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Russia Wants To Launch Backup DNS System By August 1, 2018 (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report from BleepingComputer: The Russian government plans to build its own "independent internet infrastructure" that will be used by BRICS member states -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The plan was part of the topic list at the October meeting of the Russian Security Council, and President Vladimir Putin approved the initiative with a completion deadline of August 1, 2018, according to Russian news agency RT. The Russian Security Council has today formally asked the country's government to start the building of a backup global DNS system that Russia and fellow BRICS member states could use. The Russian Security Council cited the "increased capabilities of western nations to conduct offensive operations in the informational space." Russia, China, and many other countries have criticized the U.S. for hoarding control over the domain naming system (DNS), a position they claim has allowed the U.S. to intercept and tap global internet traffic. The U.S. has relinquished control over the DNS system last year.
>Are only useful if people point their requests to them.
Most people pick up their ISP's settings, which means the ISP's DNS servers are the first point of contact with the greater DNS hierarchy.
It wouldn't be terribly difficult in Russia to mandate that ISPs use the Russian system by default.
The UN owns ICANN now. The US ceded control over it last year to the UN. The BRICS countries have just as much control over it as their Western counterparts.
As for having one's own DNS, it might be a good idea. In fact, it might be wise for each country to have its own system internally. China does, where there are TLDs that require kanji characters to access. Iran is working on that. Done right, it wouldn't be fragmentation, since the existing DNS system would be in place, but would give countries some independance and access to their own sites, should politics (regardless of who started it) go against them.
They're still going to have access to the regular internet so no change in hacking or spam. Just regular russians being put on an internet that is easier to sensor when the censors control the DNS system and can not only pull opposition friendly websites' DNS certifications, they can also deny them certifications in the first place.
In case you're not familiar with the Russian media landscape, pretty much all newspapers and all TV channels are loyal to the Kremlin. This is because Putin put the fear of god into the oligarchs who own them when he jailed Mikhail Khodorkovsky on a made up fraud charge and then nationalized his company because he owned media that was pro opposition. The internet is really the only outlet the political opposition has that isn't actively trying to sabotage them and promote the people in power and their policies.
What all this really boils down to is another crackdown on the opposition following years of large anti-government protests organized via the internet and which the government has been unable to quash.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
You don't know how "the web" works. Anyone can make their own DNS system and many of us do. It's easy and changes nothing about the rest of the internet.
I have my own DNS servers too. As you say, anyone can stand one up. Just choose your favorite *NIX distribution and configure Unbound and NSD. BOOM! There you go.
I'm not arguing against you; just pointing out two aspects of your statement that might benefit from clarification:
1. The "early" Internet (a problematic term, I admit) did not have "net neutrality" in a pure sense; it did not allow commercial use. So while it is true that at that point no commercial interests were acting as gatekeepers/toll booths, this was trivially true because there were no commercial interests on the network. I suspect that there may have been debate amongst early Internet pioneers about what kinds of policies might become necessary for controlling/prioritizing traffic; I don't know whether they foresaw just how significant the Internet would become or how commercial interests would seek to monetize it. (For the record, I'm in favor of the US classifying ISPs as common carriers under Title II.)
2. The U.S. policies such as whether US ISPs are regulated as "common carriers" under US law/regulations may have some related affects on the global Internet, but these policies only affect ISP operations in the U.S., not all Internet service providers globally. Other countries are free to choose how they regulate data traffic within their borders, including traffic on the "Internet." So it may be an overstatement to claim that the US is on a path towards "Internet destruction" by a change in regulation that applies to US ISPs only.