Adviser to the Russian President on the Internet German Klimenko believes that Russia should be ready for possible situation with disconnection from the global network. He stated this in an interview with RT.
According to the adviser, Russia must be prepared for unforeseen circumstances, especially against the backdrop of “tectonic shifts towards worsening” relations with European countries.
German Klimenko
Advisor to the President on the Internet
Our Western partners have disconnected Crimea from Google and Microsoft services. Just like domain owners living in Crimea, they lost what they had gained. Our country must be prepared to be disconnected from the world Internet - there is a high probability of “tectonic shifts” in our relations with the West towards worsening. Therefore, we are faced with the task of regulating the Russian segment of the Internet in order to protect against such scenarios. It is important that it continues to work in Russia Email, telegraph, telephone, social networks.
This is how the presidential adviser explained the appearance of the bill on regulation of the Runet, prepared by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and aimed at protecting infrastructure critical for Russia.
The law on regulation of Runet in the media is called a package of amendments to the law “On Communications”, which should protect the Russian Internet. The corresponding bill was submitted for public discussion back in November on the portal of draft regulatory legal acts regulation.ru. The document introduces a number of new concepts that define what the Russian Internet is and what components it consists of.
MasterTux, 2016In particular, the “Russian national segment of the Internet” is defined as a set of networks, systems and Internet resources located in the Russian Federation and registered in accordance with its legislation. This also includes resources of the national domain zone .ru, .рф, as well as all resources assigned to the Russian Federation by international treaties. The “infrastructure of the Russian national segment of the Internet” means all means of communication under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation, and the networks connecting them.
The bill pays special attention to the concept of critical infrastructure. This refers to networks, systems and Internet resources, the operation of which affects the stability and security of the infrastructure of the Russian segment of the Internet. Critical infrastructure includes the national domain zone ru, .рф, a system of traffic exchange points, infrastructure autonomous systems Internet and government information system(GIS) to ensure the security of the Russian Internet. The use of critical infrastructure will be regulated by the federal communications authority in agreement with the security authorities.
The bill also establishes that all legal entities And individual entrepreneurs located in the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation and using an IP address, are required to submit information for placement in the State Information System (GIS). The procedure for providing information is determined by the government, and it also selects the system operator.
Let us recall that back in 2014, the Security Council instructed a number of departments to take care of Internet security. Adopted in December 2014, “ Military doctrine RF" it was recorded that "there has been a tendency to shift military dangers and military threats into the information space and the internal sphere Russian Federation" Among the main external dangers for Russia, the document noted such as the use of information and communication technologies for military-political purposes to carry out actions contrary to international law directed against the sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity of states and posing a threat international peace, security, global and regional stability.
bykst, 2014 A little earlier, in July 2014, amendments were adopted to the “Law on the processing of personal data in information and telecommunication networks”, according to which foreign companies must store information about Russian users only on the territory of the Russian Federation. On August 1, 2014, the so-called Law on Bloggers came into force, providing for mandatory registration with Roskomnadzor of authors of Internet resources with more than 3,000 visitors per day.
In May 2016, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications published amendments to the Information Society state program, which also relate to the protection of the Russian Internet infrastructure. According to the ministry's plans, by 2020, 99% of Russian Internet traffic should be transmitted within the country, compared to 70% in 2014.
In addition, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications plans to duplicate 99% of the critical Internet infrastructure in Russia. In 2014, this figure was zero, and this year it should reach 40%, according to documents from the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications.
“The measures proposed by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications support the digital security of the country,” Alexey Korolyuk, CEO of the domain name registrar Reg.ru, told the Vedomosti newspaper. “If the route of Russian traffic runs through other countries, if desired, it can not only be stopped, but also replaced.” On the other hand, they also bring Russia closer to the model of the Chinese Internet, closed from the outside world. “The measures proposed by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications are not enough to disconnect Russia from outside world,” Korolyuk objects, “In addition to duplicating the critical infrastructure of the Internet and Russifying traffic, it will be necessary to limit the list of external channels.”
Georgia National Guard, 2014 The separation of the Russian segment of the Internet from the global one is unlikely, says Vedomosti’s interlocutor at one of the large telecom operators. This will cause enormous damage to both ordinary users and businesses. Obviously, in this case, a stripped-down version of the Internet will work in Russia, and updates will stop OS mobile devices, and the IT systems of large businesses will lose connectivity with foreign systems.
