Russia: After weeks of back-and-forth, proxy wars, the unthinkable and the most terrifying has happened today, because Russia has invaded Ukraine. The excuse of Vladimir Putin and his people is to “demilitarize” Ukraine, but this is a full-fledged invasion carried out by an emboldened Russia in the face of a Europe – today Putin has directly threatened the entire NATO – whose most energetic response has been the imposition of economic sanctions…
Cold War 2.0
Although it is not seen, because that is the grace, we have been involved in a Cold War 2.0 for a long time. A war in which the battle lines are digital, the weapons are computer programs and the objective is data. Data from other countries is the cryptocurrency in the National Defense of each country. Attacks like Wannacry in 2016 and other more recent ones only show the reality we live in: one in which an entire country can be hacked from its basic infrastructure for the population to its military secrets. And for this reason, some like Russia have been taking really drastic measures for years.
Aware of what is at stake if it were hacked, Russia carried out an experiment in 2019 as ambitious as it was unprecedented: to disconnect the entire country from the Internet. But not only government institutions or military installations, but each house, router and server . A total and absolute closure of mother Russia to the Network of networks.
Disconnect from the Internet, comrades
The reason? according to the Russian agency RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK) it was tried to test and at the same time ensure and demonstrate the independence of the Runet, the Russian internet space. By shutting down the entire continent, both the Russian authorities and the country’s large Internet providers will be able to see first-hand the effectiveness of the Runet, its communications, and the degree of isolation.
Russian internet providers should be able to ensure the independence of the Russian internet “in the event of foreign aggression”, as outlined in a proposed law in the Russian Parliament last December. As if this were not enough, Russian telecommunications firms were forced to install “technical means” to redirect all Russian Internet traffic to a series of exchange points approved or managed by Roskomnadzor.
The country’s main telecommunications agency, Roskomnadzor, has the power to inspect traffic, ban inappropriate content, and ensure that traffic between Russian users stays within the country, and is not redirected through outside servers that could be intercepted in the event of an attack. external.
