Vladimir Putin Wants His Own Internet (bloomberg.com)

A bill that's progressing through Russia's legislature could grant local authorities deeper control over internet access. The so-called "Sovereign Internet" bill seeks to set up a centralized hub officials can use to manage the flow of information in the nation. From a report: Putin is touting the initiative as a defensive response to the Trump Administration's new cyber strategy, which permits offensive measures against Russia and other designated adversaries. But industry insiders, security experts and even senior officials say political upheaval is the bigger concern. "This law isn't about foreign threats, or banning Facebook and Google, which Russia can already do legally," said Andrei Soldatov, author of "The Red Web: The Kremlin's Wars on the Internet" and co-founder of Agentura.ru, a site that tracks the security services. "It's about being able to cut off certain types of traffic in certain areas during times of civil unrest."

Comments

France's Minitel is for sale

[retroworks]

May be all Russia can afford.

Re: France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

bears on unicycles every one.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[PolygamousRanchKid]

May be all Russia can afford.

Why do they need their own Internet?

From comments here, I thought they already p0wned this one.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[nwaack]

Yes, because everyone who disagrees with you is a Russian Troll.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[DickBreath]

Russia may already pwn the current intarwebs, and that may be the very reason they want their very own intarweb tubes -- to protect from retaliation.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[MightyMartian]

I think they're probably not happy that it turns out they're own astroturfers are vulnerable. The problem with cyberwarfare is not much different than conventional warfare; just because your bullets can hit the enemy does not discount the ability of the enemy's bullets hitting you.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[lgw]

Or at least make it more blatant when external powers are messing about.

It's well worth noting that the modern US military (and probably many others) sees the "cyber domain" as just as important a domain of warfare as air, land, sea an space. And specifically, manipulation of civilian perspective, not just hacking enemy comms.

Russia's manipulation of public perception as they walked into the Ukraine--they did very simple things like remove patches from their uniforms--to keep it uncertain for a couple of days that it really was Russia is seen as the future of conflict. It doesn't matter if the truth comes out in a couple of days: sewing doubt about what's really going on for just a short time is enough for a quick military action to be over before public outrage begins.

It's a strange new world, but manipulation of social media and public perception can't be ignored any more than "space" on the modern battlefield.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

Social media and public perception have nothing to do with infrastructure hacks and cyber-warfare really. You're conflating a propaganda campaign with the actual warfare that would follow.

When it goes off, the internet GOES OFF. There will be no social media for a few days. There MAY be no power/water for a few days, airline flights, etc. THAT is what we're talking about.

Not a bunch of idiotic Estonian trollfarmers making bullshit and posting it on Breitbart - ACTUAL CYBER WARFARE is going to open your fucking eyes to the ways we expose ourselves by sharing a network with them.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[lgw]

Social media and public perception have nothing to do with infrastructure hacks and cyber-warfare really. You're conflating a propaganda campaign with the actual warfare that would follow.

They are both the "cyber domain" in modern warfare. As far back as Clausewitz it's been understood that attacking the moral strength of the enemy is just as valuable as attacking the enemy soldiers or logistics. But more than that: social media is often the fastest way information gets around in the modern world, and the modern battlefield is all about acting faster than your opponent can obtain the information to make a decision.

When it goes off, the internet GOES OFF. There will be no social media for a few days. There MAY be no power/water for a few days, airline flights, etc. THAT is what we're talking about.

Perhaps. But that's more of an act of desperation than of efficiently fighting a war. If you're going to invade an ally of a major power, you want them to be unsure of what you've done until it's too late. Doubt is your weapon at first.

And connecting utilities infrastructure to the internet will always be stupid. You don't need your own internet to solve that problem, you need that stuff off of any internet whatsoever.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

" it's been understood that attacking the moral strength of the enemy is just as valuable as attacking the enemy soldiers or logistics." - Yet never demonstrated effectively. Every war was fought physically anyway.

They are two different concepts : influencing people with propaganda to weaken them, and actually attacking their physical resources to make them capitulate.

Cyber warfare is the latter. Information warfare is the former. They are distinct despite your Clausewitz reference. That's why we have different responses to them.

Entirely different types of conflict cannot be readily conflated even by the well-meaning ignorant.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

"But that's more of an act of desperation than of efficiently fighting a war. " - Well, wrong. We are not currently at war. When a cyber attack occurs, we may very well be at that point. THAT is warfare. We are in detente now.

What you're referring to is propaganda and spycraft. They relate to war of course, but they are not synonymous with actual war.

Re: France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one an not a russian trolley cart, I am an American. I think your BS is shitty compared to my BS and to think you voted for Trump like Putin wanted, you are such shit.

Re: France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

You know US agencies hit Russian troll farm agency already? Maybe spooked Putin to know they can be owned so easily that their only protection is to use typewriters, for security from American spies, hahahahaha

Maybe if typewriters didnâ(TM)t make so much noise when typing, like so easy to train AI to listen to typing and capture all the input LOL

Re: France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, "not a russian trolley cart", can't speak english. Try harder putin

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[lgw]

" it's been understood that attacking the moral strength of the enemy is just as valuable as attacking the enemy soldiers or logistics." - Yet never demonstrated effectively. Every war was fought physically anyway.

The US won every major battle throughout the war in Vietnam. Then we surrendered and left. That is straight from Clausewitz on how a weaker foe can defeat a stronger, when it's not "total war".

They are two different concepts : influencing people with propaganda to weaken them, and actually attacking their physical resources to make them capitulate.

