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Comment by everdev | Hacker News Reader

> the journalists present this story as Russia's voluntary step towards isolating itself from the global internet. I am not sure why.

Some potential benefits to Russia:

1. Thwart cyber attacks

2. Control information

3. Halt foreign online payments

There are of course downsides, but I think the original premise was security in the event of war / aggression.

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Whenever Russia talks about "national security", you have to understand that this is a country that considers e.g. NGOs that receive any foreign funding (even non-state!) to be an infringement of said security.

> 1. Thwart cyber attacks

By whom? State actors can just launch attacks from computers that have both a Russian internet link and a link up to a internet providing satellite, no?

No security is full proof, but they call it "hardening the target" when you reduce your attack surface.

Of course security is an obvious pretense for control.

The way you actually reduce attack surface is to take the critical pieces off of it and minimize the paths to be watched, not the whole system. That would be like ensuring it is possible to close off all of the highways into Washington DC to response time for the three federal branches. If it was actually that damn important they would make and use secure tunnels. The only added benefit is an excuse to shut out protesters.

Not to mention mere independence isn't everything for system functionalities. Going to muscle powered factories to remove logistical dependence on power would be an obviously stupid move for example because the performance is so much worse. It is "selling ceramic knives that cannot be sharpened as never needing it" marketing deception of trying to cast a flaw as a strength.

> Of course security is an obvious pretense for control.

Russia doesn't need pretense for control.

I don't think this is such an effective control if you mean controlling the population. Usually when countries shut down the Internet it's to prevent protestors from organizing rather than disconnecting them from the outside world. This doesn't give them additional leverage considering the Russian government's current power.

This is actually most useful for security. At least if you are attacked your national network will survive.

This is the equivalent of putting on armor before going to war.

I think the word you're looking for is "foolproof"

true but things like DDOS are a lot harder when you are forced to rely on nodes within the country that internal police can shut down.

> 3. Halt foreign online payments

That is extremely unlikely to happen. Payments, banking, investment will be always connected, or placed abroad in the required way. At least for important enough transactions - probably not Amazon, but stock trades...

>> 3. Halt foreign online payments

> That is extremely unlikely to happen.

That's what very much has already happened. Visa and MasterCard pulled their services a few years ago after another set of US sanctions. Also, if you are a business and using SWIFT to transact - US has the final say what you can and can not do. So now Russia has it's own payment card system MiR and working with China, India and even Iran on alternative to SWIFT.

I think it was a mistake for US to retract payment services. A smaller country may be severely affected by it indeed, but not a country of the size of Russia, China or India.

Now if payment networks were pulled, then what is next? Internet would be the logical follow-up. Hence the testing. It all makes perfect sense when you look at it from Rissia's side.

Visa and MasterCard services are available in Russia. They do not operate in Russian occupied Crimea.

> Visa and MasterCard pulled their services a few years ago after another set of US sanctions.

When did that happen? I’ve been paying with a Master Card just recently in Russia.

> but I think the original premise was security in the event of war / aggression.

That was my understanding as well.

which is easy to declare without processes as needed, such as during social unrest. . ..

Oh, during a social unrest in Egypt in 2011 the government famously shut down the internet. Didn't help them much :-)

I think the main concern of the Russian internet users is to get isolated from the rest of the internet indefinitely during peace time, in a way of China or North Korea. I am not sure we are seeing signs that the Russian government intends to go that far yet.

When all that mess with Russia/Ukraine had started the West was openly contemplating disconnecting Russia from the international payment services. That had lead Russia to develop it's own.

The Internet is a vital infrastructure element. Leaving the risk of potential disruption to some US congressmen's whims is not a very wise choice. Of course it can be used with bad intentions as well but so can anything else. I think I've already mentioned this in my older post and it was downvoted eagerly.

> the West was openly contemplating disconnecting Russia from the international payment services

This is a claim made by the Russian government with little actual support as far as I know. It comes up every once in a while when the issue is mentioned, and is usually uncritically accepted.

Couple of things, it seems that it is you who make the claim with little actual support.

Here:From the "JOINT MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION" from the European Parlament ( https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-8-2014-0118... )

" 12. Recalls that the restrictive measures taken by the EU are directly linked to the Russian Federation’s violation of international law with the illegal annexation of Crimea and the destabilisation of Ukraine, while the trade measures taken by the Russian Federation, including those against Ukraine and other Eastern Partnership countries which have recently concluded Association Agreements with the EU, are unjustified; calls for the EU to consider excluding Russia from civil nuclear cooperation and the Swift system; "

Now as far as it concerns the Internet there is even no real need to bring Swift example. Any country would be insane to let their Internet infrastructure under someone else's control. Question of course how much it will cost to build a replacement for situations if the things go sour. So for many countries, especially the ones that are on friendly terms with the US, they can let it slide. Not so much for Russia, China etc.

> In September 2014, the European Parliament urged member states to consider excluding Russia from SWIFT as part of its sanctions.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/01/27/russia-to-...

I don't know that statement's veracity, but it seems credible.

I now looked a bit into it, thanks for the link. I think it would make a big difference if that was a credible threat by the parliament, or if it was some random grandstanding by a politician. Given that the idea was not discussed again (all references to the issue are to the same resolution, it seems, AFAICT), it is quite likely that (a) the idea was not serious, and (b) it gave the Russian government an excuse. If it's being used as an excuse then there's no point in taking it as a serious threat to Russian national security the way some people do. The Russian government is very fond of portraying itself as a victim of the West, so some skepticism is warranted.

"...it is quite likely that (a) the idea was not serious, and (b) it gave the Russian government an excuse..."

It looks like you are the one looking for excuse. Following your logic Russia should really wait until threats become very serious then be hit in the face and only then react? I think you're asking a for bit too much Kumbaya.

> in Egypt in 2011 the government famously shut down the internet

The news is that they can now isolate their Internet domestically and run a Russia-only WWW. They presumably could have shut it off completely from Day 1.

Are there services Russians use daily that would not be available on a Russia only WWW?

The utility of the web isn't the protocols it technology employed; it's the content.

I can't really think of any outside of youtube. There's local search engine (Yandex and some lesser ones), there's local social website (vkontakte). Russians don't talk English well and mostly use Russian websites which are, obviously, mostly hosted inside Russia. Wikipedia is another example, but, funny enough, Russian government wants to develop a curated alternative and already have money to fund it (basically web hosted encyclopedia).

YouTube would be one prominent example; Wikipedia, Google search & hosting, Twitter are all popular.

There are also media of a more liberal nature who can’t comfortably host in RuNet / being registered as Russian companies, so they exist outside. meduza.io being a prominent example

I would assume any foreign website (Twitter, PayPal, Facebook, etc.) would need to be co-located within Russia to continue to operate. Even then, it would be cutoff from updating or querying any foreign databases.

I can imagine online banking with foreign entities would become a problem as well.

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