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Don't be confused: this is pure virtue signalling by Cogent. If you think that limiting a population's access to imported goods can lead to regime change via "

Don't be confused: this is pure virtue signalling by Cogent. If you think that limiting a population's access to imported goods can lead to regime change via "grassroots change", just look at the myriad of counterexamples: Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, North Korea. The sanctions imposed by the governments against Russia make sense: they aim at crippling the state economy to prevent Russia from waging war and dismantling the power structure by pitting elites against each other. But limiting access to information for ordinary people is a completely empty gesture that brings no value into the world.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
On some level, losing things you already had hurts a lot more than preventing it from taking root.
dzhiurgis 5y ago
Russia limits information themselves - they’ve blocked facebook and twitter mere just a day ago.
fluidcruft 5y ago
How is Cogent supposed to be paid or fund operations in Russia? Starlink seems a better fit for routing around state censorship anyway.
mechagodzilla 5y ago
I really doing think 'virtue signaling' is the right term here - The NYT coverage of this explicitly states that Cogent was motivated by a significant increase in bot traffic coming out of Russia, and they basically said 'we don't want to support Russia's cyber-attacks'. They aren't trying to overthrow the government in Russia. This is meant to prevent them from waging cyber war using Cogent's infrastructure, and Cogent was a significant carrier of Russian internet traffic. It's both expensive for Cogent to do this, and significantly impacts Russia.
- exizt88 5y ago
  You've made me reconsider my position and I think you're actually right.
mc32 5y ago
I tend to agree. Cutting off communications should be a very serious step. There may be some circumstances when we might have to cut off communications as part of real emergency measures --but I don' think doing this is where we want to go. Why not cut off phone communication too? Maybe postal mail as well? Did we ever stop delivering mail and cut the phones to Germany and Japan during WWII?

spywaregorilla 5y ago

On some level, losing things you already had hurts a lot more than preventing it from taking root.

dzhiurgis 5y ago

Russia limits information themselves - they’ve blocked facebook and twitter mere just a day ago.

fluidcruft 5y ago

How is Cogent supposed to be paid or fund operations in Russia? Starlink seems a better fit for routing around state censorship anyway.

mechagodzilla 5y ago

I really doing think 'virtue signaling' is the right term here - The NYT coverage of this explicitly states that Cogent was motivated by a significant increase in bot traffic coming out of Russia, and they basically said 'we don't want to support Russia's cyber-attacks'. They aren't trying to overthrow the government in Russia. This is meant to prevent them from waging cyber war using Cogent's infrastructure, and Cogent was a significant carrier of Russian internet traffic. It's both expensive for Cogent to do this, and significantly impacts Russia.

exizt88 5y ago
You've made me reconsider my position and I think you're actually right.

mc32 5y ago

I tend to agree. Cutting off communications should be a very serious step. There may be some circumstances when we might have to cut off communications as part of real emergency measures --but I don' think doing this is where we want to go. Why not cut off phone communication too? Maybe postal mail as well? Did we ever stop delivering mail and cut the phones to Germany and Japan during WWII?