It was pretty well demonstrated in WWI that attacking the enemy's infrastructure makes little difference. We bombed a shitload of German factories, only to have them back a week later. Only logistical "choke points" help. Bombing the same factories every week didn't help, but cutting off Germany's supply of e.g. tungsten helped a lot.

Attacking civilian resources only causes capitulation if moral strength fails. As long as morale or determination persists, the war continues.

You can kill all the enemy soldiers. You can destroy military logistics so that the soldiers run out of bullets or food. You can destroy the will to fight.

At least, that's "total war". You can of course attack civilian infrastructure of a stronger power in hope they will judge the cost of the conflict to exceed the gains. Seems to have the opposite effect, however, more often than not. People tend to get very pissed at that sort of thing, and form a strong desire to hit back harder.

Cyber warfare is the latter. Information warfare is the former. They are distinct despite your Clausewitz reference. That's why we have different responses to them.

Entirely different types of conflict cannot be readily conflated even by the well-meaning ignorant.

Don't take my work for it, listen to these guys: https://youtu.be/qOTYgcdNrXE?t... The interview with the 4-star General on this topic is enlightening.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest of the world is catching onto cyber warfare and expanding their military forces here.
Russia has been depicted as a major flinger of shit on the internet for a while now. And since every human with half a brain can see the suspicious amount of tu quoque nonsense whenever Russia is mentioned in a non flattering way on the internet makes them look rather suspicious, it's not that far off that the Kremlin is actually invested into this.

For example recently I've seen one of my favourite science and engineering with slow motion youtubers having content that promotes US military (and allies) interests and having a 4 star US general implying Russia as a hostile cyber warfare force on the internet to the huge audience that channel has. They even talk about the very video they are in being considered to be a "weapon" itself.
If true, Putin ought to know very well what kind of effect their own methods may have on his own society, whose trust in him is apparently at the lowest point ever, when the table finally turns on them. Imagine if NATO and other US allies combined their cyber efforts and start to fling shit back on a massive scale. Having the option to shut your constituents out from this, while your state actors can still do whatever they want seems like a rational choice.

Of course it won't be 100% effective, like we can see with examples like China or North Korea. Information will find a way to get through by smuggling USB drives and similar things even in NK. But it does make things a lot more nasty for the regular citizen.

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off with your no true Scotsman fallacies. IF Russia actually drew blood I'm sure you morons would find another excuse why this still isn't warfare and their actions were way more justified than what random thing the US does.

Propaganda if used by state actors is a form of warfare. And it works exceptionally well during times of relative peace in the targeted society, when there's no "us vs. them" fuelled by an external threat. Those are the times where people are especially open to questioning the intentions of their own states.
The principle of divide and conquer is nothing new. It's a century old strategy to break apart larger problems into smaller and more easily manageable parts. It's also often applied in science and engineering.

Re: France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what the US agencies that want your money are telling you, but did they?

We haven't heard the Russians bitching about "election interference", "collusion" and "US hackers" all that much, so maybe it wasn't much of a "retaliation".

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[Anonymous Coward]

People may laugh at this, but in a sense it isn't that far from the truth. Minitel was very much a top down system, with clearance/anointing of private enterprises to operate commercially on the system. The vast majority of users are consumers.

How is that all that different from the current chinese internet for example? Imagine current smart TV's now cranked up a bit in terms of available services and features, and most people would probably be happy with that level of service. They get more entertainment channels than they could ever watch, and controlled outlets to vent their minor frustrations to reduce societal stress, plus commercial goods ordering, and service ordering. Not that different from a Minitel terminal with broadcast TV isn't it?

Re:France's Minitel is for sale

[dcw3]

And connecting utilities infrastructure to the internet will always be stupid. You don't need your own internet to solve that problem, you need that stuff off of any internet whatsoever.

While I agree that's what you'd want, that horse left the barn long ago. I doubt any nation has offline utilities anymore.

Does that mean he gets his own goatse?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so, make it happen immediately

Re: Does that mean he gets his own goatse?

[Anonymous Coward]

And can we ship APK to PutiNet?

Re: Does that mean he gets his own goatse?

[ClickOnThis]

And can we ship APK to PutiNet?

How about Cyberia? [badum-*tish*]

Last thing he would do

[Anonymous Coward]

The absolute last thing any politician or ruler would do is ban Spybook or Google. The permanent profiles they build on individuals are quite literally Stalin's dream.

Re:Last thing he would do

[geekmux]

The absolute last thing any politician or ruler would do is ban Spybook or Google. The permanent profiles they build on individuals are quite literally Stalin's dream.

You assume a lot from an entire planet full of politicians and rulers.

You do know other forms of politics besides socialism/communism exist, right? Not every leader is a murderous dictator...

Re:Last thing he would do

[bugs2squash]

your favorite flavor of politician is above all that then huh ?

Re:Last thing he would do

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as how the current leader of the "free world" aspires to be exactly that, I'm not sure you have a leg to stand on.

Re:Last thing he would do

[geekmux]

your favorite flavor of politician is above all that then huh ?

Yes, I oddly enough prefer a leader who isn't a murderous dictator. And regardless of anyone's assumptions of how bad things "really" are, they're NOT as bad as they were for anyone who managed to survive socialism/communism half a century ago.

100 million lives lost tend to validate that statement.

Re:Last thing he would do

[Kjella]

The absolute last thing any politician or ruler would do is ban Spybook or Google. The permanent profiles they build on individuals are quite literally Stalin's dream.

But foreign companies means a lot of corporate resistance, public outcry, possible exposure and potential for other governments to snoop. China wants the Chinese on WeChat and Baidu, not Facebook and Google. Same with Russia and VKontakte. If they can use some legitimate-ish excuse to drive people away from American services, they will.

