Russian Experiment Tried -- And Failed -- To Block Citizens' Access To The Rest Of Internet

from the in-Russia,-the-Internet-disconnects-you dept

Fri, Oct 23rd 2015 11:44am — Glyn Moody

For some time, Techdirt has been reporting on Russia's efforts to control every aspect of online activity in the country. But it seems that the authorities there are still worried that its citizens will find ways around these measures. As a result, The Telegraph reports, the Russian government carried out a rather interesting experiment recently:

Russia's ministry of communications and Roskomnadzor, the national internet regulator, ordered communications hubs run by the main Russian internet providers to block traffic to foreign communications channels by using a traffic control system called DPI.

The objective was to see whether the Runet -- the informal name for the Russian internet -- could continue to function in isolation from the global internet.

The blocking part failed for an interesting reason: Smaller providers account for over 50 per cent of the market in some Russian regions, [and] generally lack the DPI technology used by the larger companies to implement the blocking orders, and often use satellite connections that cannot be easily blocked.
It's not clear why DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) was needed if it was simply a matter of determining the destination of traffic. But in any case, if lack of DPI capabilities and satellite links are the problem, a fix would be to "encourage" smaller, regional ISPs to consolidate so that they could hook up with the main Internet backbones in Russia and acquire the necessary DPI kit.

Russia denies that anything took place, but according to The Telegraph story, a similar test took place last year:

security agencies including the FSB [Federal Security Service], the defence ministry, and the interior ministry collaborated with the national telephone operator to see if a national intranet made up of the domain names ending in .ru or .рФ could continue to operate if cut off from other parts of the Internet.

That test was reportedly ordered personally by Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, to assess the Russian internet’s ability to continue operating if Western countries introduce sanctions cutting off the country from the internet, and resulted in a decision to build backup infrastructure to ensure the Runet's continued operation.

Despite the denials, that no-nonsense approach is consistent with the way Mr Putin tends to do things, so it seems likely that the tests did indeed take place. It also means that the attempts to create a system that allows Runet to be cut off from the rest of the Internet are likely to continue until they succeed.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: block access, censorship, free speech, great firewall, internet, internet access, runet, russia

29 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Shmerl, 23 Oct 2015 @ 11:59am

Russian government is envious of the Great Firewall of China. So they dream of Great Iron Curtain.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DannyB (profile), 23 Oct 2015 @ 12:18pm

DPI ?
I don't need my packets deeply inspected thank you.

(deep packet inspection?)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DannyB (profile), 23 Oct 2015 @ 12:19pm

This is why we need . . .
Gigantic internet monopolies.

Wouldn't you agree? *

* or do you need to go to a re-education camp?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DannyB (profile), 23 Oct 2015 @ 12:22pm

Re:
Will American companies be happy to sell Russia the same censorship and control technology that they sold to China?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Oct 2015 @ 12:30pm

Re: Re:
Will American companies be happy to sell Russia the same censorship and control technology that they sold to China?

You don't seriously question that, do you?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Oct 2015 @ 12:33pm

DPI - it sounds like they're probably attempting to prevent people sending each other links to 'undesirable' or 'subservice' URLs eg links to photos taken off demonstrations, war zones, police beatings, retweets etc etc. If the recipient never receives the intended link there is less traffic to filter. This probably says something about their confidence that they can filter all traffic if something big is happening and people are attempting to spread information via social media, so they're taking a 2-pronged approach.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

Anonymous Coward, 23 Oct 2015 @ 12:34pm

Let me get this straight: a zero-level Techdirt minion knew wouldn't entirely isolate Russia from the world, but no one in Russia did?
Clearly the test was not to isolate / censor, but for some other purpose. Network engineers do network tests because it's what network engineers do. Perhaps was testing backup comms. Who knows? -- We certainly can't rely on The Telegraph to do anything other cast it as nefarious but inept plot, a propaganda two-fer.

Sheesh. You're a nitwit merely re-writing anti-Russian propaganda from The Telegraph. But your motive for running with this is probably no more complex than desperate for a safe topic. Let's see a piece on your prec-ious Google's Android security, m'kay?

Have to click to see comments these "free speech" advocates censor?

Get all the text and none of the ads with the new Techdirt Lite!
https://www.techdirt.com/?_format=lite
[ link to this | view in thread ]
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

Anonymous Coward, 23 Oct 2015 @ 12:36pm

Techdirt Tried -- And Failed -- To Block MY access on its public comment box!
Did take me around 15 tries, but TOR gote me through.

Ain't technology great?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Baron von Robber, 23 Oct 2015 @ 12:48pm

Re: Techdirt Tried -- And Failed -- To Block MY access on its public comment box!
APT? Autistic Persistent Troll?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Oct 2015 @ 1:41pm

Really the author is advocating monopolies for Internet service providers???
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Capt ICE Enforcer, 23 Oct 2015 @ 1:49pm

Russians
I guess the Russian propoganda factory did cutbacks. I expected at least 4 comments from them stating how inferior and stupid we are.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
sam1am (profile), 23 Oct 2015 @ 2:18pm

Whenever I read something like this regarding Russia or China I think "wouldn't it just be easier to give freedom to your citizens?" And then I remember that I live in the United States, and how hard it is to hold on to what freedoms we have here, and how the needle only seems to move in the wrong direction as time passes.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
UniKyrn, 23 Oct 2015 @ 2:21pm

Be a good neighbor and solve the IPv4 address shortage
If Russia wants to disconnect from the rest of the planet, well, why not help them? Compile a list of every IP allocation going into Russia, block them from passing over the links into Russia, return the allocations to ARIN for reallocation.

