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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.
I don't know if this can be stopped but it should be.
A backup makes it sound like it is a plan in case of failure. This sounds a bit like they are looking for an alternate DNS if they disapprove of something the US (or other countries) has done. From the article "In addition, the backup DNS system also allows these states to isolate websites and services that other countries could not access."
Sent from my TARDIS
Might work for nationalist interests, but clearly against the goals of global commmunication. Also, clearly obtuse to bring BRICS into it as you lack common language and national objectives for some kind of unified system. Seems more like cover for saying Russia is effectively disconnecting from the internet.
It seems to be the answer to everything these days
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Well now.
I don't read AC
>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.
Every bit of that was hypocritical bull. It's an open secret that Russia has been conducting their own offensive operations for years now, and they have been getting away with it specifically because the US can't "intercept and tap global internet traffic" as the Russians claim.
But their excuses for segmenting off their own corner of the internet aren't really meant for us, anyway; they're directed inward. In fact, this entire maneuver is almost certainly directly linked to Russia's desire (and that of their allies) to more thoroughly block access at will to large swaths of the internet, for their own populace. Don't like the latest anti-Russian sentiment on Slashdot or on Facebook, because it comes to close to exposing the truth? No problem -- just block it! When they start implementing their real agenda, they'll likely position it as an "anti-porn" initiative or some such thing, but make no mistake; this is all about controlling the information that reaches the people that matter the most... the ones who might one day rise up against the Orwellian control being exerted by their government.
Information control only works for so long, before little bits of the truth leak through the cracks.
One part of the comment which is not stupid is that US control of the internet only benefits the US but not the other 96% of the earth's population. (Some moronic idiot once replied with a [citation needed]. Clue: google for US population. Google for world population. Divide.)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
If Russia does launch alternate DNS servers, will they use re-usable boosters?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
This is how I expect it to work, along with requiring Russian ISPs to block DNS requests to any other address by law.
So previously, resolution (for 99% of end users) worked like this: User > ISP DNS (recursive resolver) > Authoritative nameserver (eventually, please lets not get dragged into the weeds here, we all understand the process)
Now it will be: User > ISP DNS (forwarder) > Russian Government DNS Servers (recursive resolver) > Authoritative name server
Then, the government just requires ISP to: deny [tcp|udp] any any 53.
The only way around this would be for people to run DNS on a non-standard port (and reconfigure resolver libraries to use a non-standard port, good luck on peoples iphones) or to use a VPN to tunnel traffic. This would effectively block probably 99% of Russian (or BRICS) DNS traffic.
I don't think their goal is to block 100%. This is to block enough to have a de facto internet "Kill Switch". Anytime they want, the "Russian Government DNS" server above just disables recursive DNS resolution for everything but Russian government TLD and you've effectively shut down the Internet. This also gives the government a tremendous amount of direct access to data from users. It's terrifying and awful, but smart for them.
This is Slashdot. We are the nerds. We know that Hillary's Giant Reset Button was not connected to anything important. Ms. Clinton doesn't even know what a reset vector is, nor how to code up from one.
For that matter, most Slashbots don't, either, but that's okay. Timers don't need to be set and interrupts masked, when you're just a slinger of jabbascript drivel.