Re:Last thing he would do

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the positive outlook on Stalin. He didn't have to care about targeting individuals when he was planning to move an entire population of one place to the other side of the world. Sometimes without the appropriate means of survival in the new environment. Targeting suspected individuals like this is more of the East Germany's repertoire.

Re:Last thing he would do

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know other forms of politics besides socialism/communism exist

I do, and from where I'm standing, they all seem to be in favor of mass surveillance.

Re:Last thing he would do

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact they're selling it as an export to countries like Saudi Arabia and South Sudan to use against their captive populations - BECAUSE CAPITALISM CAN DO NO WRONG, RIGHT REPUBLICAN TRAITORS?

Re:Last thing he would do

[geekmux]

You do know other forms of politics besides socialism/communism exist

I do, and from where I'm standing, they all seem to be in favor of mass surveillance.

As much as I'm against mass surveillance, I'll take that over mass genocide any day.

Learn from history.

Re: Last thing he would do

[Anonymous Coward]

What "100 millions lives lost" are you blabbering about? That is propaganda pure and simple with no basis in fact whatsoever.

Good (but not really)

[DogDude]

My initial reaction is: "good!" It seems like the vast majority of the attacks/spam/garbage on the Internet comes from Russia, and has since the Net hit the public at large back int he early 90's

Of course, this (and what China is doing) pretty much destroy the entire point of the Internet. It'd be good (for me) in the short term, but bad for humanity as a whole, of course.

Re:Good (but not really)

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely agree.

Re: Good (but not really)

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia is a scapegoat, when banned from the internet people will finally realize this.

Re: Good (but not really)

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia is a scapegoat, when banned from the internet people will finally realize this.

Shh! That does not fit the narrative!

Re:Good (but not really)

[Can'tNot]

It wouldn't be good for anyone in the short term, other than the Russian oligarchs. The people causing the problems are acting on behalf of the state, and would certainly be exempt from this. There might be a few independent actors who would be slowed by this temporarily, but if China is any indication then access to the real internet will be available to anyone with a little knowledge and a willingness to break the law. Since there's no chance of prosecution for these people, this is no barrier at all.

Re: Good (but not really)

[Anonymous Coward]

All the more reason to ban them now. Then ban China afterwards.

Re:Good (but not really)

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet is still open to attacks from Russia, but the Russian internet will have less attacks from the outside. Russia can use the internet if it still wants. This will not solve your problem.

Re: Good (but not really)

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia is used as a scapegoat alright. But let's not forget that this doesn't automatically make them the good guys either.
Of course this doesn't fit into the narratives of false dichotomy morons, for whom Russia is either entirely evil or the good guys. For whom anyone who doesn't suck Putin's cock must believe in the collusion narrative. Or who doesn't believe in the collusion narrative must certainly suck Putin's cock.
There's still the plausible middle ground. There was no collusion. That Russia isn't responsible for everything bad that happens. But that Putin is still a piece of shit who tries to meddle wherever he sees an opportunity.

And no, if you have some common sense you probably won't realize it it when they're banned from the internet.
IF state funded agencies are behind these things they're accused of, then Putin sure as hell won't lock them out as well. This entire thing has only one practical effect, to keep the Russian civil population from accessing external information sources as easily as they are able to do now.

Re: Good (but not really)

[Tyler Durden]

Whether or not it fits the "narrative" (whatever that means) doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is if it fits the truth.

Putin and Trump are putting out the same 1:1 lines

[Anonymous Coward]

Except at the end, when Putin cheers on NK directly. *(Hint, Mr. President, Vladimir is NOT YOUR FRIEND, MORON) https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-blames-dems-cheers-kim-after-trumps-korea-summit-fail

I want Russians off on their own network too

[GodfatherofSoul]

n/t

US needs their own also

[Anonymous Coward]

To block all the Russian unwanted traffic.

The final answer to "the internet has no borders"

[Anonymous Coward]

So they made some.

I made my own internet in college

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a little lonely, but I could say whatever the fuck I wanted.

Re:I made my own internet in college

[jfdavis668]

What is the bandwidth of two cans and a piece of string?

Re: I made my own internet in college

[c6gunner]

I use the thick 3 1/2" x 3/4" ones, but really you can use any width you like.

Re: I made my own internet in college

[iggymanz]

I go single mode with taut elastic string

Re:I made my own internet in college

[DickBreath]

You can get acceptable levels of bandwidth if you are willing to give up latency.

What is the bandwidth of a cargo plane loaded with 512 GB micro SD cards making an eight hour flight? (but ignore the latency)

Re:I made my own internet in college

[bobbutts]

So ignoring the time and labor needed to insert and then write to these devices and then remove and load them into the plane, then finally do the same in reverse in order to read them it will come down to either the maximum load of the airplane or maximum volume. I have no idea about the volume, so I'm going to assume that this payload will fit.

I chose pre-order 1TB Sandisk "Extreme" cards from Amazon for $404 each since the release is only 10 days away, and we can double our bandwidth over 512GB cards. For the cargo plane, we'll use a Boeing 747-8 which has a cargo capacity of 140 tons. Each card weighs .5g so each pound of capacity is enough for ~900 cards. Multiply that by 2000 and we have 1,800,000 sd cards per ton, multiply that by 140 and we end up at 252M sd card capacity for a 747. So we're talking about 252 EB (exabyte) per 747. The cost of the SD cards is $102B USD.

Bender!

