18 ms·

Regardless of how we feel about the current conflict between the countries, it is absolutely essential to keep the internet open and accessible to everyone, inc

Regardless of how we feel about the current conflict between the countries, it is absolutely essential to keep the internet open and accessible to everyone, including those who we don't agree with.

MaxGanzII 5y ago
Consider; Russia is invading Ukraine. If they keep at it, they will win; the military balance is too much in their favour. Having conquered, they will then block out all content which carries truth and replace it with propaganda, just as it is in Russia. You argue we must keep the Internet open and accessable to Russia, both in this situation, and for it to be used in this way.
- simiones 5y ago
  No one on Earth could stop the Internet working inside Russia. The only thing that could be done, in principle, by ICANN and EU/US service providers is to block out all content coming in or out of Russia. This will have exactly the effect of blocking out all content which carries (EU/US) truth and replace it with (Russian) propaganda.
  - chinathrow 5y ago
    > No one on Earth could stop the Internet working inside Russia. Without physical intervention.
    - gorbachev 5y ago
      You're not going to get physical intervention on Russia <-> China connectivity.
  - varenc 5y ago
    > The only thing that could be done, in principle, by ICANN and EU/US service providers is to block out all content coming in or out of Russia I don't think this is true. The root DNS servers ICANN runs could stop handling requests for anything on the .ru/.su Russian TLDs. Though Russia runs the .ru servers internally, from ripn.net, there's still reliance on the root servers to point there. This would break Russian internal access to their own services. If you run `dig +trace government.ru` you can see your first query is to the various "*.root-servers.net" name servers. When I did this my queries went like this: A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET -> B.DNS.RIPN.NET -> NS2.GOV.RU That first step, contacting the centralized root servers, is where ICANN could have killed .ru domain lookups. (also my knowledge of DNS is shaky, so someone correct me if I'm wrong)
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Russian ISP DNS servers would just do whatever is necessary to make it work, up to not respecting ICANN
    - simiones 5y ago
      You're right that they would have to take some action, but nothing would stop Russian ISPs from taking over *.root-servers.net, or responding with authoritative responses before reaching those. Now, to be fair, significant, though temporary, damage could be done to them from the outside (who knows how many Russian systems have their DNS configured to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8, for example).
BeefWellington 5y ago
I agree that this was the right move by ICANN. There's a discussion to be had about modernization and what this means in practical terms. The philosophical internet exists in a space unpolluted by things like critical infrastructure becoming internet-connected. It's not a safe space for these things and was never designed to be one. Governments have been doing a poor to terrible job of threat modeling their critical infrastructure. You saw this in Florida[1] and in Texas[2] last year. These sorts of things should not be accessible via the Internet. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/11/us/florida-water-plant-hack/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/11/us/florida-water-plant-hack/i... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/15/us-energy-pipeline-colonial-ransomware-attack https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/15/us-energy-pi...
- amelius 5y ago
  > I agree that this was the right move by ICANN. Should this be decided by ICANN, though?
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    If someone asked you, personally, to cut Russia off from the Internet, are you making a "decision" when you reply that you can't do it? No, of course you're not. It's simply something you don't have the authority/ability to do. Same with ICANN here.
    - amelius 5y ago
      Then they should say they don't have the authority.
      - hickimsedenolan 5y ago
        They've already told that: >The globally agreed policies do not provide for ICANN to take unilateral action to disconnect these domains as you request. Shouldn't be that hard to read a one-and-a-half page long document!
gurumeditations 5y ago
No it isn’t. No one needs to access any website in Russia or Belarus. The international internet is totally unnecessary and nobody will suffer for cutting them out. In fact, the world will benefit greatly from cutting out Russia from the internet! Imagine all the horrible cyberattacks and thefts of sensitive private info, money, ransomware attacks on cities schools and hospitals, and national security secrets stolen. China and Russia both deserve to be removed from the internet. They are abusive malicious actors using their access to the internet to do nothing but attack the responsible internet users. The naive high horse, think of the slippery slope attitudes from know it all HN commenters are part of the downfall of the West and freedom and liberty, principles directly opposed by those two dictatorships. Those who benefit from those principles, yet allow them to be turned around and used by the enemy of those principles to destroy those principles, don’t deserve those principles. Freedom and liberty are privileges whose rights belong to those who jealously guard them rather than let them be molested and abused by their enemies.
- darkarmani 5y ago
  > In fact, the world will benefit greatly from cutting out Russia from the internet! Imagine all the horrible cyberattacks and thefts of sensitive private info, money, ransomware attacks on cities schools and hospitals, and national security secrets stolen. China and Russia both deserve to be removed from the internet. They are abusive malicious actors using their access to the internet to do nothing but attack the responsible internet users. Can't you already do this if you control your own firewall? You can, right now, block all access from IP address ranges in Russia and China.
- shmde 5y ago
  You act like USA is the pinnacle of freedom and liberty with a two party system, systematic racism. Have funded wars(iraq,afghan, nam) and terrorist organisations just to fill its own pocket and completely destabilized other countries for its own profit. With its flawed copyright systems, sending legal threats to citizen of countries where they don't even have jurisdiction (look piratebay sweden) to sinkholing BGP routes for an entire website. So please stop acting like the west is the zenith of what freedom and liberty should look like.
- 5y ago
dangerface 5y ago
My issue is not that they don't agree with me its that they don't agree with the concept of the internet, that people should have access to information and communication. Russia are actively trying to disrupt freedom of information, communication and the internet with their state sponsored cyber attacks.
samstave 5y ago
Absolutely! How else will we get information of Bad Deeds (TM) of state actors or otherwise when SHTF.
- samstave 5y ago

Regardless of how we feel about the current conflict between the countries, it is absolutely essential to keep the internet open and accessible to everyone, including those who we don't agree with.

