Russia Is Trying to Leave the Internet and Build Its Own

bboplifa@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 515 points –
Russia Is Trying to Leave the Internet and Build Its Own
scientificamerican.com
100

The Russian Federation wants to defederate from the Internet lol

Good luck with that. Maybe they can join North Korea‘s server.

Nah, the bot farms and hacker groups would still have access to the goal net. It's just the Russian populace that would get cut off from the rest of us, nothing even a VPN could fix.

A satellite dish can fix some things, but you'd need an uplink still. So to a large extent back to "enemy voices".

That's theory, in practice these people are impotent and can't themselves work in such an environment.

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No it's not. This is similar to "Russia trying to have a new moon program". Not happening ever.

The first part may happen, the second part - ahahaha.

I live in Russia.

"Russian trying to build its own LAN" is the way I read it lol. You can't have "inter" with no other peers.

Large intranets are not a problem (that's how it was in the beginning in many places, rather fast and unlimited access to LAN resources, chats etc, but slow and expensive to the Internet), it's just that nothing inside Russia is going to be self-sufficient.

Also every dick without balls in a chair will try to get some control or share or get a bribe or just prevent this from happening so that his relative or something would get the contract.

This wasn't a factor with the large Internet being accessible (unbeatable competition), but will be with intranets (or a countrywide intranet). Nothing will get built. In the 90s such dicks simply didn't understand that this is a good business, so they allowed it to grow (still all the major telecom providers that survived had some connections with FSB etc, or so people say).

Removing russia from the internet would solve many problems for everyone else just not Russia

Reading the article that isn't the goal.

They are working on controlling access to the wider internet. The goal is to push people off of western services on to ones they control. This is so they can control the information their citizens see

They wouldn't stop Russian bot farms or hacking.

Russian here. This is a super old claim from our government and is a common source of jokes, it's even called "Cheburnet" (from Cheburashka) colloquially, nobody really treats such claims seriously. Last time Russian government tried to influence internet was when they struggled to ban telegram for several years, and ended up giving up, endorsing it, and moving their official resources to it.

Okay, while I'm not a fan of a fragmented internet, I am a fan of losing all the russian trolls that plague many parts of the internet and online gaming. Counterstrike and similar games will lose their saltiest players too!

Unfortunately I don't think this means they will stop trolling the actual internet, even if they block it from their own country

If we are not able to stop them from infiltrating our internet (if they leave), what stops us from infiltrating their internet?

Agreed. This is the correct answer.

Reposting my reply to someone else on this topic for visibility:

The Russian scammers are using a ton of proxies and VPNs. Unfortunately, this change will not affect them unless the Russian government completely removes access to the global Internet, and even then, the corruption is so deep that many officials will be selling access to the global Internet to their friends or people with with money.

Russian scammers and social media manipulators are here to stay, likely because they're largely state run initiatives and they'll still have access to the global Internet.

What this does is keep the normal Russians insulated from the rest of the world and unable to coordinate outside of their own country, where everything they do is even more tightly controlled by the government.

1- All countries have trolls, in one degree or another.
2- That will also affect the Russian population, who will become even more isolated and powerless.

True online game is no fun without someone shouting cyka blyat. Lol

I'm more concerned that the Luddite politicians in the west will think this is a great idea or the more power hungry ones will see it as a way to take some national sovereignty/control back from the internet--that, right now, enjoys an extra-governmental existence.

Imagine needing a digital passport to join EuroNet®©™ or having to pay a 'duty' to surf AussieLan™™©

Damn they are going to pull a China

China only blocks most popular websites, they don't block random personal pages

They do though, some of personal blogs i follow also banned in China; There is a saying in my circle of friends in Mainland China that the blog is “certified by Great Firewall of China” if a person’s blog got blocked

Terrible situation, even if you're in the "well it's Russia so stuff them" camp. Countries moving to their own Internet is a terrible situation, one we've seen before with China and their deep censorship of online media.

Cool, let them, so what?

