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The Internet

Ukraine's Request To Cut Off Russia From Global Internet Has Been Rejected (cnn.com) 112

Posted by msmash from the tough-spot dept.
The international non-profit that coordinates management of the internet told Ukraine it will not intervene in the country's war with Russia, rebuffing a request to cut Russia off from the global internet. From a report: Ukraine's proposal is neither technically feasible nor within the mission of ICANN, said the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, according to a letter ICANN sent to Ukrainian officials on Wednesday.

s you know, the Internet is a decentralized system. No one actor has the ability to control it or shut it down," ICANN CEO Goran Marby wrote in the the letter. Marby expressed his personal concern about Ukrainians' well-being as well as the "terrible toll being exacted on your country." But, he wrote, "our mission does not extend to taking punitive actions, issuing sanctions, or restricting access against segments of the Internet -- regardless of the provocations."
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Ukraine's Request To Cut Off Russia From Global Internet Has Been Rejected More

Ukraine's Request To Cut Off Russia From Global Internet Has Been Rejected

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  • Selling tabulating machines for the Nazi death camps. Money comes before moral principle, and nothing else matters.

    • Re: Just like the old IBM (Score:5, Insightful)

      by klipclop ( 6724090 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @04:14PM (#62323233)
      I hope China is watching all of this closely. My guess is that Taiwan is in their cross hairs. The stiffer the penelties inflicted on Russia and their elites, the stronger the message is to China and their elites.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jzanu ( 668651 )
        The Russian Far East is a more profitable target to claim than Taiwan; it has vastly more resources and is an infinitely more securable territory with China's existing military capacity. It was Chinese historically, but after occupation became the center of all Russian Pacific threats. It also had its own independence movement [wikipedia.org]. Taking it from Russia will deprive them of all illusions of super power status. By consolidating it with China, the region has more stability as well, if only by unifying the dominan
        • Maybe in natural resources... But effectively putting TSMC under Chinese control is probably worth more to them than minerals in the ground.
      • they've wormed their way into every aspect of our economy. If we tried real sanctions on China the entire world economy would collapse.

        If you're in Taiwan and you're not there to sell out your fellow countrymen get out now. It's only a matter of time now...
      • Your guess is wrong then. China are not going to invade Taiwan, because they would get nothing out of it and would lose, and they know it.
        China invading Taiwan is another one of those stories the US Military/Industrial Complex has created in an effort to scare some money out of the taxpayers.
        Its what they do when an enemy is no longer usful to them, and they have been doing it since the WWII money began drying up.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          I agree it would be really bad for China to invade Taiwan... but that doesn't mean it won't happen. Look at what a bad idea invading Ukraine was for Russia. That *should* have been predictable to Russia.

          Taiwan is a highly emotional topic for China; the very name is radioactive to them. Strong emotion and good judgment don't go hand in hand.

          • The people who run China are not emotional people, they are rational.
            They don't make decisions based on feelings, and won't risk their positions based on emotions.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hey! ( 33014 )

              If they're not emotional people, they're not people.

              • Yeah, the overly emotional route to everything in life, culture etc. is exactly why America is where its at right now.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by hey! ( 33014 )

                  There is no culture in which emotions are not a huge part of decision making. The feeling that you are mostly or even completely rational is just that -- a feeling. A lot of critical thinking in practice is recognizing how emotionally colored your beliefs and opinions are; without that what people use their rationality for is to rationalize *purely* emotional decisions.

          • China fights economic wars and their military is more about showing "face" to the world, as the Chinese themselves would put it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kbahey ( 102895 )

        In Canada' parliament, there was a briefing on exactly that: allied intelligence agencies warning of China taking Taiwan by force [www.cbc.ca].

        If China decides to do that, it will be the start of World War III, with China and Russia on one side, and virtually every one else on the other ..

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eth1 ( 94901 )

        I hope China is watching all of this closely. My guess is that Taiwan is in their cross hairs. The stiffer the penelties inflicted on Russia and their elites, the stronger the message is to China and their elites.

        Screw Taiwan... after the incompetence that the Russian military is demonstrating, I wouldn't be surprised if China didn't have *Russia* in their cross hairs.

    • Fuck off, ICANN shouldn't be involved in politics. If they "cut off" Russia for this event then there's not many countries who should not also get "cut off" for similar, or even more egregious offenses.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mmell ( 832646 )
      Oi vey! This is nothing like that. Nobody is selling Russia their internet access - it's not like they all share an AOL account, y'know.

