Post by Admin on Nov 1, 2019 22:18:26 GMT
On Nov. 1, Russia is poised to disconnect from the internet—in theory.
That is when a long-planned internet bill will go into effect and lay the foundation for a national network whereby internet service providers are controlled by Roskomnadzor, Russia's telecom agency. The goal is to give Russia the power to disconnect from the global internet in the event of a cyberwar and, in the interim, serve up a walled-off version of the web sanctioned by the Russians. It also gives President Vladimir Putin greater control over Russian citizens.
Details of the bill are sketchy. Russian news agency RIA-Novosti says the aim is to provide a "sustainable, secure, and fully functioning" internet. And it will reportedly do so by developing its own version of the internet's address system so Russian web users attempting to reach international sites will instead be directed to Russian versions. Citizens hoping to visit Facebook, for example, might be redirected to Russian social network VK.
Russian officials have argued that this so-called sovereign internet will protect the country from harm, but experts argue it could make Russia, and the entire open web, more vulnerable to attack.
Russia's Great Firewall? Not Quite
With all the talk of clouds and wireless connectivity, many people think of the internet as an ephemeral tool. But it's powered by vast server farms, interconnected cables, and networking infrastructure that cross borders and oceans. That makes it difficult to control, which is why Russia's law targets the internet's address book, the Domain Name System (DNS).
In essence, the DNS converts a web address (such as into an IP address (such as 192.168.1.1) that fetches the site you want. Russia's system uses a proxy to steer packets of information away from the public DNS resolver by default, look at where the data is located, and either let that information through, redirect it, or block it completely.
We see examples of this kind of control in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and China. But Russia might have some difficulty in recreating China's Great Firewall, in part because Russia's internet was built to be open, according to Alex Henthorn-Iwane, VP of Product Marketing for network monitoring company ThousandEyes.
Breaking the Internet
Yet despite the low likelihood of Russia closing the doors on external internet connections, the proposed policy is indicative of a greater trend among governments: creating a "splinternet."
The term was first used in 2001 to describe "parallel internets," or multiple privately run networks that exist to avoid heavy-handed and changing government regulation. It's now more likely to describe secondary networks run by those governments.
The concept is not alien to the West. San Francisco-based Twitter, which regularly comes under criticism from users in the United States for not taking enough action against white supremacists and other bad actors, is required by law to block those same harmful users in Germany. Google has also agreed to change names and borders on its mapping products upon request from certain governments. GDPR regulation, meanwhile, means many US news publishers are unable to show their content in European countries due to how they store data on European citizens.
The amount of regulatory control governments place on the internet is a sliding scale based on political ideology. For some, that's shutting the internet off completely (or, at least, attempting to) while others focus on how data can or cannot move across countries.
That is when a long-planned internet bill will go into effect and lay the foundation for a national network whereby internet service providers are controlled by Roskomnadzor, Russia's telecom agency. The goal is to give Russia the power to disconnect from the global internet in the event of a cyberwar and, in the interim, serve up a walled-off version of the web sanctioned by the Russians. It also gives President Vladimir Putin greater control over Russian citizens.
Details of the bill are sketchy. Russian news agency RIA-Novosti says the aim is to provide a "sustainable, secure, and fully functioning" internet. And it will reportedly do so by developing its own version of the internet's address system so Russian web users attempting to reach international sites will instead be directed to Russian versions. Citizens hoping to visit Facebook, for example, might be redirected to Russian social network VK.
Russian officials have argued that this so-called sovereign internet will protect the country from harm, but experts argue it could make Russia, and the entire open web, more vulnerable to attack.
Russia's Great Firewall? Not Quite
With all the talk of clouds and wireless connectivity, many people think of the internet as an ephemeral tool. But it's powered by vast server farms, interconnected cables, and networking infrastructure that cross borders and oceans. That makes it difficult to control, which is why Russia's law targets the internet's address book, the Domain Name System (DNS).
In essence, the DNS converts a web address (such as into an IP address (such as 192.168.1.1) that fetches the site you want. Russia's system uses a proxy to steer packets of information away from the public DNS resolver by default, look at where the data is located, and either let that information through, redirect it, or block it completely.
We see examples of this kind of control in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and China. But Russia might have some difficulty in recreating China's Great Firewall, in part because Russia's internet was built to be open, according to Alex Henthorn-Iwane, VP of Product Marketing for network monitoring company ThousandEyes.
Breaking the Internet
Yet despite the low likelihood of Russia closing the doors on external internet connections, the proposed policy is indicative of a greater trend among governments: creating a "splinternet."
The term was first used in 2001 to describe "parallel internets," or multiple privately run networks that exist to avoid heavy-handed and changing government regulation. It's now more likely to describe secondary networks run by those governments.
The concept is not alien to the West. San Francisco-based Twitter, which regularly comes under criticism from users in the United States for not taking enough action against white supremacists and other bad actors, is required by law to block those same harmful users in Germany. Google has also agreed to change names and borders on its mapping products upon request from certain governments. GDPR regulation, meanwhile, means many US news publishers are unable to show their content in European countries due to how they store data on European citizens.
The amount of regulatory control governments place on the internet is a sliding scale based on political ideology. For some, that's shutting the internet off completely (or, at least, attempting to) while others focus on how data can or cannot move across countries.
