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Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

reuters.com

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Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#51

Post by dorgo »

PeterZhizhin wrote: post #41
hamilyon2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of internet regulation would you tolerate? What are your thoughts about current situation in Russia where literally millions of our citizens wholeheartedly agree with any crazy internet policy? And in general believe in what is told though TV Yeah, i live here too.

I think that the Internet as a decentralised system doesn't require any regulation. This a self-regulatory system. On the second question though... I don't see any future for me in Russia. Thankfully, it will be relatively easy for me to emigrate.

in german there is a saying: "vote with your feet".

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#52

Post by coderintherye »

DocG wrote: post #42

Intresting fallout from our bigger client. They have been slowly migrating to aws over the last year but because russia started bloking whole blocks of aws IPs, they now stopped migration and are going to keep their own infrastructure up. I havent heard yet but I am sure they are considering moving away from cloud providers, we'll see what they decide, because Russia is huge market.

Huge market for what goods/services? What is your client selling / providing?

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#53

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

PeterZhizhin wrote: post #41
hamilyon2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of internet regulation would you tolerate? What are your thoughts about current situation in Russia where literally millions of our citizens wholeheartedly agree with any crazy internet policy? And in general believe in what is told though TV Yeah, i live here too.

I think that the Internet as a decentralised system doesn't require any regulation. This a self-regulatory system. On the second question though... I don't see any future for me in Russia. Thankfully, it will be relatively easy for me to emigrate.

> I think that the Internet as a decentralised system doesn't require any regulation. This a self-regulatory system.

First, this is not true, as there are already several regulations in place regarding the operation of several aspects of the Internet, such as the DNS. Second, I don't think anyone who cares about, say, copyright law, would agree with your statement.

Frankly, in real world, if you are responsible for even a small network, you'll soon discover there is someone who wants to abuse it, and solving the problem by technical means is not always optimal.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#54

Post by woodandsteel »

rjf72 wrote: post #50
PeterZhizhin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These websites are controlled (directly or indirectly) by the Russian government. They usually don't mention opposition meetings. I think that they don't want anyone to know even about their existence.

Can you reference any significant 'opposition' meeting (such as this) that was not covered by RT for less than justifiable reason? E.g. - in this event the organizers prohibited RT from covering the event, which is a pretty decent reason for the lack of coverage!

What you say may be correct, but is it your position that these news sites are not Russian government propaganda machines, that they give good, objective coverage of what is right and wrong with the country and its government?

And what is your own view of the Russian government?

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#55

Post by chrisco255 »

PeterZhizhin wrote: post #41
hamilyon2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of internet regulation would you tolerate? What are your thoughts about current situation in Russia where literally millions of our citizens wholeheartedly agree with any crazy internet policy? And in general believe in what is told though TV Yeah, i live here too.

I think that the Internet as a decentralised system doesn't require any regulation. This a self-regulatory system. On the second question though... I don't see any future for me in Russia. Thankfully, it will be relatively easy for me to emigrate.

I wonder about when people emigrate their way out of a problem country, doesn't it just leave behind people who are too complacent, too poor or too uneducated to enact real change?

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#56

Post by egao1980 »

comboy wrote: post #46
PeterZhizhin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, we have a legislation (this one existed since 2012) that requires to ban certain IP addresses. All ISP's are being monitored by the authority called Roscomnadzor and allowing access to a banned IP will lead to fines. Unfortunately, this doesn't really work because people here learned how to use VPN's, proxies and Tor. Moreover, with cloud providers you can easily switch IP addresses. Telegram messenger was…

Thanks for a detailed explanation. That seems pretty radical. I mean, because of technology progress (mainly crypto improvements, but also cheaper hardware development) I only see two outcomes in the future: (it's a global issue, not just related to Russia) 1. We have a complete freedom of information exchange. It's a powerful thing. It's not only free speech, but also easily available all illegal digital content and…

Nope, it's not radical. DNS system is controlled by US company and if you rely on it your country's infrastructure is vulnerable. So if US decides to cut Russia from DNS national services including government sites should continue to function.

People panic without understanding the reasons behind this law.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#57

Post by egao1980 »

PeterZhizhin wrote: post #41
hamilyon2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of internet regulation would you tolerate? What are your thoughts about current situation in Russia where literally millions of our citizens wholeheartedly agree with any crazy internet policy? And in general believe in what is told though TV Yeah, i live here too.

I think that the Internet as a decentralised system doesn't require any regulation. This a self-regulatory system. On the second question though... I don't see any future for me in Russia. Thankfully, it will be relatively easy for me to emigrate.

Root DNS is controlled by US company. It's strictly regulated.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#58

Post by egao1980 »

selune wrote: post #5
renholder wrote: post #3

> It seeks to route Russian web traffic and data through points controlled by the state and proposes building a national Domain Name System to allow the internet to continue functioning even if the country is cut off from foreign infrastructure. The first part just seems like a forced MITM situation whilst the second makes some sense - in a cyber warfare scenario; however, that runs under the assumption that the DNS…

I've been following Russian news on the matter pretty closely for the last couple of years (I do speak Russian). Most of these laws are absurdly nonsensical, people who are responsible for them (Yarovaya and co) have very vague understanding of technology and I don't think it's about technology in the end.

US has Yarovaya style system for ages in NSA.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#59

Post by egao1980 »

walrus01 wrote: post #15
renholder wrote: post #3

> It seeks to route Russian web traffic and data through points controlled by the state and proposes building a national Domain Name System to allow the internet to continue functioning even if the country is cut off from foreign infrastructure. The first part just seems like a forced MITM situation whilst the second makes some sense - in a cyber warfare scenario; however, that runs under the assumption that the DNS…

Network engineer perspective: It looks to me like the Russian government wants to be able to cut itself off from the ICANN DNS roots, not because there's any actual threat of western european nation-states or ISPs cutting off its transport links to places like the DE-CIX, but because the Russian government wants the ability to cut things off in an emergency situation. Theoretically, an "emergency" that might be somet…

US has waged several wars recently and Russia is in top 3 list of USA enemies - right after ISIS and ebola as far as I remember. It makes Russian government to worry about things...

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#60

Post by egao1980 »

PeterZhizhin wrote: post #35
ethelward wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you live, but is it not the same (i.e. you need official approbation to plan a protest) in most countries?

Yes. Except that in Russia this works a little bit different. You need a permission (not approbation) from the authorities for any political gatherings. Otherwise, everyone gathering risks spending 15 days in jail (or $500 fines, median monthly salary after tax $300) for gathering illegally. Usually they forbid them, so that was an exception.

That's not how it works. You don't need permission to rally. You notify local government about the date and preferred place and number of people. If the place is available - you rally there if not you're given an alternative place.
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