Meanwhile, restricting the use of the Internet on the territory of individual states in last years is becoming an increasingly common practice. This phenomenon even received a special name - “Balkanization of the Internet”, by analogy with the political term “Balkanization”, which is used to mean “disintegration”. The Balkanization of the Internet is the transformation of the global network into many local networks, the boundaries between which are established artificially at the level of national legislation and government regulation of the Internet. The term “Balkanization of the Internet” refers not only to the collapse of the World Wide Web, but also the emergence of conflict between the resulting parts, often on an ideological, political and religious basis.
The most active “Balkanizers of the Internet” today are China, Cuba and Iran. In particular, official permission to censor the Internet allows China, in order to ensure information security, to block access to all foreign resources during particularly important government events. In addition, the Chinese government is constantly monitoring requests for search engines and when introducing “suspicious” phrases, it can disable the user from accessing this site for several minutes. Another sign of the isolation of the Chinese part of the World Wide Web is the prohibition of such resources as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter on the territory of the PRC. In addition, the Chinese government recently encouraged Internet users to register with the police.
geralt, 2016 Iran
Bloggers who criticize the government or religious figures in this country are detained by the police and given “explanatory conversations.” The government requires that every person who maintains a blog in Iran registers the blog with the Ministry of Arts and Culture. The government blocks websites that criticize the regime. Sites related to the protection of women's rights are especially controlled; in addition, online stores are blocked.
Saudi ArabiaAbout 400 thousand sites are blocked by the government of this country. The blocked sites include sites with political, social and religious themes. According to a study dating back to 2004, Saudi Arabia is extremely aggressive towards pornography sites, gaming sites, and sites discussing Islam.
Internet in North Korea
The information and economic isolation of the country allowed the North Korean authorities to solve the problem with unwanted information on the Internet radically - the Internet was simply “cut off” throughout the country. In 2000, at the initiative of the DPRK government, the national Gwangmyeon network was created as a surrogate for the Internet. shining example intranet. Ordinary users (of which there are few anyway - due to the high cost of the computer, they are mainly nomenclature workers) are offered its analogue - an internal “grid” covering the entire country.
eastnews.ru In this “analogue,” as people familiar with the problem say, everything is the same as on the “big” Internet - websites, chat rooms, forums. True, there is no smell of anarchy or even freedom typical of the Western and Russian segments - in strict accordance with the Orwellian idea, information is monitored by censors. The specificity of the country is that ALL information is read, almost without exception.
“Runet will be completely isolated by 2020,” -:
In general, 5 years ago it was noted that Russia is very likely to follow the path of China in controlling its own segment of the Internet. War in Ukraine and Cold War with the USA will only speed up this process.
In the event of a prolonged conflict (which is most likely at this stage), security forces and regulatory authorities will strive to maximize control over the Runet infrastructure and its digital content. As in China, this will not be complete censorship (unlike, say, the DPRK, where the local Internet is completely autonomous), but the level of control will inevitably increase, which is an objective reality in war conditions.
It can also be noted that the construction of “information trenches” on the Internet began in the second half of the 2000s, which was a consequence of the reaction various states to the color revolutions of the first wave, where the role of the Internet in the overthrow of various autocratic or democratic regimes was unexpected for many (including the overthrown regimes). In this regard, China, with its “great Chinese firewall,” has demonstrated how to cut off unwanted information channels without total censorship. In Russia, this experience began to be adopted under Medvedev, but only during Putin’s 3rd term did it become visible systematic work in this direction. Here it is worth remembering that both China and Russia are building purely defensive systems, while the United States is still focused on using the Internet for systemic information and psychological attacks, and in this regard, the initiative here is still with the United States, although such favorable conditions for use The United States no longer has the Internet, as it did in the 2000s, since the mechanisms of color coups over the past years have been carefully studied by interested authorities.
U.S. Army CERDEC, 2013 Control over the Internet by governments in problematic relations with the United States is also the result of studying the actions of the Americans themselves, although, of course, these conclusions are not limited to the isolation of the Runet alone - control over foreign NGOs, increased control over the federal media, the status foreign agents, the expansion of the powers of security forces - all this is a consequence of the increasing confrontation, where the Kremlin is unequivocally reacting to open threats from the United States to change the regime in Russia.