[Anonymous Coward]

With blackjack and hookers?

Re:Bender!

[DickBreath]

Hookers?

You must be referring to those bent wire things in the closet that I hang my shirts on?

One time at this one hotel, I looked in the closet and there were only three hookers in the closet! And I have more than three shirts! So I called the front desk and insisted that they send at least a dozen hookers to my room IMMEDIATELY !!!

ATTENTION MORON GEEKMUX

[Anonymous Coward]

Communism != Socialism. They're not 1:1 and they're not really comparable, especially in the context of US health care, etc. You're a moron. That is all. BTW, the Republican President supports almost ALL murderous dictators. Exclusively.

Instead of our Democratic allies, countries with strong checks and balances, the sitting Republican President prefers autocratic strong men who respect no law.

This is the murderous dictator problem.

Just like America has its own?

[Anonymous Coward]

And China its own?

Let's be honest here, this is another western scare puff piece by jewberg.

Will we sell him the equipment?

[layabout]

Or will peeNet be built on Russian tube-based Cisco router clones? Might not be a bad thing. At least those routers would survive an EMP blast

AOL

[Anonymous Coward]

So Putin want to recreate AOL from the 90s with a Russian twist

Re:AOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Twist is it will be all fiber. Russia On Fiber Line.

We need our own local "Internets" too...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Internet as a whole has become too big. Too much malware, spyware, gov't surveillance, top down censorship, back doors, and lawyers. You can't post anything nowadays without someone getting triggered by whatever the f*k you said.

In the future, the Internet as we know it must become more disconnected and ad-hoc. The current state is too damned fragile and it is all going to fall apart sooner or later. Just wait.

Re:We need our own local "Internets" too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Any change to the Internet is just another challenge for those looking for weaknesses and exploits. There is currently no system in use that cannot be exploited in one way or another. Even systems not connected to the Internet can be exploited. All it takes is time and money. Just ask Iran about their disconnected Centrifuge Lab located in the middle of one of their most protected military installations getting powned.

thought crime

[goombah99]

Next up get arrested for drug evasion. Thx1138

Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Gore could help him with that.

Meet your new Soviet bloc

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as the old Soviet Bloc.

Re: Meet your new Soviet bloc

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia the Internet browses you!

Censorship by any other name.

[Virtucon]

Is still censorship.

Definition of Universe.

[RyanFenton]

Warning: Linguistics and philosophy.

If you connect your network to the internet, it is part of the internet. That's what the internet is. It's the network between networks.

What he wants is not an internet, but a national intranet - well, unless he never connects it in any way to the rest of the world - then and only then would it be its own internet.

It's sort of like the definition of observable universe. If you can observe something, it is part of the universe. That's the whole 'Uni' part of universe - just one bucket to put things. So, if there's a gateway to some new place you can walk to/from - then you didn't open a gateway to another universe, you made the universe larger by opening that door. Connecting to our universe inherently joins the two spaces into once cross-observable space, even if you put protections and limitations in place.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Definition of Universe.

[Anonymous Coward]

"sub-superpower subnet"

Re:Definition of Universe.

[whoever57]

If you are going to discuss linguistics relating to what is the Internet, then you should capitalize it properly ("Internet").

Re:Definition of Universe.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have long argued that everything is natural. If it exists it's part of nature.

Re:Definition of Universe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Linguistics and pedantics are different things.

Re:Definition of Universe.

[steveha]

If you can observe something, it is part of the universe.

I think of it as: anyplace that a photon could travel to in the normal way that photons travel would be part of our universe.

People have posited the existence of other universes. It would require some unknown method of travel to go from one universe to another. The collection of all universes can be called the Multiverse.

I recently saw, in a comic, the idea that there could then be multiple Multiverses. That doesn't make sense to me any more than the idea of multiple Internets.

I read a web comic called Unicorn Jelly that really gave me some food for thought. How could you visit another universe where the physical laws are different? Only two ways: either you would have to travel in a little bubble where your usual physical laws apply somehow, or else you would have to be translated into the new universe. The Universe of Unicorn Jelly isn't made out of atoms, it's made out of "tratoms", and in order to visit you would have to have your body translated into tratoms. In principle there could be an infinite number of universes with different physical laws, and only in a tiny fraction of them would people survive the translation necessary to enter a universe. Luckily the universe of Unicorn Jelly is one where people can survive, or else there wouldn't have been a comic.

P.S. Unicorn Jelly, in the beginning, seems like a slightly silly and harmless story. It's a bigger story than it first appears, and I don't want to spoil it, but I will say that it is a story that could only be told in the universe in which it is set. The very nature of the Universe of the story drives the plot! So, the story of Unicorn Jelly meets my personal standard for science fiction: the story wouldn't be the same if you took away the science (fictional science, here).

P.P.S. If you like Unicorn Jelly and want more multiversal craziness from the same author, the follow-on story To Save Her is kinda set in the same universe. I mean, it's actually set in an infinite number of variations of the same universe, and features a somewhat infinite cast of characters, but we follow along a half-dozen or so through their story arc, as they visit about a half-dozen alternate universes. (They only visit alternates of their own universe, where the physical laws are the same.)

Re:Definition of Universe.

[RyanFenton]

>>If you are going to discuss linguistics relating to what is the Internet, then you should capitalize it properly ("Internet").

Nah - I think it's been a while since almost all standards bodies and style guides stopped suggesting that.

Capitalizing is kind of a system of giving credit - and the internet is past the point where there's anything to give credit to that would help anything. In that sense, it's bigger than English or any single language, in the sense that there's nothing trying to tally how widespread its use is - it's the exchange system that needs no special name.