It would be great, but think about it for a second. Russian bots and trolls that are operated by the government will still exist, it's not like they would cease trying to spread misinformation or destabilizing opinions. So that won't change at all. This would primarily affect the people in the country who would now be unable to see real news or learn things the government doesn't want them to.

I'm all for giving Russia the finger, but I do fear that it won't actually make anything better for the rest of us and would just make the people worse off.

Russian bots and trolls that are operated by the government will still exist

I hope I can block whole ASNs originated from orcs land, so I can block those too. Or at least majority of them.

I mean, if no normal citizen can access the outside internet then we will know for sure that any connection coming out of Russia has to be a bot. So that would make blocking them much more easier.

Because I need outside access to get the hell out of this godforsaken piece of dirt

And reddit will lose more users than it did at the end of June.

Nah, that'd take Turkey and Azerbaijan and China being shut off too. Russian bots are usually not so numerous.

We must somehow patch a connection in, to ensure they have a sufficient quantity of international memes, cats and porn. Access to the internet is a basic human right these days, we surely cannot abandon them.

NSA and CIA are absolutely salivating at the idea of the Russians trying to roll their own TCP/IP stack. However good some of the Russian intel groups might be at offense, they are hot garbage at defense.

That’s not what they are trying to do at all though.

The article makes it sound more so like they want their own ‘great firewall’ like China, or to go even further and create something akin to North Korea.

No reason to reinvent tcp/ip in any case.

I do have mixed feelings about this. Let's say pool it off and Russia net is now thing. That makes it harder for Russian conmen to rum various scams and hacks, ex ransomware, but it makes it a lot harder for the people there to break out of the state own propaganda.

The Russian scammers are using a ton of proxies and VPNs. Unfortunately, this change will not affect them unless the Russian government completely removes access to the global Internet, and even then, the corruption is so deep that many officials will be selling access to the global Internet to their friends or people with money.

Russian scammers and social media manipulators are here to stay, likely because they're largely state run initiatives and they'll still have access to the global Internet.

What this does is keep the normal Russians insulated from the rest of the world and unable to coordinate outside of their own country, where everything they do is even more tightly controlled by the government.

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That statement works for every other freedom you lose, it also serves to detect malicious intent from another person. There's always a middle ground, where nothing's perfect, but it's balanced. There's always a compromise. There's no perfect scenario. If you want a perfect society, you have to take away all freedom. If you give away all freedoms, there's anarchy.

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So basically The Great Firewall of China is extending North?

Nah it's not. China doesn't need Russia in any capacity. It does need some of its natural resources, but not too badly really. It's not any more keen on exploiting those than in Central Asian countries. Just doing usual Chinese things, no bigger interest.

Do you know what is The Great Firewall of China?

it what happens when i go to the great with to gasoline and match

Yep. It's something surrounding a 2-digit percentage of world population. Now Russia has a population of 140mln.

This will be obviously all in the name of authoritarianism. Will the Russian Federation people benefit or will this be a means to control information? Note that my criticisms leveled against Russia could apply to Amurica as well. We Amuricans seem to have wet dreams of Christo-Fascism.

Good thing everyone can have guns. /s

That way we can simply do nothing because only one political party is encouraging its constituents to arm up while the other wants everyone to disarm. Guess which side will win?

I'm genuinely uncertain what your actual position is here, but yes, liberals and leftists do need to arm up. /m/LiberalGunOwners seems relevant here.

I don't know what their position is either, but "arming up" isn't going to do anything against a modern, relatively competent military. Back in the time the second amendment was written (as an example) there wasn't that big a disparity in the resources the military could use and normal people. The citizens were less organized but had numbers on their side.

Today, there is absolutely nothing you can do with a gun vs drones, bombs, planes, etc. The only way you really prevail is if the government isn't willing to slaughter its own citizens and guns aren't helping there at all. In fact, the opposite may be true since it makes it easy for the government to label the people shooting at their officials as terrorists.

