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> Details of what the test involved were vague So we don’t know what exactly they tested. Why is this news, let alone an international one? Also, as far as I

> Details of what the test involved were vague So we don’t know what exactly they tested. Why is this news, let alone an international one? Also, as far as I understand, what the Russians were officially saying was that they were developing fallback systems for the event if, in another bout of sanctions, Russia gets disconnected from the global internet. Which, given their standing with the international community, may be a reasonable thing to do. But the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why.

DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
Power consolidation. The Internet is currently the best way to get access to honest, quality journalism - which is probably the biggest threat to Putin, et cetera. I believe Putin wants to undo glasnost.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ScottFree 7y ago
  > The Internet is currently the best way to get access to honest, quality journalism Honest, quality journalism is a fantasy. It never existed. Even Benjamin Franklin used his newspaper to influence elections by slandering his political rivals. Not to mention fake news[0]. [0]: https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/02/even-ben-franklin-used-fake-news/ https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/02/even-ben-frankli...
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    That’s a gross generalization if I ever heard one. Both exist.
    - ScottFree 7y ago
      Your faith in your religion is touching. You keep believing, no matter the evidence.
      - DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
        Billion-dollar companies with competent management pay large amounts of money to newsgathering agencies and companies for accurate information with which they can make business decisions on. I trust the objectivity of journalism when I pay for it directly and the news is the product - rather than most online journalism where (in practice, at least from the soulless business position) the audience is the product for advertisers which necessarily means compromising journalism. Nothing is free from bias - that much is true; that doesn't mean we should adopt your too-cynical attitude.
        Nasrudith 7y ago
        The thing to keep in mind is that paying for it is no guarantee that you aren't still also the product even without direct advertising. Incentives are a very messuy business and everything is a signal to someone - regardless of validity. There are no epistemological guarantees period so wariness is always required.
      - dang 7y ago
        Please don't cross into personal attack. It breaks the site guidelines and discredits your position. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        ScottFree 7y ago
        People on this site say far worse things about other religions all the time.
        dang 7y ago
        We moderate such comments heavily: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20religious&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
- branzo 7y ago
  Glasnot. Glasnyet.
everdev 7y ago
> the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why. Some potential benefits to Russia: 1. Thwart cyber attacks 2. Control information 3. Halt foreign online payments There are of course downsides, but I think the original premise was security in the event of war / aggression.
- azangru 7y ago
  > but I think the original premise was security in the event of war / aggression. That was my understanding as well.
  - jethro_tell 7y ago
    which is easy to declare without processes as needed, such as during social unrest. . ..
    - azangru 7y ago
      Oh, during a social unrest in Egypt in 2011 the government famously shut down the internet. Didn't help them much :-) I think the main concern of the Russian internet users is to get isolated from the rest of the internet indefinitely during peace time, in a way of China or North Korea. I am not sure we are seeing signs that the Russian government intends to go that far yet.
      - FpUser 7y ago
        When all that mess with Russia/Ukraine had started the West was openly contemplating disconnecting Russia from the international payment services. That had lead Russia to develop it's own. The Internet is a vital infrastructure element. Leaving the risk of potential disruption to some US congressmen's whims is not a very wise choice. Of course it can be used with bad intentions as well but so can anything else. I think I've already mentioned this in my older post and it was downvoted eagerly.
52-6F-62 7y ago
Anything can be news if it’s a recent development. Reporters report. I find it interesting. I wouldn’t have known otherwise.
aasasd 7y ago
> But the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why. Because control over access to the web is a theme of lawmaking and enforcement here for almost ten years. This is not an isolated initiative. I'd also very much like to know what exactly the ‘test’ consisted of, but there's no doubt that Russian government dreams of having a Big Russian Firewall and the rest of the wonderful Chinese inventions. Like e.g. having some government-mandated apps preinstalled on every phone sold here, which is coming into force in some following months. Like having messenger users identified by linking them to phone numbers, which is already a law and soon will be a law for email too (if I didn't miss it having been passed).
- azangru 7y ago
  > Like e.g. having some government-mandated apps preinstalled on every phone sold here, which is coming into force in some following months. It is the news the exact meaning of which is open to interpretation. Given that those pre-installed apps can be uninstalled, we should at least allow a possibility that rather than being an insidious tactic to spy on users this is simply a clumsy protectionist anti-competitive legislation to stimulate growth of local tech companies.
  - aasasd 7y ago
    For starters, where do you see that the apps can be uninstalled? Since when system-installed apps can be removed by a user without rooting or replacing the system? Secondly, pretending that this is an independent event and that the government, Duma, courts and police have a shred of good will after what they were doing for the last ten–twenty years, is so laughable that your insistence on that interpretation is baffling and suggestive. Even if by some miracle the apps are innocent at first, nothing prevents the FSB from slipping in different functionality after a year, or even in an update.
    - azangru 7y ago