Here you need to understand that the prohibitive itch has very bright negative sides, since the more bans, the more they generate dissatisfaction among apolitical citizens, so the enemy may, on the contrary, strive to ensure that a vague threat forces the authorities to introduce more and more new bans, essentially cultivating dissatisfaction with their own actions aimed at preventing it. Therefore, the situation is very complicated for the authorities - on the one hand, it is necessary to stop potential threats, on the other hand, they can easily go too far and play into the hands of the enemy. In this regard, the Chinese experience of controlling the Internet is quite flexible in terms of combining more or less free access with clearly defined boundaries of censorship. We will be heading towards something similar in the coming years.
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Of course, there is a mechanism that would make it possible to disconnect the Russian segment of the Internet from the global network.
Computer network specialist Vladimir Fomin says:Initiatives to disconnect the Russian Federation from the global Internet may come from the government of some other country, for example, the United States.
When the initiative to disconnect a country comes from another state, it usually comes to ICANN, this is the organization that issues domain addresses. Theoretically, it can take away the ru domains. But even if this happens, this case cannot be considered a disconnection of the country from the Internet, since when transmitting data, the equipment does not operate with domain names, but operates with IP addresses. And by IP address you can reach any server outside the country.
There is also talk about RIPE - the organization that issues IP addresses. If we imagine that RIPE will take away IP addresses issued to Russian telecommunications companies, this will affect the operation of the entire Internet in the world. And the RIPE policy contradicts this situation.
Meanwhile, according to a VTsIOM study conducted in 2015, 58% agree to completely cut off access to the network in case of emergencies. The study raises the question of a complete shutdown of Internet access. This formulation of the question may be due to the fact that Russia is currently technically and organizationally not ready to create a national firewall project that would block all unwanted information from entering the Russian segment of the network, modeled on the Chinese “Golden Shield”.
Russia is technically ready to disconnect from the global Internet, said German Klimenko, adviser to the Russian President on Internet development, in an interview with the Pozdnyakov program on the NTV channel. According to him, if Russia tries to block access to the Internet from the outside, it will have almost no effect on Russian users.
German Klimenko recalled that the Russian segment of the Internet is already operating, which was created by order of Vladimir Putin specifically for officials.
“We have officials, everyone government agencies are behind such a “big Chinese firewall” - that’s what they’re trying to scare everyone with. It seems like everyone is still alive. But the point is that, in fact, technically we are ready for any action now. There are always failures when switching from one technology to another. If tomorrow our colleagues disconnect us from the switch - that’s it, there will be no addressing, there will be no DNS servers, nothing will happen. I don't know if this will happen painlessly, because something will definitely go off somewhere somewhere. But in general, technically and programmatically, there are no contraindications for us to live well and normally, effectively, even if war is declared, something like the Crimean isolation.”
It is theoretically possible to disconnect Russia from the World Wide Web, but this does not mean that users will be left without the Internet, said information security expert Maxim Emm:
“Many routers, many services are tied to root servers located in America. Now, if there is a break or disconnection of communication channels, then our internal segment - all our sites, all our users - will continue to see each other, but will not see, for example, Western sites. In what case can this happen? America may include in its next package of sanctions an order to its providers to ensure that traffic from Russian providers is turned off or not accepted. It may also affect other countries through a ban, for example, on American companies working with those companies that have not cut off traffic to Russia. It is unlikely that this will happen in a normal peaceful mode; it looks more like some kind of military action in cyberspace.”
You can disconnect Russia from the Internet from within the country, says Cisco Internet security consultant Alexey Lukatsky. But the Russian authorities are unlikely to seriously consider this possibility, the expert believes:
“Exactly the same tools can be used in Russia. If a decision is made at the very top to disconnect us from the whole world, then it will be enough to give a command to telecom operators, and they will block all traffic originating from Russia. Such statements are made regularly. This is, rather, a demonstration that Russia is closely monitoring what is happening in the international arena and is preparing for different scenarios developments of events. But it probably wouldn’t occur to anyone to disconnect Russia from the Internet from within, at least because our interstate financial flows and various other interactions are tied to the Internet. Without the Internet, we will really be completely isolated from the whole world, which, I think, the Russian authorities simply do not want at this point in time.
