Because control over access to the web is a theme of lawmaking and enforcement here for almost ten years. This is not an isolated initiative. I'd also very much like to know what exactly the ‘test’ consisted of, but there's no doubt that Russian government dreams of having a Big Russian Firewall and the rest of the wonderful Chinese inventions.
Like e.g. having some government-mandated apps preinstalled on every phone sold here, which is coming into force in some following months. Like having messenger users identified by linking them to phone numbers, which is already a law and soon will be a law for email too (if I didn't miss it having been passed).
It is the news the exact meaning of which is open to interpretation. Given that those pre-installed apps can be uninstalled, we should at least allow a possibility that rather than being an insidious tactic to spy on users this is simply a clumsy protectionist anti-competitive legislation to stimulate growth of local tech companies.
Secondly, pretending that this is an independent event and that the government, Duma, courts and police have a shred of good will after what they were doing for the last ten–twenty years, is so laughable that your insistence on that interpretation is baffling and suggestive.
Even if by some miracle the apps are innocent at first, nothing prevents the FSB from slipping in different functionality after a year, or even in an update.
Which is an issue that affects pretty much every smartphone with a default Android ROM: Google is baked deep in there, often there's a ton of additional smartphone vendor bloat and trackingware.
A lot, if not all of that data can be accessed by US intelligence agencies trough the third-party doctrine [0].
The same applies to the biggest social media companies out there, they are all US based: Billions of people, all over the world, tell Facebook their deepest secrets and most personal and private details.
For any non-American that's a massive OpSec risk just waiting to happen, its making large parts of populations suddenly very transparent and vulnerable to all kinds of nasty tactics like blackmail [1].
Which is one of the main reasons why countries like Russia and China push domestic alternatives: It's not all just about controlling the platform, the biggest part of it is giving their citizens a local alternative that doesn't mass-scale dox them to an "adversary state".
In that context, I consider it kinda weird how US Americans freak out over TikTok being Chinese and some app by Russian developers sending data to Amazon servers, supposedly being "massive security risks".
But when other countries don't want to give up their populations data wholesale to the US, that's suddenly made out as pure oppressive authoritarianism.
As a Russian citizen it is not uncommon to go to jail for two years for expressing anti government views online, that kind of thing does not happen int he west - for now.
While at home we jail people for viewing "terrorist content online" [2], which is so vaguely defined that it regularly ends up being "The other sides PoV", if that PoV even manages to penetrate to the everpresent layer of moderation on social media [3].
After terrorism, the next thing is now "hate speech" [4], and as much as US Americans think they are immune to such trends, they really are not. US millennials increasingly welcome and actually demand more moderation because they think that's gonna solve their right-wing extremist problem.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-n...
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/saddest...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41479620
[3] https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/327887/pbs-th...
[4] https://www.dw.com/en/germany-dozens-of-raids-over-online-ha...
Uh, I get that you want to highlight the hypocrisy of the west, but that was an astoundingly poor argument: By killing Pakistani the west silences criticism at home? And then as proof this happens you link to examples of domestic criticism?
If by the "good will" you mean whether they are earnestly concerned with improving the quality of life of ordinary Russian citizens, then the answer is, most likely not.
But between this and the worst possible interpretation (oh, they must be doing this to allow the FSB easy access into everyone's phones) there are various other possible interpretations, involving various degrees of self-indulgence or maliciousness. Can it be cheap publicity or a symbolic gesture? The first sponsor of the legislation is a member of LDPR, a nationalist party which is obsessed with Russian identity and isolationism. Can it be part of the import substitution project that Russia has been pursuing (largely unsuccessfully, I understand?) since 2014, to loosen its dependency on foreign imports? Can it be a protectionist measure to help otherwise uncompetitive local businesses? I think any of these options is realistic enough to explain the existence of the bill, even without going all the way to regarding it as a covert Kremlin/FSB operation. Which of course it may be, but it is simply too early to tell. I am sure in half a year — or whenever distributors start pre-installing prescribed apps — security experts will let us know whether these apps, besides just being a nuisance, are actually doing something malicious. Then we will have actual facts at our disposal, not just worries and speculations.