      > have a shred of good will after what they were doing for the last ten–twenty years If by the "good will" you mean whether they are earnestly concerned with improving the quality of life of ordinary Russian citizens, then the answer is, most likely not. But between this and the worst possible interpretation (oh, they must be doing this to allow the FSB easy access into everyone's phones) there are various other possible interpretations, involving various degrees of self-indulgence or maliciousness. Can it be cheap publicity or a symbolic gesture? The first sponsor of the legislation is a member of LDPR, a nationalist party which is obsessed with Russian identity and isolationism. Can it be part of the import substitution project that Russia has been pursuing (largely unsuccessfully, I understand?) since 2014, to loosen its dependency on foreign imports? Can it be a protectionist measure to help otherwise uncompetitive local businesses? I think any of these options is realistic enough to explain the existence of the bill, even without going all the way to regarding it as a covert Kremlin/FSB operation. Which of course it may be, but it is simply too early to tell. I am sure in half a year — or whenever distributors start pre-installing prescribed apps — security experts will let us know whether these apps, besides just being a nuisance, are actually doing something malicious. Then we will have actual facts at our disposal, not just worries and speculations. Do you remember the much-maligned Yarovaya law from several years back? Has it had any scary practical consequences on the Russian internet?
FpUser 7y ago
There are very few real reporters left. Most of the articles reek of bias and since Russia is a designated bad country no matter what they do it is evil. I am not really trying to protect Russia here but articles like the one in the title are written for brain dead people. They should go try janitor work instead.
- dimator 7y ago
  The attack on a difficult profession that already suffers from stigmas is not necessary or welcome.
  - FpUser 7y ago
    Really? Not welcome by whom? You do not know what difficult profession is. Try something better. And the reason they suffer from stigmas is their own doing.
- wilg 7y ago
  Which part do you think is incorrect or misleading?
rudnevr 7y ago
maybe, because they've already banned linkedin, telegram, most opposition web-sites and have laws to proceed further?
coldtea 7y ago
>But the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why. Because Russia is the bad guy du jour... They have to gal to try to not sell their country and assets wholesale to foreign interests, plus something kleptocracy something (which the West never minds when it comes to allies, or their own behaviour in Asia, L. America, Africa, etc). So you get the usual barrage or news items, and people who can't even point Europe on the map (much less such subtlety as to point to e.g. France or Russia) feel like they can have an opinion.
EugeneOZ 7y ago
I'm not a journalist and I had to leave Russia because of Putin's regime. Maybe I just know more facts, but for every citizen it's clear like day that all this fuzz is about blocking sources of information. Try to search about "FBK Navalnyj" and you'll find more info.
jariel 7y ago
"Why is this news" The strategic implications are quite vast on a variety of levels: political, military, technical, economic. The 'nationalisation' of the web into various national webs is a big deal.
haecceity 7y ago
It's a shame that they're forced to do this.
sandworm101 7y ago
It was almost certainly a test of a local root zone, a Russian-controlled DNS scheme capable of standing in for the real system. This could be tested without literally disconnecting and wouldn't be very difficult with the cooperation of local isps. But it probably broke https.
- branzo 7y ago
  If u have a state-owned, state-run DNS service with a root zone and cooperation (forced or not) from ISPs, you really would not have to care about https, and if CT services are not reachable nobody would know.
  - antpls 7y ago
    How would that work ? Aren't there private and public keys involved ? Public keys are pre-packaged with clients (Firefox/Chrome/etc), so the state can't just change or fake the private keys. Maybe they would force all clients to prepackage a government key and then change all infrastructure to pretend all websites use this public key for their https traffic?
toast0 7y ago
> But the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why. Because sanctioning a country off the internet has never been done. It's not a credible threat given the topology. Russia is land adjacent to many countries that would be unlikely to participate in a partitioning led by the US, and such a partition would not be very effective if only some countries participated. Neither North Korea nor Iran are or have been disconnected from the global internet or phone systems by outside countries, and they are the most sanctioned nations.
- jzwinck 7y ago
  > Russia is land adjacent to many countries Not to mention Japan, to which they are directly connected via two distinct 640 Gbps links, Hokkaido-Sakhalin and Nadhodka-Naoetsu: https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/asia-europe-africa/hscs/hscs-cable-system-overview https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/asia-europe-afr... and https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/asia-europe-africa/rjcn/rjcn-cable-system https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/asia-europe-afr...
jnurmine 7y ago
Perhaps the isolation is planned to be only temporary, though voluntary. As I read the articles, the "disconnection from the internet" seems to be one more tool in the toolbox for internal control. A disconnection will also prevent possible "outside influences" from amplifying problems during any sensitive periods (e.g. the time following Putin's eventual death). President Vladimir Putin may hunt shirtless, fly with cranes, cuddle with tigers, etc. but he is not (yet?) immortal. Once Putin dies, the people running the show need a successor for the supreme leader of the Russian Federation to step in fast and assert legitimacy, with force, if necessary. Any dissent against the successor needs to be squashed quickly, otherwise any displeasure in the form of rioting runs the risk of spreading and giving the currently oppressed opposition chances to grow their influence. Also, opportunistic power grab attempts by lesser players and regions need to be contained. Edit: to be clear, I assume Putin will somehow keep his power even after he is officially not the President (after the 2024 elections).
gyuserbti 7y ago
Plausible deniability must be assumed with morally controversial actions on the part of institutions, especially government security institutions. One way to deal with this is context. In this case the pattern of Russia with regard to electronic free speech is pretty clear, so it's reasonable to assume these actions are at least partially motivated by something other than emergency preparedness.
fit2rule 7y ago
> I am not sure why. Thesis: a lot of conservative America have a bit of a thing for the iron wall. Pitching it thus, as if Russia were to build its own "Great Wall of China", or perhaps putting them in the "North Korea Internet, LOL!" category, probably catches eyeballs. Although it has to be said that there are other supposedly more free western nations that have done similar dodgy things with their Internet, and didn't quite get the hard treatment in media-at-scale, but rather more of a velvet glove... Yes, 5-eyes nation citizens, you might ought want to take a closer look at the Anglo plans for the Internet, they're not quite savoury ..

