Russia Plans To Cut Off Some Internet Access Today (defenseone.com) 48
Russia has temporarily shut off many of its citizens' access to the global internet today in a test of its controversial RuNet program, according to an internal government document. From a report: RuNet aims to boost the government's ability to better control internal digital traffic, launch cyber and information attacks against other nations, and track and censor dissidents. The test will evaluate "the possibility of intercepting subscriber traffic and revealing information about the subscriber, blocking communication services," according to a Dec. 5 document produced by Russia's Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media. The document said the test was originally slated to take place on Dec. 19 but had been rescheduled for Dec. 23.
We should help them. (Score:5, Insightful)
And cut them off completely.
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Re:We should help them. (Score:5, Insightful)
And cut them off completely.
Russian troll factories would just get a private line or form a shell company to pretend to be from somewhere else. The only people you'd actually cut off would be normal Russians, which Putin would love. He'd completely own the narrative and make them even blinder to what's going on.
No (Score:2)
That would just reinforce a lesson of spite. In other countries we hope that internet access will help people speak freely and organize against oppression, we should hope the same for Russia.
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Because the Internet without Russia would just not be the same.
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Then all we've ever had is "an" Internet. Governments have been going after bad actors on "the" Internet since the beginning. The only difference here is that the bad actor is a government.
Re: We should help them. (Score:1)
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Will the US see a Spike of traffic from russia? (Score:2)
Free up Russian bandwidth so they can do more attacks during that time, or a 4k skype call with Trump?
So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
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The phone still works.
The gov, Russian web sites and social media still connects.
Services still work.
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The account your are replying to is new and has two comments. Both are pro Russian and Anti-US. I think we can figure out what's going on at this point. I just can't believe they've added Slashdot to their list. Cast a wide net indeed!
Now where did I put that tinfoil hat of mine...
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How many times has the US shut down internet access for its citizens?
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Why would someone want to secure their internet access (even in limited capacity) against someone that wants to bomb them with nuclear weapons, is already in full open economic sanctions war, threatens to turn off financial/communications systems, and openly admits wants to overthrow their government.... totally unclear... yeah.... no way that securing their internet lines makes any logical sense.....
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The good news is the Russian networks at least considered their wider populations need to stay connected.
The trolls are real. (Score:1)
Totalitarian control and censorship is always bad. Except when Russia does it. Then it's good news, because it helps the 'wider populations to stay connected', right?
Re: The trolls are real. (Score:1)
Yea, that exactly what he said. Great analysis.
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You are correct, it's good analysis, and that's basically what he said.
The same thing happens in the West ... (Score:3, Interesting)
but we just pretend that it is ISP incompetence ...
etc
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None of these are related to what Russia is doing. How is being financially incompetent the same as installing government mandated traffic monitoring?
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You say pretend, do you have any proof that this is government mandate and not ISP incompetence?
If you do not, it might be wiser to stay silent on the matter.
Hell of a campaign. (Score:2)
Designed to "better control internal digital traffic, launch cyber and information attacks against other nations, and track and censor dissidents"
Wow. Is that like the RUnet official slogan? That's pretty damn dystopic.
I hope most of them are using Pipernet already.
We are lucky (Score:2)
Total (Score:2)
"Imagine a boot stepping on a human face -- forever."
Imagine no more.
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I've been predicting this will happen [slashdot.org]... eventually, to the whole world... for some time now. I just thought it would be China first.
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It seemed like China was heading down that path, especially after what happened in China in 1989 and Russia's democratization. Unfortunately, the Russians just couldn't resist going down the path of totalitarianism again. Certainly sucks to be them.
In Soviet Russia (Score:2)
slashdot, can you be less biased? (Score:2)
The same has just happened two weeks ago in India and Slashdot refused to publish any submission on this story that I posted:
India shut down of the internet [indianexpress.com] in the states of Assam and Meghalaya to control protests over a controversial and far-reaching new citizen rule. Officials in the state of Assam said, “Social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and YouTube are likely to be used for spreading of rumors and also for transmission of information like pictures, videos and text that have the potential to inflame passions and thus exacerbate the law and order situation.” On Thursday, India’s president Ram Nath Kovind approved the Citizenship Amendment Bill, a day after the country’s Parliament passed it\, which offers a path to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim minorities from three neighboring countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh) — not for the country’s own Muslim minority. The passage of the law triggered massive protests that have since claimed at least four fatalities [indiatimes.com] from police gunshots, in comparison not a single protester in Hong Kong riots died from police action since June. On Monday, the internet has shutdown for 134 days in Kashmir [washingtonpost.com], the longest ever in a democracy.
(Except the death toll in India has already risen to 23 last time I checked the news, whereas it is still ZERO in Hong Kong.)
Similarly, this American media outlet was eager to publish the story of a self-proclaimed Chinese spy but refused to publish its rebuttal (with western source):
Wang Liqiang, a 27-year-old man, generated international headlines and roiled Australia’s already turbulent relationship with China when he appeared in Nine’s 60 Minutes program with his extraordinary tale of international intrigue. In the end it took Australian security agencies less than a week to conclude self-proclaimed Chinese spy Wang Liqiang was not a highly trained intelligence operative dispatched by Beijing to wreak havoc on the nation’s enemies [slashdot.org] and was, at most, a bit player on the fringes of the espionage community, after China aired CCTV footage released that purports to show him fronting the Guangze People’s Court in Fujian to answer his 2016 charge on fraud. According to Beijing, Wang was convicted in October 2016 for scamming $32,000 from a man by promising to get his children into school. A second charge of fraud was hanging over him when he arrived in Australia seeking asylum earlier this year. Shanghai police said that on April 19 they opened an investigation into Wang over a car import business which allegedly defrauded a person of $960,000. China claims Wang is a fugitive. Skeptics of Wang’s story point to the diverse range of his “missions”, his young age and junior experience for such missions, the irony of why Chinese agency would allow spy's wife and child to live in Australia, most of his claims were based on previously published news stories, and mismatching names of his fake South Korean passport. Historically, many mainland Chinese nationals have applied for political asylums in the US, claiming being oppressed or tortured by Chinese authority; however, all of them were found to be fraudulent claims [scmp.com] cooked up by immigration lawyers.
It's no doubt that Chinese start claiming Americans get brainwashed by their government and media. Nex
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They hit it it looks like, https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
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"The same has just happened two weeks ago in India and Slashdot refused to publish any submission on this story that I posted"
Yeah, but there are no conspiracy theories that India is controlling the Trump Administration, so the headline wouldn't have been juicy enough.
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The same has just happened two weeks ago in India and Slashdot refused to publish any submission on this story that I posted:
This is Slashdot, it'll probably be run as breaking news in two weeks.
As a side effect (Score:2)
Damn commies! (Score:2)
Yep, the Russian's are "free" (Score:2)
He who controls the spice, controls the Universe! (Score:2)
He who controls the spice, controls the Universe!
(or at least what the Universe can see. )
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He who controls the spice, controls the Universe!
(or at least what the Universe can see. )
There is power in a good chicken tikka masala.
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Navigators still work
They already tried this at their backyard (Score:1)