6 ms·

Russia to disconnect from the internet as part of a planned test

109 points by yread 8y ago

writepub 8y ago
Whatever your opinion of Russian politics, from a technical standpoint, aiming for full autonomy of critical services at a national scale, is praise worthy! If successful, this is also scary, as Russia will be free to wreck havoc on the general internet, without domestic impact
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Russia will be free to wreck havoc on the general internet, without domestic impact This is like demolishing one’s cities to claim immunity from nuclear attack. There’s no reason the damage couldn’t have been incurred at a later date, only when necessary. Disconnecting from the world will leave Russia economically, scientifically, culturally and thus militarily poorer. The only reason the decision makes sense is it helps keep Putin and his gang in power.
- ackbar03 8y ago
  I think this kind of exercise and thinking is also pretty ahead of its time, Russia really understands the implications of cyber warfare. Ww3 is really going to take place on the net
  - Pharmakon 8y ago
    Correction: WW3 might start online, but it will end with mushroom clouds. To the GP Whatever your opinion of Russian politics, from a technical standpoint, aiming for full autonomy of critical services at a national scale, is praise worthy! Sure, and the Nazis were really organized, why they almost made it to Moscow.
    - konart 8y ago
      >they almost made it to Moscow. And almost made it back.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Indeed. I think of all those "Slack is down, everyone can't work" moments when I think of this. They're really trying to remove outside dependencies, and limiting the ability for other actors to use those dependencies against them. My guess is the US thinks along the same lines, but since most things Internet are US-based to begin with, they're probably less concerned with a dramatic public test.
  - nur0n 8y ago
    > since most things Internet are US-based What is meant by this?
    - awad 8y ago
      From a practical standpoint, most users in the US are accessing US-shored services.
      - disordinary 8y ago
        Yep, there's no aws Russian region but plenty in the US.
        konart 8y ago
        Though they now have new Russia focused jobs: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?offset=0&result_limit=10&sort=relevant&distanceType=Mi&radius=24km&latitude=&longitude=&loc_group_id=&loc_query=&base_query=russia&city=&country=&region=&county=&query_options=& https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?offset=0&result_limit=10&s... Maybe this is not a coincidence.
        disordinary 8y ago
        They obviously have sales there and probably cloud front infrastructure too. Maybe a az in the future, only they know.
        Retric 8y ago
amai 8y ago
Did they learn this from Egypt? "Autocratic governments often limit phone and Internet access in tense times. But the Internet has never faced anything like what happened in Egypt on Friday, when the government of a country with 80 million people and a modernizing economy cut off nearly all access to the network and shut down cellphone service." https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/technology/internet/29cutoff.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/technology/internet/29cut...
- amai 8y ago
  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_kill_switch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_kill_switch
- rando444 8y ago
  I think you misunderstand. The Russians are leaving the networks up, just testing how they function autonomously. The Egyptians turned everything off.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  Nah, it's the initial step to create a Great Firewall.
JackPoach 8y ago
Wasn't this already a top news yesterday (BBC article on the same subject)?
PavlovsCat 8y ago
> The first example of relatively large-scale citizen journalism online was during the August 1991 coup attempt by eight high-level Soviet officials. There were two days of confrontation between demonstrators and troops, during which all Russian media except Usenet news groups were shut down by the authorities. Usenet, a precursor of today's Internet discussion forums, carried traffic into, out of and within Russia (70 cities) during the days of the coup attempt. [..] > "Don't worry, we're OK, though frightened and angry. Moscow is full of tanks and military machines, I hate them. They try to close all mass media, they shutted up CNN an hour ago, Soviet TV transmits opera and old movies. But, thanks Heaven, they don't consider RELCOM mass media or they simply forgot about it. Now we transmit information enough to put us in prison for the rest of our life :-). Hope all will turn out well at long last..." -- Polina Antonova http://cis471.blogspot.com/2011/01/before-twitter-revolutions-there-was.html http://cis471.blogspot.com/2011/01/before-twitter-revolution... I'm not happy how this is turning out, actually. Though I'm not thinking of just Russia, the situation is too pathetic across the board for anyone to point fingers at anyone. I'm not some kind of old school hacker either, I don't even get advanced math. But just as someone who was fascinated and inspired by "this stuff" since childhood, just by the stuff I saw in .readme files, I think this is true, even I can tell from the sidelines: the precious few ideals that made this all actually worthwhile, maybe noble even, were just quietly dropped by the wayside by too many, and subsequently not even encountered in the first place by even more. And that kinda breaks my heart.