So, all of this is wrong, but also beside the point. The main point of arming up is so that we don't all get murdered by fascists. I don't mean that in the sense that fascists will take over the government, and then use the state apparatus to exterminate us. The murdering happens before and during their seizure of political power.

You're more likely to kill yourself or a loved one than a home invader.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/07/guns-handguns-safety-homicide-killing-study

Researchers find ‘zero evidence of any kind of protective effects’, with women at particular risk

[snip]

Living with a handgun owner particularly increased the risk of being shot to death in a domestic violence incident, and it did not provide any protection against being killed at home by a stranger, the researchers found.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/guns-suicide/

While gun-suicide rates are higher in rural states, which have proportionally more gun owners, the gun-suicide link plays out in urban areas, too. “In the early 1990s, the dramatic rise in young black male suicides was in lock step with the homicide epidemic of those years,” says HSPH’s Deborah Azrael, associate director of the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center. “Young black male suicide rates approached those of young white males—though black suicide rates had always been much lower than white suicide rates. It was entirely attributable to an increase in suicide by firearms.” Put simply, the fatal link applies across the board. “It’s true of men, it’s true of women, it’s true of kids. It’s true of blacks, it’s true of whites,” says Azrael. “Cut it however you want: In places where exposure to guns is higher, more people die of suicide.”

Also wrong, and not really relevant to my point? I'm not talking about the value proposition of having a gun for dealing with run of the mill crime.

We're (Americans) in a situation where we're faced with an active and armed fascist movement, and those who would oppose that movement have systematically disarmed themselves because "guns bad". What's your plan for when they decide to remind us that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun"?

Don't bother consulting your canned talking points, you actually have to think about this one for yourself.

Not wrong, in that the studies are valid, and completely relevant to your point.

Guns kill their owners far more often than they kill home invaders and other intruders.

So, all of this is wrong

"You're wrong" does not constitute a counterargument.

The murdering happens before and during their seizure of political power.

So the scenario is fascists are just roaming around murdering liberals at a point before they seize political power? What are the police doing? If the police are looking the other way, the fascists already have political power. So what you're talking about doesn't seem at all realistic.

Even if we look to one of the most extreme examples in history -Nazi Germany - it still didn't happen remotely like what you're apparently concerned about.


I'll go ahead and respond to your other post as well:

I’m not talking about the value proposition of having a gun for dealing with run of the mill crime.

This makes the value proposition look even worse. At least run of the mill crime has a semi-realistic chance of happening. Doing something that has negative value in normal times and only pays off if something very extreme like civilization breaking down occurs is kind of irrational.

because “guns bad”.

You'll get further in life if you don't make a straw man out of positions you don't agree with. Although, admittedly, you can get pretty far on straw men and Gish gallops.

Anyway:

We’re (Americans) in a situation where we’re faced with an active and armed fascist movement, and those who would oppose that movement have systematically disarmed themselves because “guns bad”.

If we basically have to worry about warlords wandering around killing people at will then civilization already is done.

What’s your plan for when they decide to remind us that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”?

I don't plan my life around everyone being raptured away, aliens landing or civilization completely breaking down. It's irrational to make real sacrifices or do things that require a meaningful tradeoff/risk to avoid such unlikely events.

What’s your plan for when they decide to remind us that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”?

I'm pretty sure Mao didn't mean "If you have a gun, you have political power" with that quote. The original quote was “以后要非常注意军事,须知政权是由枪杆子中取得的”. It's not talking about random citizens with guns, it's from the perspective of leading/governing countries.

Rather than get locked in a "someone is wrong on the internet" cycle, let's put a pin in this. We've both read each others points, and found them unconvincing. Whatever audience we might hope to sway has thinned out. On reddit I would have just silently walked away at this point, but the threadiverse is small and we're likely to encounter each other again.

I'm guessing that our disagreement just comes down to a liberal vs leftist divide, and possibly also American vs European. We're not likely to bridge those as random internet commenters. So, TTFN.

Participation in the conversation is completely voluntary so it's completely up to you if you want to respond.

