North Korea Gets Second Route To Internet Via Russia Link (bloomberg.com)

Russia is providing North Korea another way to get on the internet, according to cybersecurity outfit FireEye. In an interview on Monday, FireEye's chief technology officer for the Asia-Pacific region, Bryce Boland, said that Russia telecommunications company TransTeleCom opened a new link for users in North Korea. Until now, state-owned China United Network Communications Ltd. was the country's sole connection. Bloomberg reports: "Having an additional loop via Russia gives North Korea more options for how they can operate and reduces the possibility for the United States to put pressure just on a single country to turn off their internet connectivity," Boland said. For Russia, it offers "visibility into North Korean network traffic that might help them understand what North Korea is up to." TransTeleCom, a unit of state-owned Russian Railways JSC, is one of the country's five largest communications service providers, according to its website. The company operates a fiber optic network that runs along railway lines and stretches from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg. TransTeleCom "has historically had a junction of network links with North Korea" under a 2009 agreement with Korea Post and Telecommunications Corp, the company's press office said in an emailed statement that offered no other details.

Comments

Part of a larger strategy

[hyades1]

This is just the latest move in a bigger game.

Not many people noticed, but even while Trump was excoriating China over its support of North Korea and demanding it cut back its support of the rogue regime, Russia was moving in to take up the slack. In the first three months of this year, Russia significantly increased its trade with North Korea. I don't know what more recent figures show, but I have to think it's more of the same.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/06/05/russia-boosts-trade-north-korea-china-cuts/102389824/

From the Chinese perspective, how can this look like anything except Trump using his position of power to push China out of a market so his buddy Vladimir Putin can move in and pick up the slack?

Russia actively undermining the USA, right?

[bogaboga]

A sizeable number of Slashdotters will agree:

Russia is actively undermining the US of A's [potential] hegemony here. Folks in the US administration cannot be impressed by this development, can they?

For Russia, even after a few rounds of sanctions from the US, its economy reportedly grew!

Good for them.