Re: Russian government’s disconnection test

Scott Weeks surfer at mauigateway.com
Fri Nov 1 23:02:35 UTC 2019



--- surfer at mauigateway.com wrote:
From: "Scott Weeks" <surfer at mauigateway.com>

Anyone got any technical info on how Russia plans to execute 
a disconnection test of the internet?  
------------------------------------


Got crickets, so now I have to respond to my own post on 
what I just found out about it.  Is that like talking to 
yourself? :)

https://www.npr.org/2019/11/01/775366588/russian-law-takes-effect-that-gives-government-sweeping-power-over-internet

"The "sovereign Internet law," as the government calls it, 
greatly enhances the Kremlin's control over the Web. It was 
passed earlier this year and allows Russia's government to 
cut off the Internet completely or from traffic outside 
Russia "in an emergency," as the BBC reported. But some of 
the applications could be more subtle, like the ability to 
block a single post."

"The equipment would conduct what's known as "deep packet 
inspection," an advanced way to filter network traffic. 

"Regardless of what the government intends, some experts 
think it would be technically difficult for Russia to 
actually close its network if it wanted to, because of the 
sheer number of its international connections."

"What I found was that there were hundreds of existing 
Internet exchange points in Russia, some of which have 
hundreds of participants...Many of them are international 
network providers, he says, so "basically it's challenging 
— if not impossible, I think — to completely isolate the 
Russian Internet."

Belson says that the requirement for Internet service 
providers to install tracking software will very likely 
also be challenging in practice. He adds that it will be 
difficult to get hundreds of providers to deploy it and 
hard to coordinate that they're all filtering the same 
content.

scott






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