      If we disconnect everything .ru (as requested), they'll just stand up their own, considerably more manageable intarweb. We'll see to it that everything that was once .ru is Putin's forever - and I'm sure he'll get over not being able to reach the Truth Social [truthsocial.com] website in return for knowing exactly what information the subjects of Putin can see online.

      If we just stop let

  • Kind of agreed. (Score:3)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @04:09PM (#62323217)

    The concept is that the world is NOT against the Russian people. They are against their current undemocratic overlords.

    The Internet is used for bad uses - but on the people vs. overlords scale, it's still largely balanced towards the people in this scenario. Plenty of weight on the other side, mind you - but also a lot of people able to get around limitations and see a wider world.

    And a people cut off from the wider world is a lot less capable of creating change over time.

    Part of the problem is that in adapting to a LONG history of despotic regimes is that the people have developed a 'wisdom' of never improving things, and seeing any improvement towards anything they would prefer itself as a curse.

    But each new generation does bring its own hope of having a better vision for a future that can be improved - and the internet as imperfect as it is, is part of that process that most modern nations had to go through to get to what we count as 'normal' today.

    Ryan Fenton

    • Re:Kind of agreed. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @04:36PM (#62323289) Journal

      Totally agree. The Russian "government" is a bunch of cunts for invading Ukraine, but isolating the Russian people from non-governmental sources of information will just strengthen the cunty government, as it has in North Korea where another massive cunt has supreme rule over the nation held through propaganda and isolation.

      What is needed now, is popular uprising within Russia, and that's why Russia tightly controls the media - to prevent such an occurrence. They know the value of propaganda and maximize that value at every turn, which is how Putin has been allowed to become de facto Cunt-in-Chief until he dies or is deposed.

    • The concept is that the world is NOT against the Russian people. They are against their current undemocratic overlords.

      Well, the reality is that the world is launching sanctions specifically intended to impoverish the Russian people while admitting that the Russian people don't have the political system or arms needed to overthrow their government.

      The rest of the world doesn't get a "WELL HE MADE US DO IT" pass on this. What Russia is doing here is no worse than what the USA did in Iraq, Libya and Syria. In

      • Well, the reality is that the world is launching sanctions specifically intended to impoverish the Russian people

        If by "people" you mean billionaire oligarchs, then yes.

        What Russia is doing here is no worse than what the USA did in Iraq, Libya and Syria

        You might not have realized, but the US went into these places and then LEFT them. (Unlike Russia, which is still fighting in Syria to this day [wikipedia.org]) Ukraine is different, Putin plans never to leave Ukraine because he sees it as an illegitimate country that should really be part of Russia. [vox.com] The US went into Libya and Syria to prevent mass murders (admittedly, the entry to Iraq had worse motives), Russia went into Ukraine out of naked imperialism.

        • If by "people" you mean billionaire oligarchs, then yes.

          That must be why you can't use Apple Pay in the Moscow Metro. Because the oligarchs love them some Apple-driven ticket purchases on public transportation.

          Give me a break. You know damn well that these sanctions target every facet of Russian society and hit the poor the hardest. They can't even trade anymore with any country that does business with the West which is why they can't even buy computer parts from Taiwan anymore.

          You might not have realized,

    • Keeping the Internet on in Russia is a useful tool to combat their state propaganda. The more Russian citizens can witness the terrible pointlessness of the war, the better.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      The concept is that the world is NOT against the Russian people. They are against their current undemocratic overlords.

      The Internet is used for bad uses - but on the people vs. overlords scale, it's still largely balanced towards the people in this scenario. Plenty of weight on the other side, mind you - but also a lot of people able to get around limitations and see a wider world.

      And a people cut off from the wider world is a lot less capable of creating change over time.

      This. Not only does it set a bad precedent, meaning that a corrupt administration can weaponise internet access against their enemies... it also plays direct into Putin's hands. He wants to limit information to the Russian people. In the last few days a whole rash of laws limiting what people are permitted to say, I.E. you're not permitted to criticise the government, you're not even permitted to call the invasion of Ukraine an invasion.

      As much as I feel for the people of Ukraine (so much so we should be

  • Who does Ukraine think it is? (Score:4, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @04:20PM (#62323241)

    The Disney corporation?

    You don't lose your Internet connection until you do something like violate copyright on the image of Mickey Mouse.

  • This could also work against Ukraine (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @04:21PM (#62323247)

    As long as the internet is somewhat accessible in russia, there are those who will connect to western news and get a western perspective (I'm not going to call it truth because there are many times when journalists tell straight up lies, want to spin a narrative, want to relay a narrative or are just misinformed). But the western news is much much better than the constructed lies of controlled russian media outlets. So lets keep the equivalent of cross boarder radio going, despite the fact that russia can use the same network for evil.

