Russian authorities are trying to isolate the Russian Internet from the world and build a “sovereign” network – Cheburnet.
At the end of January, several large-scale Internet outages occurred in Russia. First, Telegram and WhatsApp messenger stopped working in the Far East. Then LTE went offline in Leningrad, Pskov and Novgorod regions. Finally, on the night of January 30, the entire .ru domain zone was destroyed. In all cases, the authorities of the aggressor country explained the incident as technical problems or preventive maintenance. But many experts believe that all this is connected to the ongoing efforts of the authorities to isolate the Russian Internet from the world and build a “sovereign” network – Cheburnet.
Like in North Korea
Cheburnet is a variant of the complete isolation of the Russian segment of the Internet. Cheburnet’s complete analogue is the North Korean national intranet Gwangmyeon.
A special law gives Roskomnadzor the right to block foreign Internet resources that “enable discrimination against Russian media.” As usual, the wording is very vague and does not clearly define what “discrimination” means.
The law introduces the status of “the owner of an information resource involved in violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, the rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation.”
The document covers the largest sources of the Internet – YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Roskomnadzor can partially or completely restrict access to offensive resources, including the ability to slow down their traffic.
On the Internet – with your passport
The Russian state has many ways to restrict access to the “external” Internet: allowing entry only with a passport, legislatively regulating content, dictating its terms to Internet companies using the -economic pressure. But the longer it lasts, the more likely the worst-case scenario seems for Russia – complete isolation.
Chinese version
China already has laws that block certain Internet content, require identification of users on instant messengers and store data on the population. Russia is also trying to enact similar laws. In the Chinese Internet, total control over information is at the fore. Because of the size of the market, China has been able to dictate its terms to foreign companies. In effect, China has built its own self-sufficient Internet, into which it is reluctant to let others in.
But when external tech companies come to the Chinese part of the Internet, the authorities can impose their own conditions on them: there are a billion users and companies are willing to do a lot to access these. Russia is not very attractive: both in terms of the number of users and GDP, it is ten times lower than China.
The Kremlin would prefer to follow the path of the Chinese, although the market, burdened by American and European sanctions, has become less attractive, and domestic funds are mainly used for war. But there are other problems: leakage and lack of specialists, low-quality domestic alternatives (for example, RuTube instead of YouTube). So it’s just the new North Korea, period.
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.