drinchev 8y ago
This "experiment" looks like a way to enforce DNS / caching services / mail services to store their data inside Russia. Which makes it easier for anyone with just a letter from the court to get it.
- est 8y ago
  more like stopped routing on ISP level.
hguhghuff 8y ago
There’s no situation for which “disconnect internet” could be the answer.
- riffraff 8y ago
  It's a fairly good answer "how do you limit dissent when you have easy control of media in your country but do not have it for foreign sources?"
- explainplease 8y ago
  Cyber war would be such a situation, after first strike. Or before first strike, and attack from sources outside the country. In which case, seeing Russia go dark would be like an indication of cyber "missle" launch, but with probably milliseconds of early warning. Makes me wonder if nations have or will have systems to try to detect when another nation is going offline and try to go offline themselves before damage can be done. Perhaps the best attacks will be launched from inside borders (imagine if one nation had hidden missle silos inside another nation's borders). Then imagine if actual network problems were misinterpreted as a cyber "launch," and caused one nation to "launch" in response. Similar to ICBMs, there would be a window in which counterattacks could be launched, but it would be very, very small in comparison.
- mirkules 8y ago
  It’s just an Outlook upgrade, nothing to see here...
- FrojoS 8y ago
  What if the disconnect would happen from outside? You would want to make sure that at least the most critical services continue working. Of course, in addition, the Russian government also wants to control their citizens.
- eps 8y ago
  That's not "disconnecting the Internet". It's oddly enough the reverse. From what it looks like, the idea is to try and make sure that the country's IT infruatructure and its essential public services - email, web, search, etc. - remain functional, should it be ever cut off from the Internet for whatever reason. It's a doomsday thinking, it goes against the very essence of the Internet, but this is something aimed at asserting country's independence. I'd prefer this would've not been needed, but given the current state of affairs I can't say I'm shoked they are doing this.
simula67 8y ago
I guess this should have been expected after Putin's interview with Megyn Kelly Disconnecting Iran from SWIFT[1], continuing use of export controls [2] even after the fall of Soviet Union etc have demonstrated that non-western powers may not have sufficient room to set foreign policy on their own. This might improve that situation a little bit for current and future Russian governments [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-iran-sanctions-swift/swift-system-to-disconnect-some-iranian-banks-this-weekend-idUSFWN1XK0YW https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-iran-sanctions-swift/swi... [2] https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/regulations/export-administration-regulations-ear https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/regulations/export-adminis...
- ernst_klim 8y ago
  How exactly did western powers impede Russia? By implementing very modest sanctions against the selected assholes from the mafia state? >This might improve that situation a little bit for current and future Russian governments Yeah, a totalitarian militarized state with state propaganda and own internal government-approved network, I've dreamed about that for my whole life.
  - simula67 8y ago
    Are you seriously under the illusion that western powers do not try to impede Russia ? John McCain flew in to support Ukrainian revolutionaries against Pro-Russian government : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/john-mccain-ukraine-protests-support-just-cause https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/john-mccain-uk... >militarized state https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/30/does-military-equipment-lead-police-officers-to-be-more-violent-we-did-the-research/?utm_term=.2eefc78900c2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/3... > state propaganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish%E2%80%93American_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish%E2%8... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller > own internal government-approved network From : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America "From 1948 until its repeal in 2013, Voice of America was forbidden to broadcast directly to American citizens under § 501 of the Smith–Mundt Act. The act was repealed as a result of the passing of the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013. The intent of the legislation in 1948 was to protect the American public from propaganda actions by their own government." > I've dreamed about that for my whole life Live the dream!
tetha 8y ago
Now I'm back thinking about my plans to learn amateur radio operation. The internet stops being a way to go to relay information if a bigger government decides to do something horrible to their citizens.
- setquk 8y ago
  Government would shut down all the amateur radio operators pretty quickly (you’re on a database). Plus it’s not quite as romantic or reliable as it sounds, especially on HF at the moment. Go do it for sure, but you’ll find trivial confirmations and conversations about declining health and not a lot else. I only operate CW (morse) myself because that’s more interesting and there is a technical challenge.