They get their own Intranet, the rest of the planet gets large IP allocations back for use.

Win-Win :)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
afn29129 (profile), 23 Oct 2015 @ 3:36pm

Iron Curtain 2.0....
Iron Curtain 2.0 with Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev 2.0 (aka Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin) at the helm. That may seem like an exaggeration but I really think that Vlad idolizes Nikita and want to be just like him.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Oct 2015 @ 4:06pm

Re: Let me get this straight: a zero-level Techdirt minion knew wouldn't entirely isolate Russia from the world, but no one in Russia did?
Can you even complete sentences bro?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Oct 2015 @ 4:08pm

Re: Techdirt Tried -- And Failed -- To Block MY access on its public comment box!
TOR is only used by filthy grifty pirates.

OOTB
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jack Of Shadows (profile), 23 Oct 2015 @ 9:10pm

Re: Re: Techdirt Tried -- And Failed -- To Block MY access on its public comment box!
I'm still trying to figure out whether I should be insulted by having dimensional attributes similar to OOTB. [In common vernacular, I'm autistic, very persistent, and known to Troll.]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 24 Oct 2015 @ 12:38am

Re: Be a good neighbor and solve the IPv4 address shortage
A much much better solution is to switch to IP V6, as the enormous increase in IP addresses makes scanning the whole Internet in a reasonable time almost impossible. It would certainly slow down the bad guys who use port scanners, and it would require taps on all the backbone links for the spies to find every site on the Internet.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 24 Oct 2015 @ 7:46am

Re: DPI ?
Then it would behoove you to not use any of the major carriers in the U.S. either. DPI is more prevalent than is generally known.

DPI is a firewall term. It means looking at datagram payloads, (not just protocol information) before switching a packet. It is the data version of wiretapping, but it is quite a bit broader than that because DPI can be used to do many more things than just just look at the data.

I would regard DPI as switching based on any layer above OSI layer 3. MANY U.S. carriers switch at OSI layer 4. Some switch at even higher layers.

DPI is a prerequisite to content injection. It is also a prerequisite to many of the practices that certain carriers were trying to normalize, that ended up being shot down the FCC's network neutrality regs.

So yes, this is being done broadly in the U.S. Yes, it is being done for commercial purposes. Yes, it does violate your civil rights. Yes, it is the people your thinking of who are doing it. Yes Congress is aware. Yes, you are right to be pissed. No you aren't the only one who is. Welcome to the party.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 24 Oct 2015 @ 8:35am

And where Russia failed, the UK will succeed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
tqk (profile), 24 Oct 2015 @ 10:46am

Re: Re: Be a good neighbor and solve the IPv4 address shortage
Correct me if I'm wrong, but ipv4 tunnels ipv6, so for the average Joe Sixpack, there's nothing to do.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 24 Oct 2015 @ 1:31pm

Re: Re: Re: Be a good neighbor and solve the IPv4 address shortage
Tunnelling ipv4 over ipv6 does nothing to increase the available address space. Until ISPs and consumer routers switch to ipv6, the internet visible to a user is limited to the ipv4 address.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 24 Oct 2015 @ 2:37pm

Re: Be a good neighbor and solve the IPv4 address shortage
They don't want to actually drop off the internet. They just want to block regular citizens from getting outside.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Robert, 25 Oct 2015 @ 4:39am

Internet Wars
There will likely be all sorts of internet experiments all over world based upon the idiot internet wars launched by the NSA.
How to keep your internet going while crippling everyone else's internet.How to launch your super damaging viral payload hacking the world whilst protecting your own network.
Yes, it was the US who on their own started playing internet wars and set the pace for everyone else.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
tqk (profile), 25 Oct 2015 @ 9:14pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Be a good neighbor and solve the IPv4 address shortage
Tunnelling ipv4 over ipv6 does nothing to increase the available address space.

Still nothing Joe Sixpack (me) needs to worry about.

I look forward to (minimum) DNS-SEC ubiquity, and that's not looking good, which is really annoying.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Wendy Cockcroft, 26 Oct 2015 @ 6:38am

Re: This is why we need . . .
Da, comrade. Or perhaps we should consider the possibilities of mesh networ...

[six months later]

Consolidation of internet services to quarantine our glorious Runet is the only way to protect our society from the decadent Western influences that poison our national discourse.

Do you know Siberia has many beautiful natural geographical resources, and a wealth of wildlife in a pristine environment?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Wendy Cockcroft, 26 Oct 2015 @ 6:40am

Re:
No, he's predicting their advent and he's probably right.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Something Completely Different, 27 Oct 2015 @ 8:22am

Re: Be a good neighbor and solve the IPv4 address shortage
NOOOO.
How can all the russian women, who are loking for me, find me then?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sigh, 21 Nov 2015 @ 7:04am

Do these crazy Russian Communists ever learn!
[ link to this | view in thread ]