Cutting Off Russian Internet from World Wide Web ‘Not a Myth or the Ravings of Paranoids,’ Delitsyn Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 1 – Because Russians are rapidly learning about and using various workarounds such as VPNs when they encounter blocked sites, they often dismiss the notion that Kremlin efforts to cut off the Russian internet from the world wide web will succeed. But the dangers involved, Leonid Delitsyn says, are “not a myth or the ravings of paranoids.”

            But the Finam analyst says that is a mistake and that there are real threats to the Russian web from the Kremlin’s policies, although in many cases they are not the dangers that many people have been talking about (newizv.ru/article/general/01-11-2019/leonid-delitsyn-opasnost-vyklyucheniya-runeta-ne-mif-i-ne-bred-paranoikov).

            To be sure, some Russian internet users may experience problems when the filtration systems to be put in place block the wrong sides as a result of the errors of the programs used, but “the main threat” lies elsewhere in the possibility that the Russian segment of the internet will be shut off “from the outside.”

            “Such a technical possibility of course exists,” Delitsyn says. “The internet was invented not in our country and the root servers which keep information are located primarily in the United States.” More than that, it was invented the first place to “guarantee communication between American partisan detachments” should the Soviet Union attack.

            It was in fact part of the “’Star Wars’” defense system.  “Then, this threat seemed fantastic,” but it shows that “threats of this type,” while rare, “are not impossible.” And there are other related dangers no one is talking about. For the internet to work, there must be addresses and most of them are on root servers which again are in the United States.

            Most of the internet infrastructure Russians use is “American or Chinese, more rarely French.” There are of course backdoors that allow those who are prepared to use them to cause all kinds of problems. Americans, for example, are now very worried that China’s Huawei corporation may use them against the US.

            More immediately, there are all kinds of ways to block content. The question of what can be done depends on how much time someone is prepared to devote doing and how much money it is prepared to spend. If the Russian government is really serious, it can do a great deal of harm but only at very high direct and indirect costs to itself.

            And the rise of VPNs shows users will find ways around blocking efforts. But that isn’t the end of the story.  They prevent someone from knowing what sites people using them are reading, but with new arrangements, those who control the Internet can know which IP addresses are connected to which other ones.

The struggle between the users and the state will thus continue, Delitsyn says; but it is a mistake now just as it has been in the past to dismiss the ability of governments if they want to to interfere with the Internet which is far more like the postal system which states do control than the air people breathe despite suggestions to the contrary.