MaxGanzII 5y ago

Consider; Russia is invading Ukraine. If they keep at it, they will win; the military balance is too much in their favour. Having conquered, they will then block out all content which carries truth and replace it with propaganda, just as it is in Russia. You argue we must keep the Internet open and accessable to Russia, both in this situation, and for it to be used in this way.

simiones 5y ago
No one on Earth could stop the Internet working inside Russia. The only thing that could be done, in principle, by ICANN and EU/US service providers is to block out all content coming in or out of Russia. This will have exactly the effect of blocking out all content which carries (EU/US) truth and replace it with (Russian) propaganda.
- chinathrow 5y ago
  > No one on Earth could stop the Internet working inside Russia. Without physical intervention.
  - gorbachev 5y ago
    You're not going to get physical intervention on Russia <-> China connectivity.
- varenc 5y ago
  > The only thing that could be done, in principle, by ICANN and EU/US service providers is to block out all content coming in or out of Russia I don't think this is true. The root DNS servers ICANN runs could stop handling requests for anything on the .ru/.su Russian TLDs. Though Russia runs the .ru servers internally, from ripn.net, there's still reliance on the root servers to point there. This would break Russian internal access to their own services. If you run `dig +trace government.ru` you can see your first query is to the various "*.root-servers.net" name servers. When I did this my queries went like this: A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET -> B.DNS.RIPN.NET -> NS2.GOV.RU That first step, contacting the centralized root servers, is where ICANN could have killed .ru domain lookups. (also my knowledge of DNS is shaky, so someone correct me if I'm wrong)
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Russian ISP DNS servers would just do whatever is necessary to make it work, up to not respecting ICANN
  - simiones 5y ago
    You're right that they would have to take some action, but nothing would stop Russian ISPs from taking over *.root-servers.net, or responding with authoritative responses before reaching those. Now, to be fair, significant, though temporary, damage could be done to them from the outside (who knows how many Russian systems have their DNS configured to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8, for example).

BeefWellington 5y ago

I agree that this was the right move by ICANN. There's a discussion to be had about modernization and what this means in practical terms. The philosophical internet exists in a space unpolluted by things like critical infrastructure becoming internet-connected. It's not a safe space for these things and was never designed to be one. Governments have been doing a poor to terrible job of threat modeling their critical infrastructure. You saw this in Florida[1] and in Texas[2] last year. These sorts of things should not be accessible via the Internet. [1]: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/11/us/florida-water-plant-hack/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/11/us/florida-water-plant-hack/i... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/15/us-energy-pipeline-colonial-ransomware-attack https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/15/us-energy-pi...

amelius 5y ago
> I agree that this was the right move by ICANN. Should this be decided by ICANN, though?
- jaywalk 5y ago
  If someone asked you, personally, to cut Russia off from the Internet, are you making a "decision" when you reply that you can't do it? No, of course you're not. It's simply something you don't have the authority/ability to do. Same with ICANN here.
  - amelius 5y ago
    Then they should say they don't have the authority.
    - hickimsedenolan 5y ago
      They've already told that: >The globally agreed policies do not provide for ICANN to take unilateral action to disconnect these domains as you request. Shouldn't be that hard to read a one-and-a-half page long document!

gurumeditations 5y ago

No it isn’t. No one needs to access any website in Russia or Belarus. The international internet is totally unnecessary and nobody will suffer for cutting them out. In fact, the world will benefit greatly from cutting out Russia from the internet! Imagine all the horrible cyberattacks and thefts of sensitive private info, money, ransomware attacks on cities schools and hospitals, and national security secrets stolen. China and Russia both deserve to be removed from the internet. They are abusive malicious actors using their access to the internet to do nothing but attack the responsible internet users. The naive high horse, think of the slippery slope attitudes from know it all HN commenters are part of the downfall of the West and freedom and liberty, principles directly opposed by those two dictatorships. Those who benefit from those principles, yet allow them to be turned around and used by the enemy of those principles to destroy those principles, don’t deserve those principles. Freedom and liberty are privileges whose rights belong to those who jealously guard them rather than let them be molested and abused by their enemies.

darkarmani 5y ago
> In fact, the world will benefit greatly from cutting out Russia from the internet! Imagine all the horrible cyberattacks and thefts of sensitive private info, money, ransomware attacks on cities schools and hospitals, and national security secrets stolen. China and Russia both deserve to be removed from the internet. They are abusive malicious actors using their access to the internet to do nothing but attack the responsible internet users. Can't you already do this if you control your own firewall? You can, right now, block all access from IP address ranges in Russia and China.
shmde 5y ago
You act like USA is the pinnacle of freedom and liberty with a two party system, systematic racism. Have funded wars(iraq,afghan, nam) and terrorist organisations just to fill its own pocket and completely destabilized other countries for its own profit. With its flawed copyright systems, sending legal threats to citizen of countries where they don't even have jurisdiction (look piratebay sweden) to sinkholing BGP routes for an entire website. So please stop acting like the west is the zenith of what freedom and liberty should look like.
5y ago

dangerface 5y ago

My issue is not that they don't agree with me its that they don't agree with the concept of the internet, that people should have access to information and communication. Russia are actively trying to disrupt freedom of information, communication and the internet with their state sponsored cyber attacks.

samstave 5y ago

Absolutely! How else will we get information of Bad Deeds (TM) of state actors or otherwise when SHTF.

samstave 5y ago