We’ve both read each others points, and found them unconvincing.

You didn't really argue your point though. You said "You're wrong" and "... But what if bad stuff happens?" It's not like we had an actual debate here. Maybe you didn't find the points I made compelling, but at least I tried to explain my reasoning for reaching that position.

but the threadiverse is small and we’re likely to encounter each other again.

Any negative perception I have toward you personally really doesn't have anything to do with the actuall disagreement, but your approach to "discussing" it. "Because guns bad", "don't bother consulting your canned talking points", etc is not a good-faith approach to debate. If you actually care about fostering good relations in a fairly small community where you may run into people again, I'd suggest reexamining your methods.

I’m guessing that our disagreement just comes down to a liberal vs leftist divide

I don't think so. My position and what I'm arguing (although possibly incorrect) is purely based on what I see as the reality of the situation. A belief about whether guns are effective for preserving freedom against the government/fascists/whatever doesn't have anything really to do with politics.

and possibly also American vs European.

Which one of us is supposed to be the American and which one is supposed to be the European?

Alright, I'm down for a bit of meta discussion.

I have very little patience for online debate at this stage of my life. It's not sufficient to really change the minds of people who have an established position, generally speaking. Unless I find the discussion inherently enjoyable, or I feel that I can sway some undecided people, I tend to just peace out. Not worth my time.

My goal here was to plug /m/LiberalGunOwners, in response to someone worrying about fascism and mentioning guns. Mainly trying to find "my people" and get them organized after the Great Reddit Diaspora.

In this context, you and weirdwallace75 come in with the talking points. Yes, talking points. They're flawed, they're patronizing, they're uncompelling, and I've heard them many, many times before. They really are irrelevant to my concerns. "What about this fascist movement" is not addressed by "but you might hurt yourself".

Once you did address my concern, it just revealed what I'm referring to as the "liberal vs leftist" divide. This divide reflects a difference in worldview. If you had my worldview, you'd be an anarchist. As a (presumably) liberal, you're relatively less concerned about fascist movements, and your prescription for dealing with them is going to rely (relatively) more on institutions and less on direct action.

There isn't really anything to be done about this divide. We're just going to disagree.

I have very little patience for online debate at this stage of my life.

That's fine, of course. Don't debate/discuss anything you don't feel like debating, but you shouldn't make a straw man out of the position of people you disagree with or be uncivil.

In this context, you and weirdwallace75 come in with the talking points. Yes, talking points.

It's not clear what exactly you're accusing me of. Mindlessly parroting other peoples' views?

They’re flawed, they’re patronizing, they’re uncompelling, and I’ve heard them many, many times before.

If what I said is so weak and easily refuted it's a little strange that the best rebuttal you can come up with is "you're wrong".

If you had my worldview, you’d be an anarchist. As a (presumably) liberal, you’re relatively less concerned about fascist movements, and your prescription for dealing with them is going to rely (relatively) more on institutions and less on direct action.

There's a grain of truth here, but it's kind of beside the point and you're making some odd assumptions. Why do you think you know what I'm concerned about?

Once again, while I don't doubt we also have fundamental philosophical differences, the current disagreement (from my side anyway) is about practical ways to deal with the issue. From a purely practical standpoint, I don't think individual citizens owning guns is going to be effective or worth the tradeoff to prevent the kinds of risks you mentioned. I could be far left, I could be liberal, I could be far right, I could be a centrist: none of that would have any bearing on something that comes down to the question of "is this an effective tool for the task".

I'm not an anarchist, so guessed correctly there. It's not because I love governments, institutions, central authority or because I'm opposed to anarchy (or any philosophy/approach that isn't hurting others). My personal philosophy is do whatever you want as long as it's not harming other people/animals (I'm a Utilitiarian). So I'm pro whatever method leads to the most happiness/least suffering.

I was hoping to avoid getting deep enough into this that I have to break out the block quotes myself, but oh well. Here we are.

you shouldn’t make a straw man out of the position of people you disagree with or be uncivil.

