Russia signs law that requires ISPs to be able to disconnect from the outside internet

[Polycount]

In February, we reported on Russia's proposed law that would require country ISPs to be able to "completely disconnect" from the outside internet. At the time, it was just that - a proposal (a bill, to be specific) and not necessarily anything concrete. For better or worse, however, that bill has been signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.

While the law won't disconnect Russia from the outside internet entirely right away, it will require internet providers to stop using foreign servers to route internet traffic. Instead, they must install equipment that routes traffic through Russia-based servers, which will be overseen by censorship body Roskomnazor.

According to the law's supporters, it's strictly a defense mechanism, intended to protect the country in the event that the US, or Russia's many other rivals ever cut the Slavic country off from their servers. In other words, Russia feels it's being proactive against potential threats.

However, proactive or not, this bill would inevitably give Russian authorities an immense amount of control over their citizens' already heavily-policed internet activities. Whether or not that control will be acted upon for censorship purposes remains to be seen, but the threat is there regardless.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/79901-russia-signs-law-requires-country-isps-able-disconnect.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Well, you have to give Putin credit .... he see's what's coming and is going to do everything he can to stop it .... Since the NSA "says" they are no longer monitoring everyone, perhaps it's time to route everything through THEIR servers just to give us a go/nogo system of our own .... too much intervention? Well, in that case, let's install an independent watchdog to keep an eye on Uncle ......

 

[EClyde]

Like I wrote before. It's our lies or no lies at all

 

[p51d007]

Hey, THEIR country, THEIR rules. Don't like them? Vote in someone else (good luck with that).

 

[Sergey Novikov]

Back to USSR, back to 15th century

 

[Aus spot]

Pertinent decision. When preparing for ww3 it's a logical step.

 

[Udelh579]

Back to USSR, back to 15th century

Yep, with one exception - USSR had at least working R&D mechanisms with ideologically motivated citizens. Russia doesn’t have it.
As an example, space race back then and spacecrafts with holes today.
Although, it’s a tragedy that Russia cuts all ties to the rest of the world.

 

[altanai]

We werent even completely done with "free Internet" fight yet and "Internet Isoloation" has already come into picture !

 

[corvard]

Pertinent decision. When preparing for ww3 it's a logical step.

Russia won't start WW3, just because they all keep their money in the West.

 

[bluetooth fairy]

It's pretty funny to hear about this law because it sounds like a consequence of sanctions. It comes more or less inline with what others may call "have something own" instead of what the West world had/could taken away. When you can't have a swiss cheese anymore, you want to have your own. When you see something in the nearest future, you work on pre-emption. It also led to creation of the new nation-wide pay system, independent from Visa and MasterCard. Happily for russians it may boost some branches of the economy. Sanctions showed a motive/space to have own goods and services.

The bad thing about the law is that being a proactive defense it will consume significant amount of money from Russian budget and at the same time affect internet connection quality for the most of russians.

 

[ypsylon]

It is happening everywhere. In some countries it is just brutal, unscrupulous bandit state. In other it is just, not so thinly veiled, subliminal corporate control.

Look at recent adoption by EU of GDPR directive. For good month there were thousands (mostly US) sites which cut-off all access to EU citizens. It is that easy to isolate biggest trading block from the World.

Now US Net Neutrality which was abolished. If US decided for rest of the World to pay them to access US based websites, they can do that with flip of a switch or few lines of code.

 

[Zorak]

OK, so is it only me or it's a perfect example of war preparations? Seriously, having and learning to rely on your very intranet like that...

 

[stewi0001]

What if you have satellite internet?

 

[koblongata]

Russian government always know better than anyone else in the Russia.

 

[MasterMace]

They want to create what China did so they can control their people. The equivalent of a warrantless search and seizure on the entire country.

 

[sauri]

What if you have satellite internet?

While the inbound traffic from a satellite is easy, the outbound requires either satellite transmitters that are unaffordable for average people, or using the land routes which is easily blocked when the whole net is under control.

 

[hyperspaced]

Doesn't anybody read the article? The bill says that outside internet traffic should be ROUTED through russian servers. It doesn't say that it will be cut-off.
I wonder how the US would feel if it's citizens could log-in to Instagram only through russian servers...

Also, lmao with that comment about "russia and heavily-policed citizen lives" coming from a US website! Seriously?

 

[hyperspaced]

It is happening everywhere. In some countries it is just brutal, unscrupulous bandit state. In other it is just, not so thinly veiled, subliminal corporate control.

Look at recent adoption by EU of GDPR directive. For good month there were thousands (mostly US) sites which cut-off all access to EU citizens. It is that easy to isolate biggest trading block from the World.

Now US Net Neutrality which was abolished. If US decided for rest of the World to pay them to access US based websites, they can do that with flip of a switch or few lines of code.

What does GDPR have to do with anything? Do you know what GDPR is? This directive commands companies to not store (or at least mitigate the use of) EU citizens' personal data, the citizen is able to ask from a company/institution a list of all their records regarding his/hers personal records, and ask to be deleted.

Well, in this context, no wonder US-sites were cut off by EU. You talk about "bandit states" and "state control" in the age of Facebook, Google, Twitter and Instagram. Your whole life is exposed on Facebook and Google.
Recently Facebook banned pages due to their ...POLITICAL beliefs!

It's easy to claim EU, Russia, China are the incarnation of the "ultimate evil" when at the same time private corporations do whatever they want.