artellectual 8y ago
In Thailand the government tried to 'Ban' facebook once. They blocked facebook and netizens DDoSed government sites by going on the site and hitting refresh, on top of that they faced immense backlash on social media. They enabled facebook again with in a matter of a couple of hours. Later they blamed it on the ISP. Banning / Blocking any kind of internet usually doesn't work well for the government. Especially in a society that has already been relatively free online. The Economy of countries now depend on the Internet. Any government stupid enough to even test this kind of technology will face the consequences.
- etrautmann 8y ago
  While I'd like to believe this is true, doesn't China control content unfortunately effectively?
  - artellectual 8y ago
    China is also feeling the effect. In Thailand right now there are entire villages / neighborhoods full of Chinese immigrants who have migrated away from China. Once they tasted freedom going back to live just isn’t feasible anymore. So much do the that now the Chinese government have stopped people from moving large amounts of cash out of the country to buy real estate outside of China. They are definitely feeling the effect. I also know a lot of foreigners who have been operating businesses in China for the past 7 years and are now moving out because they feel their civil / organizational liberties are being invaded. People find ways of revolting without being killed. Freedom is a powerful force. Blocking and controlling is like a game of whack a mole. There is one of you and billions of moles, the Chinese government and Russian government are fighting a losing battle. Of course none of this is reported because of censorship. But if you read the news and you understand what’s going on on the ground level it all makes sense.
- tjomk 8y ago
  Russia is trying to follow the Chinese model which doesn't have problem banning websites. Other than Instagram and Whatsapp, Russians don't seem to be interested in other services.
varelaz 8y ago
I think the main purpose of this is to force local users to migrate to local services. Right now a lot of services that used by citizens are hosted outside of Russia and cannot be influenced or managed by government. They afraid disconnection as sanction. They have a law that companies should store personal data in local data centers. But most of the foreign companies don't obey it, so that's the lever. I don't think that disconnection could protect from cyber war, viruses and attacks could be easily run from inside.
- benj111 8y ago
  The main purpose is create their own 'great firewall' (electronic curtain???) Edit: The BBC article has a bit more detail. "The test is also expected to involve ISPs demonstrating that they can direct data to government-controlled routing points. These will filter traffic so that data sent between Russians reaches its destination, but any destined for foreign computers is discarded." Why else would you need to discard outbound traffic? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47198426?intlink_from_url=&link_location=live-reporting-story https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47198426?intlink_from_ur...
  - varelaz 8y ago
    Constant firewall cost is too high. It's much easier just to abrupt external network several times to show that foreign services are not reliable. As for me, rather government that does this is not reliable, but that's unlikely that protests will be strong enough. Yes it will be a "test", but a lot of small companies will be worried and will need to find a way to keep their operations up.
  - reacweb 8y ago
    Every country in the world has become dependent on the Internet. If ever, on the impulse of a poorly-minded president, the United States decides to sanction a country by cutting off its access to the Internet, this country would find itself in a very unpleasant situation. The United States has already demonstrated its tendency to raise sanctions, its tendency to elect unreasonable presidents and its tendency to threaten Russia. I am not Russian, but I think it is quite wise for Russia to be prepared for this kind of eventuality. Si vis pacem para bellum.
samcday 8y ago
If something like Starlink goes live, would it possibly be a way for citizens of a country that chooses to nope out of the global internet to stay online?
- nakedrobot2 8y ago
  No, because they are short range and require stations on earth to provide internet locally. As far as I know. But I know very little about starlink.
- Gaelan 8y ago
  That's an interesting scenario. Assuming they're completely isolated, I imagine you'd end up with an industry of smuggling the internet—build a tunnel under the border, run some fiber (is there a way to do a high-bandwidth wireless link?), host a VPN accessible from within the county, profit handsomely.
ToFab123 8y ago
I am currently writing a microservice application. One of my test cases involves cutting access to internet to ensure that my application can handle that situation. What Russia is doing here is the same. Just on a different scale.
emilsedgh 8y ago
Interesting. Iran announced the same thing last month but then canceled it due to major backlash from people and enterprises. I wonder if the two governments were aligned.
dang 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135085
d__k 8y ago
> Russia to disconnect from the internet as part of a planned test This is precisely what I would do as an engineer if I was responsible for operating such kind of network infrastructure

