All things considered, the sovereign Internet promises to be something like Kwanmen, the North Korean intranet. It will be disconnected from the global network. Access to foreign sites will simply be cut off. This is confirmed by the teachings of RKN. In this article, I will try to imagine how the life of technical specialists (mainly developers) and ordinary people will be when disconnected from the global Internet.

Motivation of the authorities

Obviously, instead of blocking sites, services and applications that are undesirable to them, the authorities simply want to make sure that no unwanted information from abroad leaks into the country. After all, it is difficult and expensive to block network resources separately. They must be searched for, analyzed, actually blocked. At the same time, such blocking can put a lot of things that were not planned and not work properly. This was the case with Telegram. And at the same time, such blocks are bypassed with the help of a VPN. They are also blocked, but they multiply like mushrooms after the rain, and people actively use them. After all, there are still all kinds of obfuscations and other means designed specifically to bypass the TSPU. In Russia, you can safely approach any young person and ask him: “What VPN do you use?”. He will probably have something to say.

When disconnected from the global Internet, there is no need to think about these questions anymore. All servers except those on the intranet will be unreachable. Instead, there are a number of questions that need to be answered, and problems that will have to be solved in connection with the disconnection of Russia from the global Internet.

Justification of power

The official justification of the authorities, why they need to prepare for the introduction of a sovereign Internet, is that NATO countries and their allies can conspire and disconnect Russia from the global Internet. Many people are skeptical that this could happen even potentially, since Russia is a large country, accordingly, its borders are long and it will be possible to drive the Internet from anywhere. Suddenly, this is far from the truth. Most of the connection points of Runet with the global network are located along the western, northwestern and southwestern borders.

At the same time, there are quite a few connection points in the Asian part of the country.

This arrangement of connection points is quite logical, as it is consistent with the population density map:

The concentration of cables and population in the west is higher than in the east. Most of the countries that could potentially disconnect the Russian Federation from the Internet are also located in the West, not in the East. If they block the Internet in the Russian Federation, then all traffic can be sent through cables going to the east. But the carrying capacity of cables in this case may be enough for a huge European part of the country. The most logical course of action for the government is to build more back-up communication lines in the east, which can then be used to divert traffic. But there is a big problem: the Russian government easily quarrels with other countries and is very bad at making allies. Even eastern countries with political systems similar to Russia’s are not very enthusiastic about building alliances with the Russian Federation. In such conditions, the Russian Federation will have to rely on a peculiar Juche ideology and really build an intranet.

But in practice, no one now has the intention to completely cut off the Russian Federation’s access to the Internet from their side. The reason can be described as follows: it is technically difficult to do, and there is no benefit. What would the West probably want to limit Russia’s access to? To cloud computing power, software and documentation to software and hardware platforms. And the event successfully does this with other, less complex and costly tools. So, for example, access to cloud services is limited by the impossibility of using a Russian bank card and phone number in them. Similarly, with software plus, boxed editions with activation codes are not delivered to Russia. As for the documentation, you can simply close access to it via a Russian IP or block the corporate account (if the documentation was available only after registration).

Yes, of course, there are many ways to circumvent each of the above methods of limiting Russians’ access to content. So, for example, access to cloud resources can be obtained through subsidiaries created somewhere in neutral countries. Software can often be simply relied upon. IP blocking can be bypassed using a VPN. However, Western countries also struggle with circumvention methods (for example, the imposition of secondary sanctions, which foreign companies really do not want to fall under). Also, product documentation isn’t very useful without access to the product itself. That is why they are trying to limit the import of microprocessor electronics to Russia as much as they can. But even if foreign countries completely cut off Russia from the Internet, the ways around (for example, registering subsidiaries and obtaining pirated software on physical media) will still remain, so what’s the point of bothering with cutting off Russia’s Internet?

Someone can also say that if Russia is cut off from the world Internet, then Russians will no longer be able to watch objective analysis and journalistic investigations of what is happening and find out the truth, which would not be desirable. In fact, the fact that the people of Russia have access to something other than Russian propaganda is neither warm nor cold. The Russian people do not have political subjectivity, they do not influence the decisions made by the government. Even with hindsight, a Russian citizen, deciding on the basis of new knowledge to take some action and express dissatisfaction, will only be able to receive a stick on the head and an administrative/criminal case.

But what is really important is to know more about what is happening in the Russian Federation itself. Thanks to the Internet, it is much easier to do this. Especially to informers operating inside the Russian Federation, which transmits secret information to Western intelligence about the location of military units, equipment and industries, and future decisions of the government. Also, thanks to the fact that the Russian Federation is still connected to the global Internet, it is much easier for saboteurs to coordinate with their headquarters through secure channels. But the government of the Russian Federation cannot like all this, of course. They would be happy to stop all this activity in one fell swoop.

