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Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

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Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#61
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would understand if you were talking about certificates, but DNS? It should not be trusted by default.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#62
Russian here. Few points:

- Root DNS and most of the cloud providers are in US jurisdiction. US declared Russia as top 3 enemy and applies random 'sanctions'; - Russian (and EU) laws require companies to store citizen's personal information locally; - many lazy developers and service providers relied on AWS/GCP thus breaking the law.

Telegram blocking attempt has shown that even some government resources are hosted outside Russia. In case of severe confrontation escalation US/NATO will cut DNS or will engage in cyberwarfare operations against Russia. So Russian government wants to make sure that Russian infrastructure will continue to function properly.

This is not PRIZM or Great Firewall of China type of system or regulation. There are no plans to cut off internet. There's a group of people that spread FUD and hype around this initiative.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It would seem many have tried to enact change in Russia in the past, often with less than positive outcomes. Sometimes the only reasonable thing you can do for your life is leave.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#64
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.

couldn't they just maintain a separate proxy indipendent of aws?

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#65
post #37

That's really just a symptom, while the disease is the dictatorship which can do whatever it wants disregarding the people.

Russian Dictatorship? Don't make me laugh boy! Maybe I am wrong but Russia isn't promoting the falling of governments around the world, that's something that US does.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#66
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what exactly are they doing? Just cutting off random IPs? The actual IP was blocked or is it only DNS based? How about tor traffic?

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!

That's a tough stance for a government to take. I guess using proxies, VPNs (w IPSec), and overlay networks like Tor and i2p would be made illegal too?

DNS based blocking is easy to get around: It is known to not work effectively. Content based blocking can be done away with TLS. And... IP based blocking wouldn't scale [0], one would think, and def isn't reliable because of ElasticIPs offered by Cloud Providers like AWS, like you point out.

This might push them to take desperate measures like force ISPs to stop peering with the internet backbone altogether (or worse, nationalise ISPs), which might set a dangerous precedent for other powerful countries to follow.

This doesn't sound good, at all.

[0] With 5G/WiMax around the corner looking increasingly likely that it'd be exclusively on IPv6 ...

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yeah, welcome to Eastern Europe. Everyone who can, leaves, then they badmouth the country for not changing/advancing enough. Who tf is supposed to do that? The farm workers left behind? Or the politicians who have zero interest beyond their own pockets?

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#68

Russian here. Few points: - Root DNS and most of the cloud providers are in US jurisdiction. US declared Russia as top 3 enemy and applies random 'sanctions'; - Russian (and EU) laws require companies to store citizen's personal information locally; - many lazy developers and service providers relied on AWS/GCP thus breaking the law. Telegram blocking attempt has shown that even some government resources are hosted o…

I agree, Russian Government is doing this because US and its allies are threatening all legitimate governments around the world. They want to impose their puppets. Look at what's happening in Venezuela. People in Venezuela is suffering beacuse of US sanctions and war threats, but the news are always that "the Dictatorship don't let people eat".

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#69

Russian here. I live in Moscow. I've just came back from the rally. Interned at an IT company in Switzerland and US. My Digital Ocean VPS IP address was blocked in Russia due to this crazy thing going on with the Internet here. Even though it was a private service that is not exposed to the global network. AMA.

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