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Russia Adopts Bill That Would Expand Government Control Over the Internet (go.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the raising-censorship-fears dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: Russia's lower chamber of parliament has adopted a bill that would expand government control over the internet, raising fears of widespread censorship. The State Duma on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to support the bill, which still has to be approved by the upper chamber of Russian Parliament and signed into the law by the president.

The bill requires internet providers to install equipment to route Russian internet traffic through servers in the country. That would increase the power of state agencies to control information while users would find it harder to circumvent government restrictions, and the quality of the connection may suffer. Proponents of the bill say it is a defense measure in case the United States or other hostile powers cut off the internet for Russia.

3 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. a legitimate concern.. by edris90 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Having grown up with the internet and watching it degrade from a place of uncensored anonymous sharing of information where the reputation means nothing and the idea is what holds value, To the e-commerce slums , carefully curated and censored propaganda machine, it has become,. It would be naive not to expect the US to break the internet on purpose, for governmental interests.

    1. Re:a legitimate concern.. by Etcetera · · Score: 2

      Having grown up with the internet and watching it degrade from a place of uncensored anonymous sharing of information where the reputation means nothing and the idea is what holds value, To the e-commerce slums , carefully curated and censored propaganda machine, it has become,. It would be naive not to expect the US to break the internet on purpose, for governmental interests.

      What you're overlooking is that it was grown out of US governmental interests to begin with, and exploded under American tutelage. Russian, Chinese, and other bad-state actions in the last 5-7 years really highlights how horrible a decision it really was for the Obama Administration to allow ICANN to be moved out from the under the ultimate authority of the Department of Commerce.

      The Internet has been a battleground for years, and the history of the last century points to Americans being better Guarantors of Last Resort than facially neutral entities like your average UN commission when it comes to being a force for liberty in the world.

      --
      Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
  2. Re:Simple anwer: Host stuff there! by Allasard · · Score: 2

    They should not just be a network of relays. They should BE the servers. For files, chat (IRC, Signal), mail, websites, forums, etc.

    This project has some of that functionality: Piratebox

    I installed it on a battery-powered wifi router with some survival docs, but its battery is dead so it might not be very useful when the SHTF.