Russia aims to control the Internet

The Russian government is seeking to create an Internet "curtain," a fully independent Russian Web site to enhance control of the Russian-language network.

The electronic version of the Guardian newspaper (January 3, 2008) published an article about the orientation of Internet management in Russia. According to the article, the cold war with Russia now has a new front in addition to crude oil and undersea territory. That is the Internet. The problem for Russia is that the top-level domain name (Russia) ending with ".ru" (according to the US code of exchange codes) when translated into Russian code is ".py", is Paraguay's domain name again. This may raise security issues for Russian users. Kim Davies, who controls domain names at the international domain name organization ICANN, told the Guardian newspaper: " Russia has a second-level .ru domain name according to the US code of information exchange but they are pushing ( to acquire .rf domain name in Russian ".

Special consultant for Internet Governance Forum President Wolfgang Kleinwachter said: " The proposal for" Russian Internet "will see how they can better communicate in the country, giving them the opportunity to do what is tested in China: use Chinese characters for 3 level -.net, .com and .cn domain names ".

The story of two servers

The key is whether Russian international domain names should use their root servers independently of the original servers currently primarily based in the US. Mr. Kleinwachter thinks that the worst scenario means that people will have to register a domain name using the Russian level ".rf" domain name. " So (Russia) should have their own root server and it would be much easier to control first-level domain names than hundreds of thousands of second-level domains, " he said.

This means that the Russians are safe and avoid phishing scams from phishing from Paraguayan but it will also help the Russian government to control the Net more while Russian citizens are isolated from the international community. . Davies explained that the Russian keyboard makes it difficult for Russian users to find domain names with Roman letters according to the US Code of Information Exchange. Internet in Russian language will be cut off from the global network.

Chinese citizens may be similarly isolated. " Chinese people have the choice now to keep the domain name .cn according to the US code exchange code or cut it, " Kleinwachter said. " If they cut them, they have a chance to build something like a Chinese Internet bridge with a standard Internet exchange of US information. Russians, like Chinese people, discussed options. My impression is that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is more open to such a choice than many of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (China), another way is to give each citizen an address. Static IP (Internet protocol) will follow them wherever they access the Internet ".

Setting up a root server will not be expensive, Davies said, but will lead to technical problems. Guillaume Lovet, head of the Fortinet security threat response team, explains: " If it's about the re-deployed Internet protocol, it will be like installing an firmware (a computer program can Built-in read-only memory (ROM - Read only Memory) of the new hardware) into our family's router If it is to reconstruct everything from the break, it's the same like throwing everything in the trash ".

International isolation

Mr. Davies said that the major downside would be how much the Russians would suffer if the standard US "bridge" for information exchange is widespread in the world not used by Russia.

" The Russians estimate that 90% of communication will be in Russia and only 10% go out ," Kleinwachter said. But that's 10% that they will feel really different. Mr. Kleinwachter said there was speculation (if so) that Russian people needed an agency regulating passwords for global Internet use. The Kremlin government will therefore be able to control what individuals communicate to the rest of the world. The government says this will help control cybercrime.

Lovet is more skeptical. " Russia has very strong technical universities, which create brilliant and excellent computer scientists. At the same time, average per capita income is extremely low. This combined will create a glass. "The cocktail is so powerful. Any attempt to control Russian hackers inside Russia's so-called virtual world is not easy to succeed ."

Other security experts go even further. Jose Nazario, from security company Arbor said. " It is difficult to monitor Russian cybercrime. Security experts only begin drafting a picture of their methods. This will limit the impact of Russian hackers but a escalating tension between the General. Putin and the West ".