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The Internet Communications Government Network Technology

Russia 'Successfully Tests' Its Unplugged Internet (bbc.com) 41

Posted by BeauHD from the testing-testing-1-2-3 dept.
The Russian government says it has successfully tested a country-wide alternative to the global internet. Details of what the test involved were vague but, according to the Ministry of Communications, ordinary users did not notice any changes. The results will now be presented to President Putin. The BBC reports: The initiative involves restricting the points at which Russia's version of the net connects to its global counterpart, giving the government more control over what its citizens can access. "Sadly, the Russian direction of travel is just another step in the increasing breaking-up of the internet," said Prof Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at the University of Surrey. "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," explained Prof Woodward.

"The Russian government has run into technical challenges in the past when trying to increase online control, such as its largely unsuccessful efforts to block Russians from accessing encrypted messaging app Telegram," Justin Sherman, a cyber-security policy fellow at the New America think tank, told the BBC. "Without more information about this test though, it's hard to assess exactly how far Russia has progressed in the path towards an isolatable domestic internet. "And on the business front, it remains to be seen just how much domestic and foreign pushback Russia will get."
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Russia 'Successfully Tests' Its Unplugged Internet More

Russia 'Successfully Tests' Its Unplugged Internet

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  • Success (Score:5, Funny)

    by gtall ( 79522 ) on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @09:12AM (#59555782)

    After much dissecting of internet traffic, none was found to be critical of Tsar Putin. Russia's Internet Authority thus termed it a success as it meant none of them would visiting the inside of Russian cell block. It won't be long now before Putin's Poodle sends his congratulations to Putin and wonders if the same could be had for the U.S.

    • The Internet successfully detected Russia's success to unplug itself as failure and successfully routed around it.

      Success all around.

    • Details of what the test involved were vague but, according to the Ministry of Communications, ordinary users did not notice any changes.

      Dmitri: So we run test of Russian Internet now?
      Pyotr: Da.
      Dmitri: (Lights a cigarette).
      Pyotr: (Scratches his arse).
      Dmitri: Is test over yet?
      Pyotr: Wait till your cigarette is finished.
      (Several more minutes pass)
      Dmitri: Report to Vanya that test is success!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        All it is, is redirecting domain name addressing, to what would have been a replication of offshore domain name addresses, and doing similar with ip addressing taking it through internalised routes that replicated in part external routes.

        This to ensure internally in the event of greed driven US sanctions does not impact internal internet transactions. Countries are dependent upon the internet for internal finnacial transactions and communications of all sorts and every country should implement a plan for b

        • Ah, good point, setting up your Internet to ensure it can't be affected by US action is a good move given who's currently running the US. Mind you I think Russia should have the least to fear in this regard, Trump won't risk doing anything that would jeopardise his annual performance review from his boss in Moscow.
      • You have to have an insight into (ex?) soviet style of thinking to get that joke. Westerners have their heads too deep in their own A for that. Take Snowden for example - freedom this and privacy violations that, and then he escapes to ...

    • Totalitarians are dumb cunts.

  • We'll look back at the early 21st century as the golden age of the internet, before it became the splinternet.

    • Re:Someday... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kaur ( 1948056 ) on Wednesday December 25, 2019 @10:02AM (#59555846)

      > We'll look back

      No we won't.
      We won't be able to.
      Why would the authorities of the future leave us such option?

      History will be overwritten by the doctrine to reflect the current ideology and groupthink.
      We have always been in war with Eurasia, right?

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by U0K ( 6195040 )
        I am certain that they'd love to revise history. And they're probably successful as far as the wide masses go.
        But eradicating an idea is a notoriously difficult task.

        The 'communists' have had decades to re-educate the people in the Soviet Union and their satellite states, but still people remembered and eventually the Soviet Union fell in the Revolutions of 1989. The Chinese government denies what happened at Tiananmen Square, they censor it on a wide scale, yet people still remember, even people in Chin

    • The golden age of the internet was early to late 90s. The first two decades of the 21st century have been full of attempts to close its open nature, for commerce and politics.

    • Good news: satellites in LEO don't care what arbitrary line on a map they just flew over.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      Do you mean before Eternal September?

  • unplugged (Score:1, Troll)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 )

    Ordinary Russian users didn't notice, but there was a huge temporary drop in posts from Facebook and Twitter users with "#PATRIOT #2A #VET #MAGA" in their bios.

    Correlation is not causality, but still...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by teg ( 97890 )

      Ordinary Russian users didn't notice, but there was a huge temporary drop in posts from Facebook and Twitter users with "#PATRIOT #2A #VET #MAGA" in their bios.

      Correlation is not causality, but still...

      I doubt that everything was disconnected... senior officials and intelligence operations - like the troll factories working on splintering and weakening the West - are extremely unlikely to have been affected.

  • Just until after the next election.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • This is literally xenophobia.

    • I thought someone with your political leanings liked illegal aliens voting.

    • An Internet Kill Switch? Joe Lieberman and a couple of other senators tried to pass a law in 2020 giving the president an internet kill switch. It became a free speech issue, and didn't pass.
      I don't think just any old internet kill switch would stop the Russians. Flipping the switch might screw over free speech and internet commerce, but I bet the Russkies would have contingency plans if we ever got such a switch. They're smart. They know what they're doing. They've messed with our elections before. And

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by _merlin ( 160982 )

        Joe Lieberman and a couple of other senators tried to pass a law in 2020

        You're posting from the future? Gimme stock tips and football results!

        • Joe Lieberman and a couple of other senators tried to pass a law in 2020

          You're posting from the future? Gimme stock tips and football results!

          2010
          Sorry - was watchin' "Serial Apeist" and "Serial Ape-Ist II: Monkey See, Monkey Kill", and got distracted by the homage to the shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdajsDAh7kc [youtube.com]

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      All the test was is networking.
      No peering outside Russia is needed. A total stop to international peering does nothing.
      Phone call connects? Yes... Local, nation, emergency calls? Test passed.
      Bank can still connects and can function as a national payment system? Pass.
      Internet sites for local/national/train/medical/bus/shop/gov/ambulance services work? Yes..
      Nation wide social media and private sector stays working? Test passed.

      The NSA, GCHQ, MI6, CIA would now need to send in human teams to towns,

  • When? (Score:2)

    by PPH ( 736903 )

    Because when I read the article announcing the cutoff, I checked out a couple of .ru sites. So far, nothing has been inaccessible. Are they caching their news sites in the West?

  • The test for Unplugged Internet was indeed supposed to be conducted. But it wasn't. My VPN worked just as always. In reality, according to the unofficial reports, they conducted, successfully, a different test: the one involving cellular service infrastructure, i.e. something related to attacks on the SS7 protocol.

  • Governors claim authority to cut off the Internet on a whim... so this example of a "local works, distance doesn't" system is as old as POTS.

  • It’s like when your psychotic girlfriend threatens to leave you. The correct response is “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, Russia.”

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