The U.S. has already dabbled with internet "kill switch" legislation, but Russia's actions go a step further in physically partitioning their network to separate it from the rest of the world....
The U.S. has already dabbled with internet "kill switch" legislation, but Russia's actions go a step further in physically partitioning their network to separate it from the rest of the world.
What's really bugging me is that this isn't just capable of facilitating state censorship. It's a Cold War-style bunkering of Russia's communications network. This action can be both defensive and offensive, i.e. you wouldn't want the Doomsday worm you released to erase the Western world's military C&C, banking data, and power grid systems, to come back and strike your own networks.
There's a better explanation of the implications here. It's not just physical control of the ISP chokepoints, but the ability to reroute all traffic internally, maintain independent DNS, and...
There's a better explanation of the implications here. It's not just physical control of the ISP chokepoints, but the ability to reroute all traffic internally, maintain independent DNS, and separate telecommunications.
As far as Russia's realistic technical ability to accomplish this quickly, without amputating a great deal of commerce and communications and further damaging its economy, that's unlikely. Some of this activity is probably propagandistic exaggeration. There's an interesting tidbit here from Hacker News' forums that suggests the test was telecommunications only, much more limited in scope than "Internet unplugged" would indicate.
I wonder how many countries are going to do this. In any case, it sucks.
The state-owned Tass news agency reported the tests had assessed the vulnerability of internet-of-things devices, and also involved an exercise to test Runet's ability to stand up to "external negative influences".
Russia is seeking to develop more bespoke net services for its citizens. It has announced plans to create its own Wikipedia and has passed a bill that bans the sale of smartphones that do not have Russian software pre-installed.
How would Runet work?
"The idea is that the internet within Russia would interconnect with the rest of the world only at a few specific points over which the government could exercise control," said Prof Woodward.
"That would effectively get ISPs [internet service providers] and telcos to configure the internet within their borders as a gigantic intranet, just like a large corporation does."
Like China, Russia will be hoping to create indigenous services as alternatives to Google and Facebook in the long term, he added.
I wonder how many countries are going to do this. In any case, it sucks.
I suspect all of them at some point unless there is a major political movement to advocate for "freedom of the web" gaining traction. Cyber and information warfare is a serious thing and the US is...
I wonder how many countries are going to do this. In any case, it sucks.
I suspect all of them at some point unless there is a major political movement to advocate for "freedom of the web" gaining traction.
Cyber and information warfare is a serious thing and the US is way behind in it. Our tech policy is completely incoherent and our legislators are completely ignorant about it. The only experts on internet security and privacy who work in Washington come from the National Security realm and those people give absolutely no shits about privacy or individual liberty.
People in these circles talk a lot about a "cyber-9/11" that will "wake people up" to the importance of information security. All it will take is a serious security exploit that leads to compromise of the electrical grid, crash a big chunk of the stock market, or some other similarly calamitous event to have people begging for the government to step in and do something.
And since the only people with resources and contacts in Washington to do anything about it are NatSec loons, they're going to apply PATRIOT Act style NatSec lunacy to the problem. In a way it's the same thing that happened with domestic security. We had a real 9/11 that made people want to set up a Dept. of Homeland Security, but the only people in the government who were actually in positions to set up such a Department all happened to be insane racists. Thus, the department today is totally ineffectual at anything useful, but goes completely rogue and pursues actively racist and eliminationist policies with gusto while not actually securing much of anything.
The article also mentioned a Russian Wikipedia so I presume there is far more to come and they wish to have all tech companies in their borders so all changes made are done in their interest like...
The article also mentioned a Russian Wikipedia so I presume there is far more to come and they wish to have all tech companies in their borders so all changes made are done in their interest like China.
This seems a bit vague (which is to be expected I guess). I could unplug my router from my modem and then ping my phone from my PC. Have I just successfully tested my own unplugged internet (well,...
This seems a bit vague (which is to be expected I guess). I could unplug my router from my modem and then ping my phone from my PC. Have I just successfully tested my own unplugged internet (well, intranet)?
Its a silly example, but what do they mean? Have they found a way to completely disconnect from the outside web? Have they found a way to replace outside web sites with Russian ones? Have they made the great firewall of Russia? What about sites hosted from Russia, will they be accessable from the outside? If they are cutting off outside access completely, I assume so, which would seem counter productive to the growth of these companies.
The U.S. has already dabbled with internet "kill switch" legislation, but Russia's actions go a step further in physically partitioning their network to separate it from the rest of the world.
What's really bugging me is that this isn't just capable of facilitating state censorship. It's a Cold War-style bunkering of Russia's communications network. This action can be both defensive and offensive, i.e. you wouldn't want the Doomsday worm you released to erase the Western world's military C&C, banking data, and power grid systems, to come back and strike your own networks.
Edit - comprehensibility
There's a better explanation of the implications here. It's not just physical control of the ISP chokepoints, but the ability to reroute all traffic internally, maintain independent DNS, and separate telecommunications.
As far as Russia's realistic technical ability to accomplish this quickly, without amputating a great deal of commerce and communications and further damaging its economy, that's unlikely. Some of this activity is probably propagandistic exaggeration. There's an interesting tidbit here from Hacker News' forums that suggests the test was telecommunications only, much more limited in scope than "Internet unplugged" would indicate.
I wonder how many countries are going to do this. In any case, it sucks.
I suspect all of them at some point unless there is a major political movement to advocate for "freedom of the web" gaining traction.
Cyber and information warfare is a serious thing and the US is way behind in it. Our tech policy is completely incoherent and our legislators are completely ignorant about it. The only experts on internet security and privacy who work in Washington come from the National Security realm and those people give absolutely no shits about privacy or individual liberty.
People in these circles talk a lot about a "cyber-9/11" that will "wake people up" to the importance of information security. All it will take is a serious security exploit that leads to compromise of the electrical grid, crash a big chunk of the stock market, or some other similarly calamitous event to have people begging for the government to step in and do something.
And since the only people with resources and contacts in Washington to do anything about it are NatSec loons, they're going to apply PATRIOT Act style NatSec lunacy to the problem. In a way it's the same thing that happened with domestic security. We had a real 9/11 that made people want to set up a Dept. of Homeland Security, but the only people in the government who were actually in positions to set up such a Department all happened to be insane racists. Thus, the department today is totally ineffectual at anything useful, but goes completely rogue and pursues actively racist and eliminationist policies with gusto while not actually securing much of anything.
Iran is working on it too, and putting even more emphasis on it lately: Iran Accelerates Longstanding Quest To Cut Itself Off From The Internet
The article also mentioned a Russian Wikipedia so I presume there is far more to come and they wish to have all tech companies in their borders so all changes made are done in their interest like China.
I bet the US would be, if the US wasn't already largely controlled by Tech Giants anyways.
This seems a bit vague (which is to be expected I guess). I could unplug my router from my modem and then ping my phone from my PC. Have I just successfully tested my own unplugged internet (well, intranet)?
Its a silly example, but what do they mean? Have they found a way to completely disconnect from the outside web? Have they found a way to replace outside web sites with Russian ones? Have they made the great firewall of Russia? What about sites hosted from Russia, will they be accessable from the outside? If they are cutting off outside access completely, I assume so, which would seem counter productive to the growth of these companies.