In 2015, the media reported that Russian authorities were working on a scenario for disconnecting the country from the Internet. The FSO, FSB and the Ministry of Defense allegedly took part in the exercises. However, later the head of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, Nikolai Nikiforov, clarified this information: according to him, the ideas of network isolation are not discussed, and experts were working out an action plan in case Russia’s access to the World Wide Web is blocked from the outside.
The Kremlin continues to prepare the mass consciousness of the Russian population for the prospect of informational isolation of the country from the world.
Adviser to the President of the Russian Federation on Internet development German Klimenko for the second time since the beginning of March announced the possibility of disconnecting the country from the world Internet and promised that this process would go “unnoticed” for those who have already switched to using domestic products on the Internet.
“Those who use Yandex, Mail and Rambler will not notice at all that anything has happened,” Klimenko promised. He added that the same applies to people who “use domestic software products: for example, Russia has developed and has its own mobile operating system.” Let us recall that a week earlier Klimenko announced the technical readiness of the Russian infrastructure to be disconnected from the global Internet.
"If tomorrow our colleagues disconnect us from the switch,<...>There are no hardware or software contraindications for us to live well and normally, even if such a war is declared on us,” he said.
According to him, Klimenko, the Russian segment of the network is already operating, which was created by presidential decree specifically for officials: “All government institutions are behind a big ‘Chinese firewall’. That’s what they scare us all with. But so far everyone is alive.”
According to the presidential adviser, difficulties will arise only for those who “hosted their domains abroad, stored their data abroad, although there is a decree to store them here.”
He recalled that back in 2010, a decree of the Russian government instructed to switch to domestic software within five years.
In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the relevant Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to try to come to an agreement with the BRICS countries on the creation of a separate Internet, independent of the existing one. To do this, it is necessary to create our own system of root domain name servers (DNS), which would “duplicate” the existing one, would be independent from the control of international organizations and would protect Russian users from “targeted influences” and “US domination,” the order said.
According to VTsIOM, the idea of a separate Internet for Russia is supported by 81% of the population. At the same time, 58% approve of creating an alternative network with the BRICS countries. Another 23% believe that the best option there would be an Internet completely isolated from the outside world, existing only within the borders of Russia itself.
Every fourth of those who supported this idea “difficult to answer” about the reasons for their decision. Among those who have an explanation, the majority (49%) cited that a separate Internet would “increase the level of security” in the country and become “ better protection from international hackers."
For consideration in State Duma The Russian Federation introduced a bill on ensuring battery life Russian segment of the Internet. In essence, they are discussing the disconnection of Russia from the world Internet. This will happen if the country is disconnected from the global infrastructure of the world Internet. This is stated in the document published on the website automated system ensuring legislative activity.
About the "Great Russian Firewall"
The draft of this law was submitted to the lower house of parliament by the head of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Andrei Klishas, his first deputy Lyudmila Bokova and State Duma deputy Andrei Lugovoi.
Politicians want telecom operators to minimize the amount of data transferred abroad. And they created controlled connection points for the Russian segment of the Internet to foreign networks. Such measures will provide the possibility of centralized management of traffic exchanged between Russian users when a “threat arises” from Western countries.
Disconnecting Russia from the world Internet
The authors of the bill plan to introduce a number of changes to the federal law"About communication." The reason for the changes was “the aggressive nature of the US National Cyber Security Strategy adopted in September 2018.” Parliamentarians refer to the fact that the US President declares the principle of “preserving peace by force.”
“Russia is directly and without evidence accused of committing hacker attacks, and there is open talk about punishment. Allegedly Russia, Iran, North Korea carried out a series of irresponsible actions that caused damage to American and international companies, our allies and partners. And they did not receive appropriate punishment. What could deter cyber attacks in the future? explanatory note to the project.
Parliamentarians are confident that Russia “needs protective measures to ensure long-term and sustainable operation of the Internet in Russia. Increasing the reliability of Russian Internet resources."
The law defines the rules for routing traffic and organizes control over their compliance. In addition, it creates the opportunity to minimize the transfer of data exchanged by Russian users abroad.
How the new law will affect telecom operators
If the bill “on the Great Russian Firewall” is adopted, then operators and providers will have to use tools to determine the source of traffic. They will be able to limit traffic to prohibited resources not only by network address (which can be circumvented using VPN, Tor and anonymizers), but also by completely blocking outgoing traffic.