109 points by yread 8y ago

Whatever your opinion of Russian politics, from a technical standpoint, aiming for full autonomy of critical services at a national scale, is praise worthy! If successful, this is also scary, as Russia will be free to wreck havoc on the general internet, without domestic impact

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Russia will be free to wreck havoc on the general internet, without domestic impact This is like demolishing one’s cities to claim immunity from nuclear attack. There’s no reason the damage couldn’t have been incurred at a later date, only when necessary. Disconnecting from the world will leave Russia economically, scientifically, culturally and thus militarily poorer. The only reason the decision makes sense is it helps keep Putin and his gang in power.
ackbar03 8y ago
I think this kind of exercise and thinking is also pretty ahead of its time, Russia really understands the implications of cyber warfare. Ww3 is really going to take place on the net
- Pharmakon 8y ago
  Correction: WW3 might start online, but it will end with mushroom clouds. To the GP Whatever your opinion of Russian politics, from a technical standpoint, aiming for full autonomy of critical services at a national scale, is praise worthy! Sure, and the Nazis were really organized, why they almost made it to Moscow.
  - konart 8y ago
    >they almost made it to Moscow. And almost made it back.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
Indeed. I think of all those "Slack is down, everyone can't work" moments when I think of this. They're really trying to remove outside dependencies, and limiting the ability for other actors to use those dependencies against them. My guess is the US thinks along the same lines, but since most things Internet are US-based to begin with, they're probably less concerned with a dramatic public test.
- nur0n 8y ago
  > since most things Internet are US-based What is meant by this?
  - awad 8y ago
    From a practical standpoint, most users in the US are accessing US-shored services.
    - disordinary 8y ago
      Yep, there's no aws Russian region but plenty in the US.
      - konart 8y ago
        Though they now have new Russia focused jobs: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?offset=0&result_limit=10&sort=relevant&distanceType=Mi&radius=24km&latitude=&longitude=&loc_group_id=&loc_query=&base_query=russia&city=&country=&region=&county=&query_options=& https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?offset=0&result_limit=10&s... Maybe this is not a coincidence.
        disordinary 8y ago
        They obviously have sales there and probably cloud front infrastructure too. Maybe a az in the future, only they know.
      - Retric 8y ago

amai 8y ago

Did they learn this from Egypt? "Autocratic governments often limit phone and Internet access in tense times. But the Internet has never faced anything like what happened in Egypt on Friday, when the government of a country with 80 million people and a modernizing economy cut off nearly all access to the network and shut down cellphone service." https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/technology/internet/29cutoff.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/technology/internet/29cut...

amai 8y ago
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_kill_switch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_kill_switch
rando444 8y ago
I think you misunderstand. The Russians are leaving the networks up, just testing how they function autonomously. The Egyptians turned everything off.
jonathankoren 8y ago
Nah, it's the initial step to create a Great Firewall.

JackPoach 8y ago

Wasn't this already a top news yesterday (BBC article on the same subject)?

PavlovsCat 8y ago

> The first example of relatively large-scale citizen journalism online was during the August 1991 coup attempt by eight high-level Soviet officials. There were two days of confrontation between demonstrators and troops, during which all Russian media except Usenet news groups were shut down by the authorities. Usenet, a precursor of today's Internet discussion forums, carried traffic into, out of and within Russia (70 cities) during the days of the coup attempt. [..] > "Don't worry, we're OK, though frightened and angry. Moscow is full of tanks and military machines, I hate them. They try to close all mass media, they shutted up CNN an hour ago, Soviet TV transmits opera and old movies. But, thanks Heaven, they don't consider RELCOM mass media or they simply forgot about it. Now we transmit information enough to put us in prison for the rest of our life :-). Hope all will turn out well at long last..." -- Polina Antonova http://cis471.blogspot.com/2011/01/before-twitter-revolutions-there-was.html http://cis471.blogspot.com/2011/01/before-twitter-revolution... I'm not happy how this is turning out, actually. Though I'm not thinking of just Russia, the situation is too pathetic across the board for anyone to point fingers at anyone. I'm not some kind of old school hacker either, I don't even get advanced math. But just as someone who was fascinated and inspired by "this stuff" since childhood, just by the stuff I saw in .readme files, I think this is true, even I can tell from the sidelines: the precious few ideals that made this all actually worthwhile, maybe noble even, were just quietly dropped by the wayside by too many, and subsequently not even encountered in the first place by even more. And that kinda breaks my heart.