I don't think I've been any less charitable than you and weirdwallace75, though. It's not like any of us are steel-manning each others points. And why would we? There's no benefit in this context. It'd just be a longer route to the conclusion that I jumped to early, that we fundamentally disagree and that an internet comments argument with strangers is not going to be sufficient to change any minds. If we were all friends, and frequently spent time discussing things in person, and trusted each other, then sure, maybe we could make some progress. But we're not, and we don't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s not clear what exactly you’re accusing me of. Mindlessly parroting other peoples’ views?

Sort of? See the definition of talking points. Not necessarily mindless, but certainly low-effort and static. Like, I've seen all of them before. Literally every single anti-gun talking point. They didn't get me to change my mind the first dozen times, so why would they now? They simply do not address the reasons that I am in favor of a well-armed society. As an anarchist, I care about how power is allocated. I want power to be widely distributed, not concentrated. And guns are tools of power.

If what I said is so weak and easily refuted it’s a little strange that the best rebuttal you can come up with is “you’re wrong”.

I didn't say that they were easily refuted. Just as I don't find the talking points convincing, I don't expect you to find the usual responses to them convincing either. We'd just get bogged down in side arguments. However, I also wasn't inclined to concede the point. Which leaves us at "you're wrong".

Why do you think you know what I’m concerned about?

Because you said it yourself? You likened planning for fascist violence to planning for the rapture.

I could be far left,
I could be far right,

You're not. I'm certain enough of it to bet money. Unless this has all been a very weird acting exercise.

none of that would have any bearing on something that comes down to the question of “is this an effective tool for the task”.

It does, though. Your worldview affects your perception of the problem, and your perception of the potential tools for dealing with it. It affects what you pay attention to, what you learn, and what you dismiss. We disagree both on the level of severity and on the effectiveness of each tool, due to our differences in worldview.

I’m a Utilitiarian

I'm not really talking about utilitarianism vs egoism or whatever else, though that could play a small part. I'm more referring to the totality of our worldviews, our mental models of how everything works.

I was hoping to avoid getting deep enough into this that I have to break out the block quotes myself, but oh well. Here we are.

you shouldn’t make a straw man out of the position of people you disagree with or be uncivil.

I don't think I've been any less charitable than you and weirdwallace75, though. It's not like any of us are steel-manning each others points. And why would we? There's no benefit in this context. It'd just be a longer route to the conclusion that I jumped to early, that we fundamentally disagree and that an internet comments argument with strangers is not going to be sufficient to change any minds. If we were all friends, and frequently spent time discussing things in person, and trusted each other, then sure, maybe we could make some progress. But we're not, and we don't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s not clear what exactly you’re accusing me of. Mindlessly parroting other peoples’ views?

Sort of? See the definition of talking points. Not necessarily mindless, but certainly low-effort and static. Like, I've seen all of them before. Literally every single anti-gun talking point. They didn't get me to change my mind the first dozen times, so why would they now? They simply do not address the reasons that I am in favor of a well-armed society. As an anarchist, I care about how power is allocated. I want power to be widely distributed, not concentrated. And guns are tools of power.

If what I said is so weak and easily refuted it’s a little strange that the best rebuttal you can come up with is “you’re wrong”.

I didn't say that they were easily refuted. Just as I don't find the talking points convincing, I don't expect you to find the usual responses to them convincing either. We'd just get bogged down in side arguments. However, I also wasn't inclined to concede the point. Which leaves us at "you're wrong".

Why do you think you know what I’m concerned about?

Because you said it yourself? You likened planning for fascist violence to planning for the rapture.

I could be far left,
I could be far right,

You're not. I'm certain enough of it to bet money. Unless this has all been a very weird acting exercise.

none of that would have any bearing on something that comes down to the question of “is this an effective tool for the task”.

It does, though. Your worldview affects your perception of the problem, and your perception of the potential tools for dealing with it. It affects what you pay attention to, what you learn, and what you dismiss. We disagree both on the level of severity and on the effectiveness of each tool, due to our differences in worldview.

