Putin builds ‘great firewall’ to tighten grip on power

Protests at home and fear of retaliatory cyber attacks prompt plans to cut Russia off from the internet

TECH providers are planning to temporarily cut the Russian internet off from the web amid attempts to increase government control of information flows. A group of major private and state telecoms led by Natalya Kaspersky, co-founder of Kaspersky Lab antivirus maker, have decided to conduct the test to disconnect “Runet” from the rest of the internet sometime before April 1.

That is the deadline for amendments to “sovereign internet” legislation that ostensibly will allow Russia to protect itself from foreign aggression in the digital sphere.

In particular, lawmakers are worried that Western accusations of Russian hacking could lead to retaliatory cyberattacks and are trying to develop a way to isolate the Russian internet.

The bill would require telecoms to be able to redirect all traffic through routing points controlled by the Russian state, giving it a brake on the flow of information to networks abroad.

But experts have said developing such sweeping capabilities, if not impossible, would be extremely expensive and could lead to major disruptions in the functioning of the internet.

There is also the threat of censorship, as the system will be monitored by the state communications oversight agency Roskomnadzor, which has become known for banning both extremist speech and criticism of the Kremlin. It will be able to filter out foreign content it doesn’t like.

Last week, Google reportedly agreed to receive lists of sites banned by Roskomnadzor every day and to block some of them. So far, it has blocked three quarters of the sites forbidden in Russia.

The state audit chamber opposed the sovereign internet legislation last week on the grounds that it would lead to a rise in the cost of goods and services. Budget expenditures will be required to help telecoms implement the technology and pay for additional staff at Roskomnadzor.

Agora, a human rights group, called the bill a “serious threat to internet freedom” in a recent report.

But the cabinet of ministers and Vladimir Putin’s internet adviser have spoken out in favour of the law. The president famously once called the internet a “CIA project”.

Moscow is seen to be moving toward a model similar to the “great firewall” of China, where certain keywords are blocked and users cannot connect to blacklisted sites including Facebook.

The Russian government has been tightening its grip over the internet since social media facilitated huge protests against Mr Putin in 2011-13.

Young Russians have faced fines and jail time for social media posts ridiculing the Kremlin and the Orthodox Church, and Roskomnadzor has in vain attempted to block the popular encrypted messaging service Telegram.