That's why I compare it with the universe or concepts like science or math. The universe needs no special capitalization either.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Definition of Universe.

[RyanFenton]

Cool - I'll check it out. Thanks!

Ryan Fenton

Re:Definition of Universe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus showing the flaw in your original post.

Any interconnected networks is an internet, not intranet. Technically, every home with a router is an internet. The major worldwide network of networks has a name: the Internet.

Re:Definition of Universe.

[Micah NC]

That's a mental distinction. A rose by any other name smells just as sweet, ... etc.

Re:Definition of Universe.

[Areyoukiddingme]

Thus showing the flaw in your original post.

Any interconnected networks is an internet, not intranet. Technically, every home with a router is an internet. The major worldwide network of networks has a name: the Internet.

The flaw isn't in his original post. The flaw is in the understanding of moronic journalists who have been arguing since 2002 that Internet is a common noun, when it definitely is not. The Associated Press and The New York Times both decided to stop capitalizing the word in 2016, even when referring to the singular, properly named Internet. Oxford English Dictionary claims the common noun spelling is more common than the proper name spelling in the UK as of April 2016, while admitting the proper name is still more common in the US.

Journalists are ignorant. Two corporate campus networks linked with a bridge over a leased line is an internet but are not the Internet.

What's funny is they still use the definite article in front of the word, while completely ignoring the contradiction.

Now we're gettin' it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon it'll be individual, government controlled "internets" all over the globe. Heck, maybe in the states we cane have fifty of them! Wouldn't want Californians able to access that shitty prop 65 cancer causing data in other states!

what governments really fear

[swell]

Almost every government talks about threats from outside their borders, while in reality they most fear the threat inside their border. China, with more than a billion citizens is most afraid of what they might do if not carefully 'managed'. All the petty dictators of the world fear their citizens but it goes way beyond that. Even the US (fill in your own observations of US repression) . . .

Re:what governments really fear

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost every government talks about threats from outside their borders, while in reality they most fear the threat inside their border.

Naw. What they fear are citizens who aren't afraid of things. Russia pointing to the big, bad American-ski Internets as a boogey-man and saying they need their own to "protect their interests". This is all about funding some project so someone Ruskies can get rich-er skimming off the top.

China, with more than a billion citizens is most afraid of what they might do if not carefully 'managed'.

Of course they are, but the leaders in China already have total control over the nation's purse and the Internet. They scare citizens by making them afraid of their own government and of other citizens turning them in.

All the petty dictators of the world fear their citizens but it goes way beyond that. Even the US (fill in your own observations of US repression) . . .

Specially the US. Turn in all Anarchists/Communists/Hippies/Liberals/Trumpers/Terrorists/Muslims/Black Panthers/KKK/BLM/ETC/ETC.

Re:what governments really fear

[Anonymous Coward]

Naw. What they fear are citizens who aren't afraid of things. Russia pointing to the big, bad American-ski Internets as a boogey-man and saying they need their own to "protect their interests". This is all about funding some project so someone Ruskies can get rich-er skimming off the top.

They got invaded and had to fight back using human wave attacks and got 10% or more their population killed, which the "American-ski" will never have to face off.

Really, some sort of national plan to reconfigure routers and DNS servers is not that much since they're building or have built : desktop/server CPUs, navigation/positioning satellite constellation, two main brands of jet fighters, supersonic strategic bombers, nuclear powered cruise missiles, magnetohydrodynamic hypersonic missiles launched on top of an ICBM. There is also a laser, though I don't know what it's for. So, a bunch of servers and sysadmins, or a giant borscht of rocket nuclear sonic laser radar missile jets. When you're doing all the latter you might as well do the former?

Obligatory...

[LordHighExecutioner]

...in soviet Russia, internet wants YOU!!!

What can you expect from an ex-KGB thug?

[OneHundredAndTen]

The man is anchored in the Cold War, and will remain there till he dies.

Re:What can you expect from an ex-KGB thug?

[DCFusor]

Nope, you're the one stuck, along with much of our government. Projection much? This anti-Russia everything has driven us closer to war, just to mess with Cheeto - he can't attempt any worthwhile diplomacy without being called a traitor doing treason now. Is war really what you wanted? If so, you're the one who needs a head removed - from the neck, after pulling it out of your nether region. Are you so hate filled you don't care about the rest of us getting killed? Sure looks that way - there are thousands of examples of anti-cheeto hate speech that basically are driving what's possible in foreign affairs. Try to pull out of the sand and death in Syria? Treason to the military industrial congressional complex (Eisenhower's original title for it). Try to stop a stupid Korean war that's been going on since I was born, quite a long time ago? Treasonous legitimizing of the actual (like it or not, and I don't) leader of DPRK. Not useful if you want to end that war, pull up mines, and start economic recovery which would be good for all. Too many examples of total evil being used just because some cheeto snuck past the usual "selection process" and got elected - note the choice of words carefully there. We've had plenty of dolts as presidents. Making it worse is productive how?

Re:What can you expect from an ex-KGB thug?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are funny. You think the entire world always and only revolves around US internal politics. Because the Democrats blame Russia and you hate the Democrats Russia must be the good guys. Or at least they're better than the Democrats of your own country. And then you talk about projection, which makes this even more funny.

If I were American I would agree that you may not have to worry that much about Putin as some of your Democrats do or Republicans have done in the past. You do have indeed a lot more important things to worry about.