DaiPlusPlus 7y ago

Power consolidation. The Internet is currently the best way to get access to honest, quality journalism - which is probably the biggest threat to Putin, et cetera. I believe Putin wants to undo glasnost.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ScottFree 7y ago
> The Internet is currently the best way to get access to honest, quality journalism Honest, quality journalism is a fantasy. It never existed. Even Benjamin Franklin used his newspaper to influence elections by slandering his political rivals. Not to mention fake news[0]. [0]: https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/02/even-ben-franklin-used-fake-news/ https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/02/even-ben-frankli...
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  That’s a gross generalization if I ever heard one. Both exist.
  - ScottFree 7y ago
    Your faith in your religion is touching. You keep believing, no matter the evidence.
    - DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
      Billion-dollar companies with competent management pay large amounts of money to newsgathering agencies and companies for accurate information with which they can make business decisions on. I trust the objectivity of journalism when I pay for it directly and the news is the product - rather than most online journalism where (in practice, at least from the soulless business position) the audience is the product for advertisers which necessarily means compromising journalism. Nothing is free from bias - that much is true; that doesn't mean we should adopt your too-cynical attitude.
      - Nasrudith 7y ago
        The thing to keep in mind is that paying for it is no guarantee that you aren't still also the product even without direct advertising. Incentives are a very messuy business and everything is a signal to someone - regardless of validity. There are no epistemological guarantees period so wariness is always required.
    - dang 7y ago
      Please don't cross into personal attack. It breaks the site guidelines and discredits your position. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - ScottFree 7y ago
        People on this site say far worse things about other religions all the time.
        dang 7y ago
        We moderate such comments heavily: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20religious&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
branzo 7y ago
Glasnot. Glasnyet.

everdev 7y ago

> the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why. Some potential benefits to Russia: 1. Thwart cyber attacks 2. Control information 3. Halt foreign online payments There are of course downsides, but I think the original premise was security in the event of war / aggression.

