A recently passed law in Russia now requires that if a company wishes to sell a device in Russia that it must keep the cloud data of its users within Russia. This would mean that companies like Google, Apple, Xiaomi, Lenovo and others must keep the cloud data of their customers on servers inside of Russia and that the data must not leave the borders of Russia. This is an obvious move by Russia to stifle competition and to force companies to invest in Russian infrastructure and personnel if they wish to compete in the Russia market.

This is also part of Russia not wanting to have Russian cloud data being transmitted through the US where it can be easily intercepted by the NSA. And at the same time, since the server would be located in Russia, it will give Russian intelligence agencies like the FSB and SVR access to the data of Russians and very likely foreigners visiting Russia as well. There were fears of such activities going on during the Russian Winter Olympics in Sochi, but many of those fears were mostly based on fear mongering and conjecture with little evidence.

The website in Russia reporting on this news does mention that Apple is one of the companies that could be hit by this. There’s also a possibility that Google, Samsung or Xiaomi could be hit by this, but some of those companies may have already anticipated this law’s passage and have already taken steps towards compliance. After all, most Android devices utilize Google’s cloud in one way or another and those manufacturers don’t necessarily have power over how Google stores and utilizes the data in the cloud.

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Authorities in China are staging a man-in-the-middle attack against Apple’s (NASDAQ: APPL) iCloud service, attempting to harvest user credentials according to anti-censorship advocacy group Great Fire.

Users that try and access iCloud’s web interface from within China are directed to a look alike site. While Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome will alert users to the hijacked connection, according to Great Fire Qihoo 360, the most popular browser in China, will let users surf directly to the site.

Great Fire has also provided traceroutes as well as a wirecapture  to prove its claims.

Authorities in China launched a similar attack against  Microsoft’s Live.com login portal.

For its part state-owned China Telecom (HKG: 0728), which hosts Apple’s servers in its data centers, has publicly said that it has not played a role in this and any accusations that it has are “untrue and unfounded.” A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said that China’s government is “resolutely opposed” to hacking.

While it’s unlikely that Apple has any role in this, Great Fire notes that Apple has previously worked with authorities in China to censor content by removing offending apps from the app store upon request.

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