But I don't live half around the world away from Russia. I am, like someone like you you'd say, Eurotrash. Russia's border is within driving or boating distance. And ever since my country has joined an alliance with other states that havn't raped our economy and democracy for the latter half of the last century, they've threatened us ever since their little communism club crumbled upon itself.

Given Putin's foreign politics what he does is a continuation of the Cold War. It's the same lies as before, blaming everything on the West. And while some of it is certainly true, since the US has its share of assholes, they blame the West for way too many thing. Back in my days for example we learned in school that the Americans dropped Colorado beetles from their spy planes to destroy our potato harvest. Which is why they send us kids out on the fields to collect their larvae.

Today they tells us that the US and the EU want to make us gay so that we die out and or die of AIDS eventually. They tell us that the EU wants to destroy our sovereignty. Projection much? Of course Putin would know best about that. They tell us that Western media brainwashes us. Projection much? They also adopted Nazi conspiracy theories by blaming the Jews for everything. Of course this fits their narrative as the "Jew state" Israel has been allied and under the protection of the US for a long time. And of course Israel also does a lot of despicable things. They make good scape goats and old Nazi rhetoric works just as well as it did back then. While they're using that rhetoric they are still quick at calling out anyone who opposes them fascist like in Ukraine. Yes, there are strong nationalist movements there. But can you blame them for wanting control of their own country back after having been under the thumb of Russia for so long? Yes? Hypocrite much? Don't you find it curious why there's so many strong nationalist movements in former Soviet states to begin with? Still, they hate the nationalists here, where they oppose Russia. While on the other hand they love all the fascists in Poland or Hungary who conveniently oppose one of Russia's enemies, the EU.

From his point of view it may be all perfectly justified, because he tries to protect Russian interest and their old power structures from complete failure, and the West with its strong economy encroaching on their territory is a threat to that. For him it probably all aligns up perfectly.

For example most people around here enjoy Western media. Hollywood is still big, American TV shows are big. Especially those from pay TV channels like HBO. Netflix is big. And while most of us may not pay for those services but simply pirate them, we still watch those shows that carry their Western ideology in their messages.

From Putin's perspective he is fighting a losing war here as the old and good values are slowly being replaced by Western diversity. To me it's no surprise that he'll try to cut off his people from these forms of media under the guise of protecting them from cyber attacks.

From my perspective however he's still a threat to rebuilding our country, to our path to prosperity.

Cue the Russian Reversal jokes

[TomR teh Pirate]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Cue the Russian Reversal jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks!
I was one of the ignorant ones who thought Yakov Smirnoff came up with it.

Geekmux you have below-zero credibility on that.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.npr.org/2017/05/02/526520042/6-strongmen-trumps-praised-and-the-conflicts-it-presents
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/02/28/donald-trump-history-dictators-sot-vpx-ip.cnn
https://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/trump-praises-north-korea-s-murderous-dictator-after-failed-summit-1450300995981
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-praises-kim-jong-un-vietnam-summit-2019-3
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/02/donald-trump-sunday-morning-praising-brutal-dictator-kim-korea/
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/trump-xi-jinping-dictators/554810/

Pick your favorite source, read it, and realize you're running distraction for a major backer of murderous dictatorships. Trump is a traitor.

When you back him and thus essentially back those dictatorships also? YOU become a traitor ALSO, Geekmux. YOU ARE DOING IT NOW.

Correct yourself while you still can. Come to Jesus, ask for forgiveness for your dishonesty, or roast in Hell. I could give a fuck either way.

  But! If you continue putting out bullshit propaganda in defense of autocrats? THEN YOU ARE MY ENEMY. In fact, you're the enemy of EVERY AMERICAN.

Central point of failure

[hierofalcon]

Considering the early expansions of ARPANET to try to guarantee network survival in the event of nuclear attacks, going to a centralized hub for your country is a bit funny. Oh well, less to compromise or take out in the event of diplomacy failures.

Re:Central point of failure

[AHuxley]

The network will be spread all over Russia. Thats not a "centralized hub".
The phone system will work.
Computers will send and get information for education.
Games will connect and play.
No outside peering, global networks needed.

Re:Central point of failure

[Anonymous Coward]

You know how we know that you're full of crap?
Just look at your comment history and compare how you react to things like the EU and Article 13 compared the Russian government trying to shut the world out from their internet. One is terribly bad and censorship by a political body that wants to suppress speech that it doesn't agree with and the other one is fine and not problem at all.

Tell it to the warden, traitor.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mueller will see you now. You thought you could commit treason in the open, lol. #Manning America's Gallows Again!

Re:Geekmux you have below-zero credibility on that

[HornWumpus]

The next six years are really gonna suck for you.

Get some help.

Pied Piper

[Anonymous Coward]

Pied Piper can help him with that!

Oh. Maybe not. It's peer to peer, not centrally controlled.

Horny Wimpwuss admits he supports a traitor noshit

[Anonymous Coward]

6 years, lol. Trump's dead man walking NOW, he's going to be gone in under 6 months lol! The next 25-life are going to suck for you. #ADX FLORENCE IS NO JOKE.

You lie, you get caught, there are consequences. You lie to Congress, there are consequences. Ask your buddy Manafort how much the next 6 years are going to suck, lol.

He is concerned about election hacking

[Anonymous Coward]

Putin is likely concerned that a foreign agent might interfere with his elections, skewing the results, reducing his victory from 95% to 94%

Re:He is concerned about election hacking

[Anonymous Coward]

Or in Hillary's case, going from 97% chance of winning (by CNN) to being a loser.