azangru 7y ago
> but I think the original premise was security in the event of war / aggression. That was my understanding as well.
- jethro_tell 7y ago
  which is easy to declare without processes as needed, such as during social unrest. . ..
  - azangru 7y ago
    Oh, during a social unrest in Egypt in 2011 the government famously shut down the internet. Didn't help them much :-) I think the main concern of the Russian internet users is to get isolated from the rest of the internet indefinitely during peace time, in a way of China or North Korea. I am not sure we are seeing signs that the Russian government intends to go that far yet.
    - FpUser 7y ago
      When all that mess with Russia/Ukraine had started the West was openly contemplating disconnecting Russia from the international payment services. That had lead Russia to develop it's own. The Internet is a vital infrastructure element. Leaving the risk of potential disruption to some US congressmen's whims is not a very wise choice. Of course it can be used with bad intentions as well but so can anything else. I think I've already mentioned this in my older post and it was downvoted eagerly.

52-6F-62 7y ago

Anything can be news if it’s a recent development. Reporters report. I find it interesting. I wouldn’t have known otherwise.

aasasd 7y ago

> But the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why. Because control over access to the web is a theme of lawmaking and enforcement here for almost ten years. This is not an isolated initiative. I'd also very much like to know what exactly the ‘test’ consisted of, but there's no doubt that Russian government dreams of having a Big Russian Firewall and the rest of the wonderful Chinese inventions. Like e.g. having some government-mandated apps preinstalled on every phone sold here, which is coming into force in some following months. Like having messenger users identified by linking them to phone numbers, which is already a law and soon will be a law for email too (if I didn't miss it having been passed).

azangru 7y ago
> Like e.g. having some government-mandated apps preinstalled on every phone sold here, which is coming into force in some following months. It is the news the exact meaning of which is open to interpretation. Given that those pre-installed apps can be uninstalled, we should at least allow a possibility that rather than being an insidious tactic to spy on users this is simply a clumsy protectionist anti-competitive legislation to stimulate growth of local tech companies.
- aasasd 7y ago
  For starters, where do you see that the apps can be uninstalled? Since when system-installed apps can be removed by a user without rooting or replacing the system? Secondly, pretending that this is an independent event and that the government, Duma, courts and police have a shred of good will after what they were doing for the last ten–twenty years, is so laughable that your insistence on that interpretation is baffling and suggestive. Even if by some miracle the apps are innocent at first, nothing prevents the FSB from slipping in different functionality after a year, or even in an update.
  - azangru 7y ago
    > have a shred of good will after what they were doing for the last ten–twenty years If by the "good will" you mean whether they are earnestly concerned with improving the quality of life of ordinary Russian citizens, then the answer is, most likely not. But between this and the worst possible interpretation (oh, they must be doing this to allow the FSB easy access into everyone's phones) there are various other possible interpretations, involving various degrees of self-indulgence or maliciousness. Can it be cheap publicity or a symbolic gesture? The first sponsor of the legislation is a member of LDPR, a nationalist party which is obsessed with Russian identity and isolationism. Can it be part of the import substitution project that Russia has been pursuing (largely unsuccessfully, I understand?) since 2014, to loosen its dependency on foreign imports? Can it be a protectionist measure to help otherwise uncompetitive local businesses? I think any of these options is realistic enough to explain the existence of the bill, even without going all the way to regarding it as a covert Kremlin/FSB operation. Which of course it may be, but it is simply too early to tell. I am sure in half a year — or whenever distributors start pre-installing prescribed apps — security experts will let us know whether these apps, besides just being a nuisance, are actually doing something malicious. Then we will have actual facts at our disposal, not just worries and speculations. Do you remember the much-maligned Yarovaya law from several years back? Has it had any scary practical consequences on the Russian internet?

FpUser 7y ago

There are very few real reporters left. Most of the articles reek of bias and since Russia is a designated bad country no matter what they do it is evil. I am not really trying to protect Russia here but articles like the one in the title are written for brain dead people. They should go try janitor work instead.

dimator 7y ago
The attack on a difficult profession that already suffers from stigmas is not necessary or welcome.
- FpUser 7y ago
  Really? Not welcome by whom? You do not know what difficult profession is. Try something better. And the reason they suffer from stigmas is their own doing.
wilg 7y ago
Which part do you think is incorrect or misleading?

rudnevr 7y ago

maybe, because they've already banned linkedin, telegram, most opposition web-sites and have laws to proceed further?

coldtea 7y ago

>But the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why. Because Russia is the bad guy du jour... They have to gal to try to not sell their country and assets wholesale to foreign interests, plus something kleptocracy something (which the West never minds when it comes to allies, or their own behaviour in Asia, L. America, Africa, etc). So you get the usual barrage or news items, and people who can't even point Europe on the map (much less such subtlety as to point to e.g. France or Russia) feel like they can have an opinion.

