The Russian authorities and major Internet service providers intend to untie the country from the internet. Universal disconnection from the internet will be part of a planned experiment, according to the Russian news agency RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK).
The reason for universal decoupling is to gather information and give feedback on amendments to a proposed law introduced in the Russian Parliament in December of 2018.
The draft law allows Russian Internet distributors to secure the independence of the Russian web site (Runet) in case foreignof attack to disconnect the country from the rest of the internet.
Local Internet
In addition, Russian telecommunications companies will have to install the appropriate "technical means" to redirect all Russian Internet traffic to exchange points approved or operated by Roskomnazor, Russia's largest broadcaster.
Roskomnazor will inspect traffic and block prohibited content, in addition to ensuring that traffic between Russian users remains within the country and is not routed through servers from abroad, where it could be intercepted.
The date for the test has not yet been revealed, but it should take place before April 1, before the deadline to submit amendments to the upcoming law also known as Digital Economy National Program.
The test disconnection experiment was agreed at a meeting of the Information Security Working Group at the end of January. Natalya Kaspersky, director of the Russian company InfoWatch and co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, is chairing the group, which includes executives from major Russian telcos such as MegaFon, Beeline, MTS, RosTelecom and others.
The RBK Reported that all ISPs agreed with the goals of the upcoming bill, but disagreed with its technical implementation, because they believe it will cause major disruptions to the Russian Internet movement. The test disconnect would provide ISPs with data on how their networks would react.
Finanz.ru also reported that local Internet Mail.ru and Yandex.ru also support trial disconnection.
The Russian government has been working on this project for years. 2017, Russian officials said they intend to roll 95% of total Internet traffic to local levels up to 2020.
Οι αρχές έχουν δημιουργήσει ακόμη και ένα τοπικό αντίγραφο ασφαλείας του συστήματος DNS (Domain Name System), which they first tested in 2014, The second test was done the 2018 and appears to be an important component of Runet when ISPs plan to untie the country from the rest of the world.
The proposed law, which was fully endorsed by President Putin, and is expected to pass, as the Russian government has agreed to cover the costs of ISPs modifying their infrastructure to install new servers redirecting traffic to Roskomnazor.