Trump fears prison - for good reason, traitor

[Anonymous Coward]

^^ Found the inbred uneducated authoritarian-felating Republican faggo-traitor... Mueller will see you now, coward. Bring a toothbrush. You're going to be gone a while. (Under the prison)

Re:Trump fears prison - for good reason, traitor

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you okay? Blink twice if you need help.

Re:Trump fears prison - for good reason, traitor

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just messing with him.

Fine. Get an axe.

[Rick Schumann]

If that's the way they want to do things, then fine; get an axe, and chop all the lines connecting Russia. Isolate them. Problem solved.

Re:Fine. Get an axe.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is : https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russian-spy-submarines-are-tampering-undersea-cables-make-internet-work-should-we-be - An axe begets an axe, and economics go by the wayside... = total war.

Re:Fine. Get an axe.

[Rick Schumann]

Chances are the Internet is going to die completely at some point anyway because of POLITICIANS and COPS anyway. Keep voting funds for your local Public Libraries, you'll likely soon need them.

Re:Geekmux you have below-zero credibility on that

[Anonymous Coward]

How teh fuck do people like that get to post more often and more times a day than me?

Are the editors playing favorites with the invisible karma system to allow some types of trolls but not normal commentators?

I get the "you must wait" to post thing and can only post once every couple hours at best, but people like "TRAITOR EVERYBODY IS A TRAITOR" guy here seem to post 20-30 times a day.

Scary

[Anonymous Coward]

This internet thing keeps getting scarier and scarier.

Hopelessly stuck

[Anonymous Coward]

You are so hopelessly stuck. This whole initiative doesn't have anything to do with an encapsulated "Russian internet", the purpose is to ensure that Russia based internet services can resume operation in case the US uses its influence on the internet for sabotage. Like still being able to resolve DNS and stuff...

Re:Hopelessly stuck

[OneHundredAndTen]

Nyet, tovarich. You Russian trolls and astroturfers are SO transparent. Give uncle Volodya a big middle finger from all of us.

GEEKMUX. You support autocracy directly. YOU do.

[Anonymous Coward]

History? Trump has a history of supporting authoritarian autocratic murderous dictatorships. You support that. Your history is continuing to WILLINGLY BACK A TRAITOR WHO PREFERS AUTOCRACY TO DEMOCRACY.

Learn from history - pull your head out, or risk having it fucking chopped, traitor.

Genocide is not a fucking mutually exclusive term in relation to mass surveillance.

And Communism is not Socialism. Stop conflating them ignorantly like you're in 5th grade.

Head pulls out, or head comes off.

Putin's Own Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

So he can fuck himself.

People who don't like Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

People who don't like Trump:

ISIS, Russia, China, Iran.... and democrats.

All want America to slowly die.

The good guys won - get over it - try and deal with the next 6 years of Trump.

Yeah, right!

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears to me that Poohtin has been learning lessons from Winnie The Pooh in China on how to survey the Russian people.

He needs a central hub for the Russian internet in Moscow not only to turn the internet on and off in regions of civil unrest. He wants to monitor and analyse every bit of electronic information flowing around Russia in one massive hub.

Sure SJW

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever does not subscribe to the Sodomist Ideology of NY and London moneychangers must be "Russian".

Yay

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not a Hungarian trolley cart, but most people think I am a Russian beluga whale.

Re:Yay

[Darinbob]

My hovercraft is full of eels.

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Iran was stupid enough to use Siemens and Microsoft Bullshit tech to control their centrifuges. A homegrown uC, homegrown compiler and homegrown controller software would not have had all these backdoors.

All NATO suppliers are forced to use shitty design practices that almost guarantee backdoors. If that doesn't suffice, covert operators are brought in to enable this.

Like America

[Anonymous Coward]

They send in "moderate Terrorists with moderate Patches". Then send more ammo. More food. More ammo. Then send the Marines to "fight these evil terrorists".

In the process, they kill millions. See Iraq and Syria.

Re:GEEKMUX. You support autocracy directly. YOU do

[Shotgun]

History? Trump has a history of supporting authoritarian autocratic murderous dictatorships.

FTS: Putin is touting the initiative as a defensive response to the Trump Administration's new cyber strategy,

You have a strange definition of "support".

Maybe all world governments need it!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's about being able to cut off certain types of traffic in certain areas during times of civil unrest."

& what is wrong about any government being able stop civil unrest (which propagated by Internet)?

Maybe all world governments need to make sure they have such power!!!
Just look @ the events (started) in France!!!
Do we really want the same anywhere else anytime???
I, for one, dont!!!

Sure Mr Goldman

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump was never "licensed" by you and your CEO buddies to be the Potus. How dare he to be in office based on popular vote ???

I miss the internet of yesteryear in some ways.

[Anonymous Coward]

Graybeard here. I actually miss the internet of yesteryear in a couple of respects (not the slow speed links though). It wasn't full of adverts and it wasn't full of toxic people. There were a few toxic people, but if you read a usenet newsgroup regularly, you got to know the characters quickly.

When I try and weight the good against the bad for the current internet I tend to think the negatives are outweighing the good. It's the exact opposite of the "dream" of the internet. Lots of information available to the masses for very low costs. Instead of everyone being able to learn good stuff, have fun, communicate, we have measles outbreaks because a bunch of parents read some slanted disinformation about vaccines.

Which isn't to say I'm not without hope, but wow is a lot of stuff written on the internet not just garbage but harmful to society garbage.

My own internet! Without blackjack or hookers!

[ToTheStars]

N/T

If Putin wants his own internet...

[Anonymous Coward]

He can have it. Maybe that will keeps his hacker crew off the regular one.