I’m a Utilitiarian

I'm not really talking about utilitarianism vs egoism or whatever else, though that could play a small part. I'm more referring to the totality of our worldviews, our mental models of how everything works.

I was hoping to avoid getting deep enough into this that I have to break out the block quotes myself, but oh well.

Like I said, no one's twisting your arm here.

I don’t think I’ve been any less charitable than you and weirdwallace75, though.

I can't speak for anyone but myself but if you look at my posts and your posts, I think we can easily see this really isn't true at all.

You made a caricature of your opponents position - they don't like guns because "guns bad" when obviously there's a lot more nuance than that. I challenge you to link a case where I did anything similar. Just as an example. You've also made a bunch of quite uncharitable assumptions with little evidence, like the "talking points" thing.

See the definition of talking points.

By the definition you linked, your accusation is just plain factually wrong. Nothing was prepared in advance, I'm (obviously) not following a script.

Also, this looks like a contradiction:

Not necessarily mindless, but certainly low-effort and static.

I didn’t say that they were easily refuted. Just as I don’t find the talking points convincing

So they're low effort, static, you (and presumably others that agree with your position) have heard/seen them all before and yet they aren't easily refuted? That really doesn't make sense. I have my own pet cause and there are very common responses I've seen before too: as a result, I can crush them with almost no effort because I know exactly where the conversation is going.

If you're so familiar with the subject, have seen all the arguments before but can't muster strong counter arguments, link reputable neutral sources to support your position, etc then maybe you should reevaluate whether the ground you're on is actually solid. Lest you be tempted to turn that line of argument around on me: don't forget, I never claimed to be super well-informed and familiar with it.

You likened planning for fascist violence to planning for the rapture.

I likened a scenario where individual fascists are apparently wandering around randomly killing other citizens while the government/police don't do anything to the rapture, because this pretty much implies a complete breakdown of civilization or a situation where having a gun isn't going to help you anyway because the fascists have the might of the military on their side.

I didn't say something like fascists gaining political power was that level of implausible. Unfortunately, it actually seems all too plausible: although the killing random lefties/liberals en masse is very improbable. Like I already said, even if you look at one of the most extreme examples in history such as Nazi Germany it still didn't happen like that.

You’re not. I’m certain enough of it to bet money.

The point is that my position on this is completely independent of any politics. It's like if the question was "Is the best tool for slicing bread a spoon or a knife": would it matter if I'm politically left or right? No: there's a fact of the matter about what tool is effective for slicing bread, there's enough evidence to show knives are clearly more effective there and if my politics affect me accepting that and I argue the spoon side then I'm being irrational.

There are lots of subjects where politics do have an influence and philosophical points where there's a less clear answer but here we're talking about practical effects from taking a certain approach. Politics should have little bearing there.

I’m not really talking about utilitarianism vs egoism or whatever else,

Huh? I don't get your response. Perhaps you're not familiar with Utilitarianism? It's a moral philosophy based on maximizing utility which is usually defined as maximizing pleasure and/or minimizing suffering. This is in contrast to other moral philosophies that might say something like "lying to people is wrong", the Utilitarian would only look at it in terms of the actual effects and would have no problem accepting that lying was good if you could show that overall lying maximized utility.

So assuming the facts are on your side here, this actually makes convincing Utilitarians of stuff very easy. You just have to show taking a certain approach results in higher utility and the Utilitarian will be on your side and won't say anything like "It's just wrong to do that". So if you could show me evidence that arming citizens actually results in less suffering/more happiness overall (and we can safely assume fascists taking over and roaming around slaughtering liberals/left leaning people is going to increase suffering/decrease happiness) then I'll not only be able to accept it. I'll be in your pro-gun camp.

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Special internet operation initiated. :)

I think they should team up with China. Seems to have similar mentality.

Here's hoping that this doesn't become a thing the Russian people deserve so much more and so much better.

It's just sad that their dictator couldn't care any less about the individual or the people as a whole.