforcement agencies may soon receive the official right to process biometric data of suspects, accused persons, and convicted individuals without obtaining their personal consent. A corresponding draft bill has already been submitted to the government for consideration.
The document is planned for review at the next cabinet meeting, TASS reports. If the initiative receives support, prior permission from the individual will no longer be required for the use of biometric information in criminal proceedings.
Biometric data in this context may include fingerprints, facial images, voice recordings, and other physiological or behavioral characteristics that allow identification of a person. The bill is still at the proposal stage, so the exact procedures for collection, storage, and use of the information may be further refined.
The proposed measure extends not only to individuals whose guilt has already been confirmed by a court but also to suspects and accused persons. For all other citizens, providing biometric data to the Unified Biometric System remains voluntary.
These voluntary records are used for remote identity confirmation and access to financial and government services without presenting a paper passport. Citizens can register their biometrics through officially designated service centers and digital platforms.
The initiative effectively creates two separate regimes: for ordinary users, biometrics stay an optional convenience feature, while for participants in criminal cases the data become a mandatory tool for law enforcement without the need for individual approval.
Related articles
Anthropic Model Reconstructs NSA Seeds for NIST Elliptic Curves in Under 30 Minutes
An internal Anthropic research model traced the origins of the five seeds used by the NSA to generate the NIST elliptic curves P-192, P-224, P-256, P-384, and P-521. The discovery resolves a 25-year-old question that arose when the curves were standardized in FIPS 186-2 for ECDSA in 2000. Researchers combined analysis of 1990s random number generators, 34 generator-output combinations, and lattice reduction techniques to identify lrand48 initialized with Unix timestamps from May 1997 to April 1998. The P-256 seed corresponds to the 1842nd candidate from a run started on 16 August 1997, and example seeds from ANSI X9.62 follow the same pattern. The work does not demonstrate any cryptographic break or backdoor in the curves and does not recommend changes to production systems. Several questions remain open, including the seed for curve B-163 and the reason certain candidate values were discarded.
Bitget Bans Residents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, Sets Strict Deadlines for Position Closure and Asset Withdrawal
Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget has updated its user agreement to prohibit residents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus from using its services. The changes took effect on 16 October, with affected users receiving individual notifications via email, the mobile app and push alerts. New trading, orders and subscriptions were disabled at 10:00 Moscow time on 18 October. Users must close all positions and withdraw assets by 10:00 Moscow time on 21 October, after which remaining positions will be liquidated automatically and account access will be restricted. The exchange has not disclosed the specific reason for the decision in its public statement. The move underscores how access to crypto platforms can be terminated by changes in terms of service rather than technical issues or user credentials.
Encrypt Don't Trust: Securing Palm Vein Biometrics from Sensor to Access Control Server
An in-depth technical analysis explores how to protect palm vein biometric data in access control systems using a security-by-design approach. The article emphasizes that biometric templates cannot be changed like passwords, making robust protection essential against physical theft, insider threats, and presentation attacks. It details the application of Zero Trust principles, minimizing the Trusted Computing Base, and implementing hardware roots of trust such as Secure Boot and encrypted non-volatile memory. Russian regulatory requirements including 152-FZ, Government Decree No. 1119 for data protection levels, FSTEC Order No. 21, and FSB Order No. 378 are mapped directly to technical controls like mTLS, OSDP v2.2, and liveness detection. Threat actor profiles ranging from external attackers to privileged insiders are analyzed with specific countermeasures for each segment of the data path. The piece concludes that trust must be compressed to the hardware root, server room, and dual-operator registration process while everything else relies on verifiable cryptography and auditing.
25-Year Mystery Solved: NIST Elliptic Curve Seeds Came from lrand48 and Unix Timestamps
Researchers at Anthropic used the Claude model to trace the origins of the mysterious seed values embedded in NIST elliptic curves standardized in FIPS 186-2. The seeds for curves including NIST P-192, P-224, P-256, P-384 and P-521 were not derived from hashed humorous phrases as previously rumored but instead generated by the non-cryptographic lrand48 linear congruential generator seeded with Unix timestamps from 1997 and 1998. The discovery also explains the base points of several curves using the FreeLIP library's random number generator. The findings reduce long-standing suspicions of deliberate backdoors inserted by the NSA. Several candidate curves that met the criteria were skipped during selection, leaving open questions about the exact filtering process. The work was performed by a team including Nicholas Carlini and others, with the reproduction code released into the public domain.