Trump is a traitor. Like traitors? No. Sorry fag

[Anonymous Coward]

The good guy = Mueller. Trump will be in prison in 6 years, and in 26, if his faggot traitor ass still breathes on any level. Junior too. Ivanka the whore also. Jared. All of those treasonous faggots die in prison.

The system works.

Trump and Putin support eachother, traitor.

[Anonymous Coward]

Putin: I wanted Trump to win the election

https://nowthisnews.com/videos/politics/7-times-that-trump-has-parroted-putins-talking-points

Oh Boy

[Anonymous Coward]

If you knew anything else than the mainstream media nonsense (also parroted by Hilda and her fellow crooks), you could have an insight.

But it is much better for Russia to keep you in the current state of mind. Idiots are much less dangerous than a properly informed enemy.

Sometimes I think Russia holds a serious stake in CNN.

Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

America ISIS you !

(Bad joke on the millions killed in Syria and Iraq)

Toxic People

[Anonymous Coward]

Robespierre
Lenin
Mao
Hitler
PolPot

They did not need an internet. I suspect you are one of these SJW wannabe tyrants. Like those above.

Re:Toxic People

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't have an internet.
That's the difference.
If they had it, they most likely would have extensively used it.

Hitler is an excellent example for this.
He used the then new form media of radio to have his polemics reach the most uneducated and desperate in the Republic of Weimar, that would not have been exposed to his ideas that easily without it.
The logistics required to distribute print media was too expensive and too sluggish to compete with radio waves that could reach even the most remote corners of Germany at the speed of light.
People also didn't need to be literate to understand what he said as this media used spoken language instead of texts.
Hitler also understood how to keep his strong and simple enough for even the lowest people to understand.
This allowed him to convince just enough people to vote him into a position where he could abuse his power to remove just enough of the political opposition in the parliament to perform a full power grab.

Re:Toxic People

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch out you will be called a SJW for pointing out that having Hitler on the net would be bad.

Why ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should he keep this experts off legitimate targets, while America attacks everybody else daily ?

Because everybody should submit to the AngloZio Imperium and be a helpless fool ?

Here is the protip: Russia has won more than one war on their soil in the last 100 years. They know exactly how America uses Mudslime Terrorists to undermine other nations. Russia bombs them to their virgins, then.

They also know that in the cities there live lots of silly cappucino-sipping bastards who are ready and willing to sell Russia out to foreign powers. People like Jelzin.

Don't laugh

[Applehu Akbar]

The EU seems to be on its way to a sealed-off Internet of its own.

Re:Don't laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Nastrovje tovarich!
If hypocrite slashdot tells Russia does bad thing must remind world that others to bad thing more. Because hypocrite slashdot never tell people about this!

What is socialism? an easy comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Socialism == local government using tax funds for paying to plow roads.

Communism == labor camps that shovel the roads for free.

Political upheaval

[manu0601]

But industry insiders, security experts and even senior officials say political upheaval is the bigger concern.

Given Putin's popularity in Russia, which is much higher than Trump, Macron, May or Merkel in their own countries, that seems odd.

Re:Political upheaval

[Aighearach]

The difference is, in Putinland the people admitting opposition expect to be secretly executed for it, and having 5% admitting opposition signifies a huge amount of latent demand for the ability to be opposed.

In the other places you named, the number includes basically everybody with a mild preference for somebody else, not just those willing to fight to to the death over it.

Places where it is dangerous to dissent have to worry about 9% becoming 95% very rapidly if people's emotions change, or their perception of the government's current power level changes.

Re:Political upheaval

[Anonymous Coward]

I've spend a good (quantitatively, not qualitatively) part of my life in a former Soviet state.
I can tell you one thing with certainty about societies under the thumb of such a government. As a survival strategy they had to learn how to keep a low profile. Because there comes nothing good from criticizing the government. It will only create problems for you and your family if you start opposing them without being backed by a powerful ally. While of course in private you can hate the government as much as you want.

The Russian people aren't stupid either. They know that the Kremlin is lying to them on a regular basis. Thanks to the internet everyone can see for themselves that the West isn't as evil and bad as the Kremlin portraits them. Thing is what should they do about it? Imagine being yourself in a situation like that. Democracy was already undermined as the Kremlin will make sure that the only other options you can vote for will be worse than Putin, because any serious opposition will be in jail or otherwise incapacitated just long enough to not be a threat to the establishment there.
The only thing that may threaten them is a violent insurgency like it happened in Ukraine and Libya for example. A mostly peaceful Fall of Nations like in the late 80's is unlikely since the Kremlin had enough time to learn from those events.

The Internets

[Anonymous Coward]

George W Bush can't possibly be wrong!

So much like the USA wants then ...

[Anonymous Coward]

How's that internet kill switch going?

Red Internet

[Hydrian]

Where the web browses you!

SO much misinformaton in comments...

[Reservoir Penguin]

The actual goal of these proposals is to ensure that in the event of conflict traffic originating at point A in Russia can reach Point B, also in Russia. That's what "sovereign" Internet means. Considering Internet is not just for d/l warez and cat pics it's a responsible thing to do for any country.

Re:SO much misinformaton in comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, someone else around here that is not too dumb to know he is an idiot...

Re:SO much misinformaton in comments...

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a childish view. Here's why:

I can see how this works well when your gov't performs a massacre at A, and prevents B from knowing about it, ever.

Pretty much sows up the next election, yes?

You asked for it

[NewYork]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: You asked for it

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Except that what he wants is unlikely to *not* be an internetwork.

Bad Russia!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll do what Google tells you and like it!