Parliamentarians propose to ensure the autonomous operation of the Russian Runet by creating national system DNS servers. To date, the bill has been registered and sent for consideration to the Chairman of the State Duma.
The “Great Russian Firewall” law is perhaps the most ambitious project to regulate the Internet in 2018. There is an opinion that it could be adopted by February. And start shutting down, citing the threat from Ukraine and terrorism. If the law passes, then Russia will face a new milestone in the history of the Runet. It will be characterized by a complete disconnection of the domestic digital market from the world. This is Russia's disconnection from the world Internet. Thus, the country is slowly but surely sliding towards Iran and North Korea.
Yaroslav Dubovikov, executive director of the telecom operator OTK (United Telecommunications Corporation): “It is important to understand that if the initiative is adopted and there are attempts to block foreign Internet traffic, this will also affect telephony. Many operators have already switched to IP transit of voice calls. All this will lead to blocking the transfer of data not only in the form of pictures, videos, texts, but also in the format of regular phone calls.”
Recently, a bill was introduced to the State Duma to ensure autonomous operation of the Russian segment of the Internet. The authors of the initiative noted that the project was prepared “taking into account the aggressive nature of the US national cybersecurity strategy adopted in September 2018.” To protect Russia, it is proposed to create an infrastructure that will ensure the operability of Russian Internet resources in the event of “the impossibility of connecting Russian telecom operators to foreign root servers of the Internet.”
This is not the first Russian initiative to strengthen its digital sovereignty. In November 2017, the Russian Security Council instructed the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to create in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) their own “system of duplicate root domain name servers (DNS)”, which would not depend on the control of international organizations ICANN, IANA and VeriSign and could serve requests from users of the BRICS countries “in case of failures or targeted impacts.” Before this, in 2014, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications also conducted exercises on the stability of the Runet to external threats, Alexey Platonov, general director of the Internet Technical Center (TCI) company, told Kommersant in 2016. TCI, in particular, is involved in supporting the DNS infrastructure of the Runet .
Whose internet?
The prototype of the Internet was the ARPANET, created by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and connecting computers at American research centers across the country. However, the data transfer process needed to be systematized. This was done by a team of researchers from the University of California. In October 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was created. In addition to the IANA functions, the organization, along with Engineering Council Internet Task Force (IETF) was engaged in the further development of protocols and architecture of the global network. The US government, represented by the Department of Commerce, entered into a contract with ICANN, according to which the government was given a seat on one of the corporation's committees, which allowed it to veto its decisions.
The corporation is responsible for the development of Internet standards and delegates domain registration authority to five regional Internet registrars (RIRs). The Russian segment is served by the RIPE NCC registrar with offices in Amsterdam and Dubai. It consists of national registrars who pay membership fees, form a board of directors and elect a managing director. The contract between ICANN and the US government was renewed regularly. Formally, all the actions of the Corporation were coordinated with American officials. During his last term, Barack Obama supported ICANN's intention not to enter into a new contract with the government. In the fall of 2014, Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov announced the creation of duplicate infrastructure elements to improve the security of the Runet. The European Commission also called for ICANN to be internationalized.
At a meeting of BRICS leaders in Argentina, the Russian President thanked Brazil, India, China and South Africa “for supporting the Russian initiative ... to intensify coordinated actions at the UN on the topic of Internet governance and ensuring international information security,” referring to the draft UN General Assembly resolution proposed by Russia on global cybersecurity issues. The Russian resolution, in particular, says: “all states must play the same role and bear equal responsibility for international management Internet, ensuring the security, uninterruption and stability of its functioning.” Russia reminds that countries need sovereignty in cyberspace to protect the rights of their own citizens, which is the responsibility of states. Secondly, for the sake of one’s own (state) security. It’s risky to outsource key elements of Internet management, if only because the health of the Internet determines whether the Internet will work. National economy. Regarding cyber attacks, the difference in approaches is as follows: the United States seeks to implement international relations rules for conducting cyber warfare, while Russia’s proposals are aimed at preventing it. The American “cyber strategy” proclaims the US intention to “coerce” states, military force including “responsible behavior” in cyberspace.
Is the threat of Russia being “disconnected” from the Internet real?
