Russia successfully disconnected from the internet

By -

 RuNet disconnection tests were successful, according to the Russian government.


The Russian government announced on Monday that it concluded a series of tests during which it successfully disconnected the country from the worldwide internet.

The tests were carried out over multiple days, starting last week, and involved Russian government agencies, local internet service providers, and local Russian internet companies.

The goal was to test if the country's national internet infrastructure -- known inside Russia as RuNet -- could function without access to the global DNS system and the external internet.

Internet traffic was re-routed internally, effectively making Russia's RuNet the world's largest intranet.

The government did not reveal any technical details about the tests and what exactly they consisted of. It only said that the government tested several disconnection scenarios, including a scenario that simulated a hostile cyber-attack from a foreign country.

The experiment was deemed a success, the government said in a press conference today.

"It turned out that, in general, that both authorities and telecom operators are ready to effectively respond to possible risks and threats and ensure the functioning of the Internet and the unified telecommunication network in Russia," said Alexei Sokolov, deputy head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, as cited by multiple Russian news agencies [1, 2, 3, 4].

Sokolov said the results of the tests would be presented to President Putin next year.

LONG-PLANNED TESTS

The successful tests are a culmination of multiple years of planning, law-making from the Russian government, and physical modifications to Russia's local internet infrastructure.

The tests were initially scheduled for April this year but were delayed until this fall, to give the Kremlin more time to pass an accompanying law.

Called the "internet sovereignty" law, it grants the Russian government the power to disconnect the country from the rest of the internet at will and with little explanation, on the grounds of "national security."

To do this, the law mandates that all local internet service providers re-route all internet traffic through strategic chokepoints under the management of Russia's Communications Ministry.

These chokepoints can serve as a gigantic flip-switch for Russia's external internet connectivity, but they can also function as an internet surveillance apparatus, similar to China's Great Firewall technology, as many privacy advocates have pointed out.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Hacker steals data of millions of Bulgarians, emails it to local media

By -
Image
  Source of the data breach appears to be the country's National Revenue Agency A mysterious hacker has stolen the personal details of millions of Bulgarians and has emailed download links to the stolen data to local news publications. The data's origin is believed to be the country's National Revenue Agency (NRA), a department of the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance. In a  message posted on its website  on Monday, the NRA said it was working with the Ministry of the Interior and the State Agency for National Security (SANS) to investigate the hack. "We are currently verifying whether the data is real," said the NRA. Hours after this article's publication, the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior  confirmed the hack . HACKER STOLE 110 DATABASES, LEAKED 57 According to reports from local media [ 1 ,  2 ,  3 ,  4 ,  5 ], who received part of the data, the hacker said they stole the personal details of over five million Bulgarians, of the country's total ...
Read more

​Linux totally dominates supercomputers

By -
Image
It finally happened. Today, all 500 of the world's top 500 supercomputers are running Linux. Linux rules supercomputing. This day has been coming since 1998, when Linux first appeared on the TOP500 Supercomputer list . Today it finally happened:  All 500 of the world's fastest supercomputers are running Linux . The last two non-Linux systems, a pair of Chinese IBM POWER computers running AIX, dropped off the  November 2017 TOP500 Supercomputer list . Overall, China now leads the supercomputing race with 202 computers to the US' 144. China also leads the US in aggregate performance. China's supercomputers represent 35.4 percent of the Top500's flops, while the US trails with 29.6 percent. With an anti-science regime in charge of the government, America will only continue to see its technological lead decline. When the  first Top500 supercomputer list was compiled in June 1993 , Linux was barely more than a toy. It hadn't even adopted Tux as its masc...
Read more

Microsoft tries to stem its self-made collaboration-tool confusion

By -
Image
Microsoft is using this week's Ignite conference to try to help clarify its collaboration-tool strategy. Here's how SharePoint, Teams and Yammer figure in the mix. Choice is good. But too much choice, especially when it comes to collaboration tools, has been a problem for Microsoft. This isn't news to customers, partners or Microsoft execs themselves. But at the company's Ignite IT Pro conference in Orlando this week, Microsoft execs took a step to try to clarify the company's strategy and messaging in this area. Microsoft Office 365 Marketing chief Ron Markezich kicked off the conference this week with a slide entitled "Microsoft 365 Teamwork: Where to Start a Conversation." That slide attempts to do what  Microsoft initially attempted with a 60-plus-page whitepaper : Clarify which collaboration tools customers should use when. The slide, which features SharePoint -- and its files, sites and content storage at the center -- is broken down into t...
Read more