EugeneOZ 7y ago

I'm not a journalist and I had to leave Russia because of Putin's regime. Maybe I just know more facts, but for every citizen it's clear like day that all this fuzz is about blocking sources of information. Try to search about "FBK Navalnyj" and you'll find more info.

jariel 7y ago

"Why is this news" The strategic implications are quite vast on a variety of levels: political, military, technical, economic. The 'nationalisation' of the web into various national webs is a big deal.

haecceity 7y ago

It's a shame that they're forced to do this.

sandworm101 7y ago

It was almost certainly a test of a local root zone, a Russian-controlled DNS scheme capable of standing in for the real system. This could be tested without literally disconnecting and wouldn't be very difficult with the cooperation of local isps. But it probably broke https.

branzo 7y ago
If u have a state-owned, state-run DNS service with a root zone and cooperation (forced or not) from ISPs, you really would not have to care about https, and if CT services are not reachable nobody would know.
- antpls 7y ago
  How would that work ? Aren't there private and public keys involved ? Public keys are pre-packaged with clients (Firefox/Chrome/etc), so the state can't just change or fake the private keys. Maybe they would force all clients to prepackage a government key and then change all infrastructure to pretend all websites use this public key for their https traffic?

toast0 7y ago

> But the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why. Because sanctioning a country off the internet has never been done. It's not a credible threat given the topology. Russia is land adjacent to many countries that would be unlikely to participate in a partitioning led by the US, and such a partition would not be very effective if only some countries participated. Neither North Korea nor Iran are or have been disconnected from the global internet or phone systems by outside countries, and they are the most sanctioned nations.

jzwinck 7y ago
> Russia is land adjacent to many countries Not to mention Japan, to which they are directly connected via two distinct 640 Gbps links, Hokkaido-Sakhalin and Nadhodka-Naoetsu: https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/asia-europe-africa/hscs/hscs-cable-system-overview https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/asia-europe-afr... and https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/asia-europe-africa/rjcn/rjcn-cable-system https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/systems/asia-europe-afr...

jnurmine 7y ago

Perhaps the isolation is planned to be only temporary, though voluntary. As I read the articles, the "disconnection from the internet" seems to be one more tool in the toolbox for internal control. A disconnection will also prevent possible "outside influences" from amplifying problems during any sensitive periods (e.g. the time following Putin's eventual death). President Vladimir Putin may hunt shirtless, fly with cranes, cuddle with tigers, etc. but he is not (yet?) immortal. Once Putin dies, the people running the show need a successor for the supreme leader of the Russian Federation to step in fast and assert legitimacy, with force, if necessary. Any dissent against the successor needs to be squashed quickly, otherwise any displeasure in the form of rioting runs the risk of spreading and giving the currently oppressed opposition chances to grow their influence. Also, opportunistic power grab attempts by lesser players and regions need to be contained. Edit: to be clear, I assume Putin will somehow keep his power even after he is officially not the President (after the 2024 elections).

gyuserbti 7y ago

Plausible deniability must be assumed with morally controversial actions on the part of institutions, especially government security institutions. One way to deal with this is context. In this case the pattern of Russia with regard to electronic free speech is pretty clear, so it's reasonable to assume these actions are at least partially motivated by something other than emergency preparedness.

fit2rule 7y ago

> I am not sure why. Thesis: a lot of conservative America have a bit of a thing for the iron wall. Pitching it thus, as if Russia were to build its own "Great Wall of China", or perhaps putting them in the "North Korea Internet, LOL!" category, probably catches eyeballs. Although it has to be said that there are other supposedly more free western nations that have done similar dodgy things with their Internet, and didn't quite get the hard treatment in media-at-scale, but rather more of a velvet glove... Yes, 5-eyes nation citizens, you might ought want to take a closer look at the Anglo plans for the Internet, they're not quite savoury ..