drinchev 8y ago

This "experiment" looks like a way to enforce DNS / caching services / mail services to store their data inside Russia. Which makes it easier for anyone with just a letter from the court to get it.

est 8y ago
more like stopped routing on ISP level.

hguhghuff 8y ago

There’s no situation for which “disconnect internet” could be the answer.

riffraff 8y ago
It's a fairly good answer "how do you limit dissent when you have easy control of media in your country but do not have it for foreign sources?"
explainplease 8y ago
Cyber war would be such a situation, after first strike. Or before first strike, and attack from sources outside the country. In which case, seeing Russia go dark would be like an indication of cyber "missle" launch, but with probably milliseconds of early warning. Makes me wonder if nations have or will have systems to try to detect when another nation is going offline and try to go offline themselves before damage can be done. Perhaps the best attacks will be launched from inside borders (imagine if one nation had hidden missle silos inside another nation's borders). Then imagine if actual network problems were misinterpreted as a cyber "launch," and caused one nation to "launch" in response. Similar to ICBMs, there would be a window in which counterattacks could be launched, but it would be very, very small in comparison.
mirkules 8y ago
It’s just an Outlook upgrade, nothing to see here...
FrojoS 8y ago
What if the disconnect would happen from outside? You would want to make sure that at least the most critical services continue working. Of course, in addition, the Russian government also wants to control their citizens.
eps 8y ago
That's not "disconnecting the Internet". It's oddly enough the reverse. From what it looks like, the idea is to try and make sure that the country's IT infruatructure and its essential public services - email, web, search, etc. - remain functional, should it be ever cut off from the Internet for whatever reason. It's a doomsday thinking, it goes against the very essence of the Internet, but this is something aimed at asserting country's independence. I'd prefer this would've not been needed, but given the current state of affairs I can't say I'm shoked they are doing this.

simula67 8y ago

I guess this should have been expected after Putin's interview with Megyn Kelly Disconnecting Iran from SWIFT[1], continuing use of export controls [2] even after the fall of Soviet Union etc have demonstrated that non-western powers may not have sufficient room to set foreign policy on their own. This might improve that situation a little bit for current and future Russian governments [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-iran-sanctions-swift/swift-system-to-disconnect-some-iranian-banks-this-weekend-idUSFWN1XK0YW https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-iran-sanctions-swift/swi... [2] https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/regulations/export-administration-regulations-ear https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/regulations/export-adminis...

ernst_klim 8y ago
How exactly did western powers impede Russia? By implementing very modest sanctions against the selected assholes from the mafia state? >This might improve that situation a little bit for current and future Russian governments Yeah, a totalitarian militarized state with state propaganda and own internal government-approved network, I've dreamed about that for my whole life.
- simula67 8y ago
  Are you seriously under the illusion that western powers do not try to impede Russia ? John McCain flew in to support Ukrainian revolutionaries against Pro-Russian government : https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/john-mccain-ukraine-protests-support-just-cause https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/john-mccain-uk... >militarized state https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/30/does-military-equipment-lead-police-officers-to-be-more-violent-we-did-the-research/?utm_term=.2eefc78900c2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/3... > state propaganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish%E2%80%93American_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish%E2%8... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller > own internal government-approved network From : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America "From 1948 until its repeal in 2013, Voice of America was forbidden to broadcast directly to American citizens under § 501 of the Smith–Mundt Act. The act was repealed as a result of the passing of the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013. The intent of the legislation in 1948 was to protect the American public from propaganda actions by their own government." > I've dreamed about that for my whole life Live the dream!

tetha 8y ago

Now I'm back thinking about my plans to learn amateur radio operation. The internet stops being a way to go to relay information if a bigger government decides to do something horrible to their citizens.

setquk 8y ago
Government would shut down all the amateur radio operators pretty quickly (you’re on a database). Plus it’s not quite as romantic or reliable as it sounds, especially on HF at the moment. Go do it for sure, but you’ll find trivial confirmations and conversations about declining health and not a lot else. I only operate CW (morse) myself because that’s more interesting and there is a technical challenge.

