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Russia To Disconnect From the Internet as Part of a Planned Test (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.

Russian authorities and major internet providers are planning to disconnect the country from the internet as part of a planned experiment, Russian news agency RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK) reports. From a report: The reason for the experiment is to gather insight and provide feedback and modifications to a proposed law introduced in the Russian Parliament in December 2018. A first draft of the law mandated that Russian internet providers should ensure the independence of the Russian internet space (Runet) in the case of foreign aggression to disconnect the country from the rest of the internet. In addition, Russian telecom firms would also have to install "technical means" to re-route all Russian internet traffic to exchange points approved or managed by Roskomnazor, Russia's telecom watchdog.

9 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Well someone's preparing for War. Next up China. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, I guess it was fun whilst it lasted, before the politicians wrecked it.

  2. Muh-russia by GLMDesigns · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Think of all the spam bots and election tampering bots being down for a day or so. All those muh Russia types should be cheering.

    --
    If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
    Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    1. Re:Muh-russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wrong, because most of those spam and election tampering bots are actually operated from Ukraine, Holland, Estonia, Latvia and United Kingdom.

    2. Re:Muh-russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      This is only about shutting off common people in Russia so that they can't get information from outside sources.
      Propaganda houses will still have access to internet and they probably go through external machines anyway to not be too easy to filter out.

    3. Re:Muh-russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Think of all the spam bots and election tampering bots being down for a day or so. All those muh Russia types should be cheering.

      You've got that backwards. This is about protecting russian civilian infrastructure from retaliation. Their military operations will still be online. They aren't cutting themselves off from the internet to do anyone else any favors. The time-frame overlaps with Felonious DJT's threat to shutdown american cyber-defenses again. It should also be viewed in context of Russia's liquidating their holdings of American debt instruments, further insulating them from another form of possible retaliation.

    4. Re:Muh-russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      > Yeah... hand-waving unspecified claims sourced to the single biggest purveyor of disinformation in the US isn't as persuasive as you think it is.

      Isn't that how we got into this Russia stuff as is? A lot of articles that all sourced each other, based on anonymous rumors, eventually traced back to the DNC working with a British spy (Steele) who was in the employ of the Oleg Deripaksa they're trying to throw under the buss now, never mind Mueller's own dealings with him?

  3. Update hardware. by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Being how the Russians with some other countries have militarized the internet, causing other countries to fight back, I could see this as an opportunity to update all the equipment as to stop foreign attacks on them, as well disconnect any attacks in progress.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  4. smart on their part by WindBourne · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Russia and China are working together. It makes sense to have similar first strike capabilities. And yes, this is a first strike type capability. Protecting your communications.

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    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  5. Russia in depth by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Jokes aside the Russian mafia elites along with their God Father Tsar Putin do everything to brainwash the poor Russian people into believing the country is the best in the world despite very low wages, underdeveloped industries, technological gap, huge brain drain, horrible health care (which is roughly 20-30 years behind the rest of the world), rampant corruption, poor ecological situation in many cities, comparatively low average life span, totally malfunctioning courts and police that mainly serve the richest.

    The Internet is the only media that cannot fully control, so this could be a nice test of what else they can deprive the people of, so that the opposition has literally no means of revealing the truth about the inner workings of Russia.

    You see, in many countries of the worlds there's mafia however as for Russia mafia has its own ... state.