Do you remember the much-maligned Yarovaya law from several years back? Has it had any scary practical consequences on the Russian internet?
Why are you adding this restriction? Rooting or replacing the system are totally valid of getting rid of these things.
Because sanctioning a country off the internet has never been done. It's not a credible threat given the topology. Russia is land adjacent to many countries that would be unlikely to participate in a partitioning led by the US, and such a partition would not be very effective if only some countries participated.
Neither North Korea nor Iran are or have been disconnected from the global internet or phone systems by outside countries, and they are the most sanctioned nations.
Not to mention Japan, to which they are directly connected via two distinct 640 Gbps links, Hokkaido-Sakhalin and Nadhodka-Naoetsu: https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/asia-europe-afr... and https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/asia-europe-afr...
Some potential benefits to Russia:
1. Thwart cyber attacks
2. Control information
3. Halt foreign online payments
There are of course downsides, but I think the original premise was security in the event of war / aggression.
By whom? State actors can just launch attacks from computers that have both a Russian internet link and a link up to a internet providing satellite, no?
The way you actually reduce attack surface is to take the critical pieces off of it and minimize the paths to be watched, not the whole system. That would be like ensuring it is possible to close off all of the highways into Washington DC to response time for the three federal branches. If it was actually that damn important they would make and use secure tunnels. The only added benefit is an excuse to shut out protesters.
Not to mention mere independence isn't everything for system functionalities. Going to muscle powered factories to remove logistical dependence on power would be an obviously stupid move for example because the performance is so much worse. It is "selling ceramic knives that cannot be sharpened as never needing it" marketing deception of trying to cast a flaw as a strength.
Russia doesn't need pretense for control.
This is actually most useful for security. At least if you are attacked your national network will survive.
That is extremely unlikely to happen. Payments, banking, investment will be always connected, or placed abroad in the required way. At least for important enough transactions - probably not Amazon, but stock trades...
> That is extremely unlikely to happen.
That's what very much has already happened. Visa and MasterCard pulled their services a few years ago after another set of US sanctions. Also, if you are a business and using SWIFT to transact - US has the final say what you can and can not do. So now Russia has it's own payment card system MiR and working with China, India and even Iran on alternative to SWIFT.
I think it was a mistake for US to retract payment services. A smaller country may be severely affected by it indeed, but not a country of the size of Russia, China or India.
Now if payment networks were pulled, then what is next? Internet would be the logical follow-up. Hence the testing. It all makes perfect sense when you look at it from Rissia's side.
When did that happen? I’ve been paying with a Master Card just recently in Russia.
That was my understanding as well.
I think the main concern of the Russian internet users is to get isolated from the rest of the internet indefinitely during peace time, in a way of China or North Korea. I am not sure we are seeing signs that the Russian government intends to go that far yet.
The Internet is a vital infrastructure element. Leaving the risk of potential disruption to some US congressmen's whims is not a very wise choice. Of course it can be used with bad intentions as well but so can anything else. I think I've already mentioned this in my older post and it was downvoted eagerly.
This is a claim made by the Russian government with little actual support as far as I know. It comes up every once in a while when the issue is mentioned, and is usually uncritically accepted.
Here:From the "JOINT MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION" from the European Parlament ( https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-8-2014-0118... )
" 12. Recalls that the restrictive measures taken by the EU are directly linked to the Russian Federation’s violation of international law with the illegal annexation of Crimea and the destabilisation of Ukraine, while the trade measures taken by the Russian Federation, including those against Ukraine and other Eastern Partnership countries which have recently concluded Association Agreements with the EU, are unjustified; calls for the EU to consider excluding Russia from civil nuclear cooperation and the Swift system; "
Now as far as it concerns the Internet there is even no real need to bring Swift example. Any country would be insane to let their Internet infrastructure under someone else's control. Question of course how much it will cost to build a replacement for situations if the things go sour. So for many countries, especially the ones that are on friendly terms with the US, they can let it slide. Not so much for Russia, China etc.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/01/27/russia-to-...