artellectual 8y ago

In Thailand the government tried to 'Ban' facebook once. They blocked facebook and netizens DDoSed government sites by going on the site and hitting refresh, on top of that they faced immense backlash on social media. They enabled facebook again with in a matter of a couple of hours. Later they blamed it on the ISP. Banning / Blocking any kind of internet usually doesn't work well for the government. Especially in a society that has already been relatively free online. The Economy of countries now depend on the Internet. Any government stupid enough to even test this kind of technology will face the consequences.

etrautmann 8y ago
While I'd like to believe this is true, doesn't China control content unfortunately effectively?
- artellectual 8y ago
  China is also feeling the effect. In Thailand right now there are entire villages / neighborhoods full of Chinese immigrants who have migrated away from China. Once they tasted freedom going back to live just isn’t feasible anymore. So much do the that now the Chinese government have stopped people from moving large amounts of cash out of the country to buy real estate outside of China. They are definitely feeling the effect. I also know a lot of foreigners who have been operating businesses in China for the past 7 years and are now moving out because they feel their civil / organizational liberties are being invaded. People find ways of revolting without being killed. Freedom is a powerful force. Blocking and controlling is like a game of whack a mole. There is one of you and billions of moles, the Chinese government and Russian government are fighting a losing battle. Of course none of this is reported because of censorship. But if you read the news and you understand what’s going on on the ground level it all makes sense.
tjomk 8y ago
Russia is trying to follow the Chinese model which doesn't have problem banning websites. Other than Instagram and Whatsapp, Russians don't seem to be interested in other services.

varelaz 8y ago

I think the main purpose of this is to force local users to migrate to local services. Right now a lot of services that used by citizens are hosted outside of Russia and cannot be influenced or managed by government. They afraid disconnection as sanction. They have a law that companies should store personal data in local data centers. But most of the foreign companies don't obey it, so that's the lever. I don't think that disconnection could protect from cyber war, viruses and attacks could be easily run from inside.

benj111 8y ago
The main purpose is create their own 'great firewall' (electronic curtain???) Edit: The BBC article has a bit more detail. "The test is also expected to involve ISPs demonstrating that they can direct data to government-controlled routing points. These will filter traffic so that data sent between Russians reaches its destination, but any destined for foreign computers is discarded." Why else would you need to discard outbound traffic? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47198426?intlink_from_url=&link_location=live-reporting-story https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47198426?intlink_from_ur...
- varelaz 8y ago
  Constant firewall cost is too high. It's much easier just to abrupt external network several times to show that foreign services are not reliable. As for me, rather government that does this is not reliable, but that's unlikely that protests will be strong enough. Yes it will be a "test", but a lot of small companies will be worried and will need to find a way to keep their operations up.
- reacweb 8y ago
  Every country in the world has become dependent on the Internet. If ever, on the impulse of a poorly-minded president, the United States decides to sanction a country by cutting off its access to the Internet, this country would find itself in a very unpleasant situation. The United States has already demonstrated its tendency to raise sanctions, its tendency to elect unreasonable presidents and its tendency to threaten Russia. I am not Russian, but I think it is quite wise for Russia to be prepared for this kind of eventuality. Si vis pacem para bellum.

samcday 8y ago

If something like Starlink goes live, would it possibly be a way for citizens of a country that chooses to nope out of the global internet to stay online?

nakedrobot2 8y ago
No, because they are short range and require stations on earth to provide internet locally. As far as I know. But I know very little about starlink.
Gaelan 8y ago
That's an interesting scenario. Assuming they're completely isolated, I imagine you'd end up with an industry of smuggling the internet—build a tunnel under the border, run some fiber (is there a way to do a high-bandwidth wireless link?), host a VPN accessible from within the county, profit handsomely.

ToFab123 8y ago

I am currently writing a microservice application. One of my test cases involves cutting access to internet to ensure that my application can handle that situation. What Russia is doing here is the same. Just on a different scale.

emilsedgh 8y ago

Interesting. Iran announced the same thing last month but then canceled it due to major backlash from people and enterprises. I wonder if the two governments were aligned.

dang 8y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135085

d__k 8y ago

> Russia to disconnect from the internet as part of a planned test This is precisely what I would do as an engineer if I was responsible for operating such kind of network infrastructure