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Communications The Internet

Vladimir Putin Wants His Own Internet (bloomberg.com) 149

Posted by msmash from the tighter-control dept.
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."
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Vladimir Putin Wants His Own Internet More

Vladimir Putin Wants His Own Internet

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  • May be all Russia can afford.

    • May be all Russia can afford.

      Why do they need their own Internet?

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

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nwaack ( 3482871 )
        Yes, because everyone who disagrees with you is a Russian Troll.
      • 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.

      • 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: (Score:2)

          by lgw ( 121541 )

          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 d

  • Last thing he would do (Score:1)

    by 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.

    • 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...

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

        • 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.

      • Next up get arrested for drug evasion. Thx1138

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by 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.

        • 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: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      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.

  • Good (but not really) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @01:20PM (#58220092)
    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.
    • 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.

  • 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

  • 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

  • Is still censorship.

  • Definition of Universe. (Score:5, Informative)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @01:57PM (#58220338)

    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

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

      • >>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 ho

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by steveha ( 103154 )

      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 [thecomicseries.com], the idea that there could then be multiple Multiverses. That doesn't make sense to me any more than t

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

  • 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) . . .

  • ...in soviet Russia, internet wants YOU!!!
  • The man is anchored in the Cold War, and will remain there till he dies.
    • 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 thous

  • 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: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      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.

  • He is concerned about election hacking (Score:2, Funny)

    by 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%

  • Fine. Get an axe. (Score:3)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @02:54PM (#58220678) Journal
    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.

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

  • 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.

    • 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 percept

  • Where the web browses you!
  • 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.

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