In general, from all the arguments given above, we can conclude that the West definitely has no motivation to disconnect Russia from the Internet, but the Russian government itself has it.

Implications for the IT sector

What foreign technologies does the Russian IT sector use? In fact, absolutely everything that Russian companies use for their projects is of foreign (albeit often open-source) origin. Except, probably 1Cbut the development of the systems themselves 1C foreign technologies are used (for example, a programming language compiler C++). In fact, everything here is approximately the same as in other production: the products are domestic, the machines are foreign. That is why the same import substitution, for example, is an unsustainable strategy, as well as existence in isolation.

That is why the government will have to create mirrors with repositories for the normal functioning of the development, which will contain all the libraries, DBMS, compilers, interpreters, their source code and documentation necessary for the IT sphere. In order to copy all this from foreign servers to mirrors inside the country, the government will have to leave a dedicated channel to the external Internet, which can be used only by authorized persons.

Another foreign tool that may be necessary for domestic developers is various public APIs called by applications. Here it is already much more difficult, it is either very difficult or impossible to duplicate this on your side. Developers will have to either refuse to use them, or negotiate with the authorities to arrange private access to the API through the aforementioned dedicated channel. I think there will be a lot of different delays with this, and the code or configuration of the calling application may have to be edited as well. Of course, the functionality of applications whose developers did not take care of providing them with the ability to work in conditions of disconnection from the global Internet will suffer.

On the other hand, I don’t think that Russian services are so dependent on foreign APIs. As I already mentioned, Western companies themselves very diligently limited access to their products to Russians either through sanctions or reputational costs.

Consequences for ordinary people

Apparently, these consequences will be much more acute for them than for developers. The authorities will take certain steps to preserve digital services. And they will not take any steps for the well-being, convenience and satisfaction of ordinary people. Of course, you will have to forget about the usual access to any Western content with a couple of clicks, even with a VPN. Something legal will definitely spread on Russian platforms like VK. But how to share content undesirable for the authorities, in the presence of Telegram and any Western platforms? It is unlikely that it will be easy to distribute something like this from the host that is in it. The security guards will quickly calculate and pay it off. Seditious materials will be distributed by self-publishing, from person to person. That’s how I see how a flash drive with videos of Maksym Kats, recognized as an agent, is passed from hand to hand. Perhaps some programs for building P2P networks and encrypted data exchange will be popular. I can’t say for sure how easy it will be for security guards to uncover such networks and arrange mask shows for participants. I assume that it will be enough to simply analyze the protocols and consider any traffic that is encrypted with keys to which the special services do not have access to be hostile to the authorities. So offline information exchange will become more secure.

Especially obvious changes will take place in the field of interactive entertainment, i.e. video games. In recent decades, developers have tried to defeat piracy by not adding the ability to play over a local network. Since there will no longer be a connection with foreign servers, Russian gamers will no longer be able to play many multiplayer games. Yes, video games from Russian publishers will still be available, but it won’t be enough for people. That is why gaming in locales will be revived. They will play old games that supported this. Of course, no one will drag a lock through high-rise buildings. Special programs will be used for virtual LAN construction.

Where will foreign content be obtained from? Those who have access to the external Internet channel for the chosen ones will use it not only to fulfill their work duties, but also to receive foreign content from there for its further distribution.

What would I advise an ordinary Russian to do in case of disconnection of the country from the global Internet? First of all, stock up on foreign content, especially that which will be promptly banned in some VK. For yourself, for friends, for exchange, sale. Of course, pornography (especially the most twisted, both real and drawn) and videos/articles of protest influencers will be most appreciated. It will also be useful to get a job in a company whose employees can have access to the external Internet, or to get to know a person from such a company. Any P2P messengers and file sharers designed to operate in a tightly controlled intranet environment can probably be useful. I also recommend requesting a GDPR archive with data from each foreign web resource on which you were present. In order not to lose memories, so to speak.

Digital ruble

Many people ask: what is a digital ruble? Some Kremlin cryptocurrency? And why? Not clear. But no, it cannot be called cryptocurrency in the classical sense. The true meaning of the digital ruble is control over financial flows. So that no one can send a monetary donation to an unwanted organization, so that no one can accept payment from an unwanted organization. That is, if cheburnet is necessary for control over information, then digital ruble is for control over financial transactions. That’s all.