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The Ukrainians probably had covert access into the Russian internet, but now they actually have Russian territory. Perhaps they are on the inside?

alephnerd 2y ago
Lots of Ukrainians live and study in Russia even after the war (I knew a Ukrainian citizen who was studying at PhysTech despite the 2022 war), and lots of families in Russia have relatives in Ukraine (and vice versa). It makes this war even more tragic, because Ukraine and Russia are so intertwined socially and culturally, and there was no reason for Russia to escalate the war. That said, Roskomnadzor can't fully lock down ingress and egress without drastically impacting the Russian economy and pissing off your average Russian who watches YouTube, games on Steam, and messages using Telegram.
- wood_spirit 2y ago
  Back in 2021 Russia did several tests that disconnected from the international internet. They were prepared to do that and they didn’t suffer much financially and nobody really noticed tbh https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-disconnected-global-internet-tests-rbc-daily-2021-07-22/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-disconnected-globa... Just today I heard they had big outages. Haven’t seen much news about it but perhaps, as this article mentions speculation, it was an internal shutdown rather than external actors? https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/08/21/russia-blames-telegram-whatsapp-outage-on-cyberattack-as-experts-point-to-censorship-a86098 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/08/21/russia-blames-tele...
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    The 2021 test was pre-planned and they didn't specify when and the duration of the tests. Based on the outrage from the Telegram, VK (Russia's FB), and YouTube outage in 2024 caused by a similar test [0] the impact is quite high. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-reports-temporary-internet-outages-affecting-social-media-sites-2024-02-27/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-reports-temporary-...
dzhiurgis 2y ago
Can they use Starlink terminals for this? As in, connect terminal to some household fiber modem, then get whitelisted by DOD & SpaceX? I wouldn't be surprised SpaceX already secretly does this tho hence the weird news how they allegedly supplying Starlink to Russian forces.

alephnerd 2y ago

Lots of Ukrainians live and study in Russia even after the war (I knew a Ukrainian citizen who was studying at PhysTech despite the 2022 war), and lots of families in Russia have relatives in Ukraine (and vice versa). It makes this war even more tragic, because Ukraine and Russia are so intertwined socially and culturally, and there was no reason for Russia to escalate the war. That said, Roskomnadzor can't fully lock down ingress and egress without drastically impacting the Russian economy and pissing off your average Russian who watches YouTube, games on Steam, and messages using Telegram.

wood_spirit 2y ago
Back in 2021 Russia did several tests that disconnected from the international internet. They were prepared to do that and they didn’t suffer much financially and nobody really noticed tbh https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-disconnected-global-internet-tests-rbc-daily-2021-07-22/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-disconnected-globa... Just today I heard they had big outages. Haven’t seen much news about it but perhaps, as this article mentions speculation, it was an internal shutdown rather than external actors? https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/08/21/russia-blames-telegram-whatsapp-outage-on-cyberattack-as-experts-point-to-censorship-a86098 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/08/21/russia-blames-tele...
- alephnerd 2y ago
  The 2021 test was pre-planned and they didn't specify when and the duration of the tests. Based on the outrage from the Telegram, VK (Russia's FB), and YouTube outage in 2024 caused by a similar test [0] the impact is quite high. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-reports-temporary-internet-outages-affecting-social-media-sites-2024-02-27/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-reports-temporary-...

dzhiurgis 2y ago

Can they use Starlink terminals for this? As in, connect terminal to some household fiber modem, then get whitelisted by DOD & SpaceX? I wouldn't be surprised SpaceX already secretly does this tho hence the weird news how they allegedly supplying Starlink to Russian forces.