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Comment by fisherwithac | Hacker News Reader

As someone who knows very little about the Internet backbone and networking in general, would this even be technically feasible to do?

We know that in certain countries there exist "single points" where a majority of internet traffic flows [0], but if those points get cut off, couldn't you reroute the traffic? Isn't that the point of decentralization in the first place?

And if it's technically feasible, would encryption tools like VPNs, DNS encryption or even Tor help in a situation like this?

[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-business/wp/2014...

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From what I can read in that article, the law will simply mandate that Roskomnadzor gets to control the internet access points, and it's also hinted that services will be required to host their data in Russia, to some extent. That would give them the ability to shut down most of the Internet traffic to and from the rest of the world, while still allowing important services to run without disruptions.

That's the theory anyway. In practice, I assume Russian web services are just as dependant on third-party providers as the rest of us are.

This bill builds on a different one (iirc) where local ISPs are mandated to use channels of a few big backbone providers—basically Rostelecom and Transtelecom. On top of that, satellite connections were also forbidden without going through an on-ground station (not sure what the path is, in that case).

All in all, every connection to outside will be under the control of RKN and the gov, so no matter how you route, you're going through these points. Pretty much the Chinese model—afaik there's not much choice if you're trying to do about the same thing.

If they can control all outgoing points they can control ISP access completely. VPNs wouldn't help as they would still need an out of country connection.

However satellite or other wireless internet not under their control would work unless enforced ad bacculum or through jammers. Anything which depends upon external international IP addresses would break.

VPNs and related would only come into play with unauthorized international connections and the forwarder so it appears traffic is to another domestic address.

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