    • As long as the internet is somewhat accessible in russia, there are those who will connect to western news and get a western perspective (I'm not going to call it truth because there are many times when journalists tell straight up lies, want to spin a narrative, want to relay a narrative or are just misinformed). But the western news is much much better than the constructed lies of controlled russian media outlets. So lets keep the equivalent of cross boarder radio going, despite the fact that russia can use the same network for evil.

      Agreed. I understand the sentiment from Ukraine's perspective, but the Internet is one of the few ways that external information can filter into Russia.

    • think about how much businesses depend on the Internet. Taking it away would cripple their economy worse than any possible sanction. It's a nuclear bomb to the economy.

      There was never much chance of this happening, but if it had Russia would collapse and Vlad would be strung up by next Thursday.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )
      Yes, one of Russia's biggest advantages is that they have such tight control over information within their country, but the internet there appears to have a bunch of gaps. Information in getting in. We should be doing anything we can to open it up, not shut it down. Send Russian citizens Starlink receivers.
  • Just revoke all the domains that host state sponsored content. I know in the long run they can put in band aid dns entries, but in the mean time it would temporarily cripple their ability to spin the stories on the Internet.

    • People who don't understand DNS need to shut up about it and learn first. What you ask for is impossible.

      • "People who don't understand DNS need to shut up about it and learn first." - at least we agree on one thing. ICANN revoking top level domain would force them to make individual DNS entries on every single on lower DNS servers. If there's any intermediary dns server (such as Google, etc) you can DNS poison and kill or redirect the lookup also. This is completely possible.

        • And who, pray tell, is going to make Russia use ICANN approved root servers?

          • ICANN controls the main root server in Russia and has received a denied a request to do exactly this. https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com] It's possible, but they don't want to.

            • Oooh, ICANN controls a server. That settles it then. Russia cannot find a way around that. A server!. Please heed my initial advice and STFU until you know something.

              • Obviously, my reading comprehension and knowledge of the situation is better than yours. As I said, they can circumvent the change but they would have to do it for every server and it would create inconvenience in the mean time. Manually creating A records for every state sponsored website to propagate through DNS would be a pain for them. Considering I've been a CNE since the lantastic and IPX/SPX days, I might know a thing or two, and have seen a thing or two. It's always the people that fling insults

  • Correct (Score:3)

    by TomWinTejas ( 6575590 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @04:36PM (#62323291)
    ICANN made the correct assessment. Individual networks can choose to de-peer with Russian networks and even null route routes from a Russian origin ASN, but that should be up to each individual network.
  • Internet shouldn't be weaponized! Censorship always leads to 1984, no matter if you think you're in the right side of the tracks!

  • ICANN is being Neutral. (Score:3)

    by dlingman ( 1757250 ) on Thursday March 03, 2022 @05:00PM (#62323347)

    But who are the trunks out of Russia connecting to? Those are owned by networking companies in the neighboring countries. Turning those off would isolate things just fine, as well as having the benefit that any Russian hackers would need to be outside the country to do their work.

    • Russia will route their shit out through China if that happens. They might see a bit of a slowdown, but my guess is that there's plenty of un-lit dark fiber into china that can be turned on so they won't even notice.

  • The knee-jerk reaction is for ICANN to do this and for some people to bitch that they aren't doing it blaming money or something but the fact is that it all depends on who the target is. Some people would cheer if ICANN blocked Fox News during the run up to the next election. Some would bitch if the Justin Turdeau demanded that ICANN block every site associated with the trucker convoy while others would cheer it while holding up a "follow the science" banner. Technology infrastructure organizations (yes,

  • Why do we have to listen to them? We can each implement our own IP block lists and prevent traffic from Russia from being sent to us. If enough ISPs do this, it can be almost like they don't exist anymore. https://www.countryipblocks.ne... [countryipblocks.net]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stooo ( 2202012 )

      Stick your fingers in your ears and pretend nothing wrong is happening.
      Cool idea, dude.

  • Here is the root zone file: www.internic.net/domain/root.zone

    Load that into a DNS server and you can edit DNS any way you like. What's that? But nobody is going to use your root server and see your view of the DNS? Well, now you're starting to get it.

  • I mean, were we going to do this for all wars from now on, or just this one? You do know that there is a war going on somewhere pretty much all the time, right?
  • If ICANN can't...WE CAN!

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