I don't know that statement's veracity, but it seems credible.
It looks like you are the one looking for excuse. Following your logic Russia should really wait until threats become very serious then be hit in the face and only then react? I think you're asking a for bit too much Kumbaya.
The news is that they can now isolate their Internet domestically and run a Russia-only WWW. They presumably could have shut it off completely from Day 1.
The utility of the web isn't the protocols it technology employed; it's the content.
There are also media of a more liberal nature who can’t comfortably host in RuNet / being registered as Russian companies, so they exist outside. meduza.io being a prominent example
I can imagine online banking with foreign entities would become a problem as well.
Aren't there private and public keys involved ? Public keys are pre-packaged with clients (Firefox/Chrome/etc), so the state can't just change or fake the private keys.
Maybe they would force all clients to prepackage a government key and then change all infrastructure to pretend all websites use this public key for their https traffic?
The strategic implications are quite vast on a variety of levels: political, military, technical, economic.
The 'nationalisation' of the web into various national webs is a big deal.
I find it interesting. I wouldn’t have known otherwise.
Because Russia is the bad guy du jour... They have to gal to try to not sell their country and assets wholesale to foreign interests, plus something kleptocracy something (which the West never minds when it comes to allies, or their own behaviour in Asia, L. America, Africa, etc).
So you get the usual barrage or news items, and people who can't even point Europe on the map (much less such subtlety as to point to e.g. France or Russia) feel like they can have an opinion.
I am not really trying to protect Russia here but articles like the one in the title are written for brain dead people. They should go try janitor work instead.
Thesis: a lot of conservative America have a bit of a thing for the iron wall.
Pitching it thus, as if Russia were to build its own "Great Wall of China", or perhaps putting them in the "North Korea Internet, LOL!" category, probably catches eyeballs.
Although it has to be said that there are other supposedly more free western nations that have done similar dodgy things with their Internet, and didn't quite get the hard treatment in media-at-scale, but rather more of a velvet glove... Yes, 5-eyes nation citizens, you might ought want to take a closer look at the Anglo plans for the Internet, they're not quite savoury ..
One way to deal with this is context. In this case the pattern of Russia with regard to electronic free speech is pretty clear, so it's reasonable to assume these actions are at least partially motivated by something other than emergency preparedness.
As I read the articles, the "disconnection from the internet" seems to be one more tool in the toolbox for internal control. A disconnection will also prevent possible "outside influences" from amplifying problems during any sensitive periods (e.g. the time following Putin's eventual death).
President Vladimir Putin may hunt shirtless, fly with cranes, cuddle with tigers, etc. but he is not (yet?) immortal.
Once Putin dies, the people running the show need a successor for the supreme leader of the Russian Federation to step in fast and assert legitimacy, with force, if necessary.
Any dissent against the successor needs to be squashed quickly, otherwise any displeasure in the form of rioting runs the risk of spreading and giving the currently oppressed opposition chances to grow their influence.
Also, opportunistic power grab attempts by lesser players and regions need to be contained.
Edit: to be clear, I assume Putin will somehow keep his power even after he is officially not the President (after the 2024 elections).
I believe Putin wants to undo glasnost.
Honest, quality journalism is a fantasy. It never existed. Even Benjamin Franklin used his newspaper to influence elections by slandering his political rivals. Not to mention fake news[0].
[0]: https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/02/even-ben-frankli...
Both exist.
Nothing is free from bias - that much is true; that doesn't mean we should adopt your too-cynical attitude.
So we don’t know what exactly they tested. Why is this news, let alone an international one?
Also, as far as I understand, what the Russians were officially saying was that they were developing fallback systems for the event if, in another bout of sanctions, Russia gets disconnected from the global internet. Which, given their standing with the international community, may be a reasonable thing to do. But the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why.