Web in the corner

The Russian Security Council at a meeting on October 26 instructed the Ministry of Council and the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation until August 1, 2018 to initiate a discussion within the framework of the BRICS creation in the countries participating in the organization of their own system of duplicate root DNS servers. This was reported by RBC with reference to the protocol of the Council of People's Commissars.

It is proposed to create in the BRICS the system of duplicate root servers of domain names (DNS), independent of the control of ICANN, IANA and Verisign (international organizations that control network infrastructure. - Ed.) And capable of serving users of the listed countries in case of failures or targeted influences. "

The need to develop such a system is motivated by the "increased capabilities of Western countries to conduct offensive operations in the information space" and "dominance of the United States and a number of European Union countries in the Internet management."

The company "Technical Center for the Internet" (TC), which serves the DNS infrastructure of Runet, said that the implementation of the Council of Security initiative will lead to the creation of a separate network from the Internet. “Within the framework of the existing Internet, it is impossible to achieve independence, all the same, information on root servers will diverge from one point - Iana. Thus, the creation of a system of root domain names, independent of international administrators, is equivalent to the creation of an alternative Internet, independent of the existing one,” said TCI.

The DNS system, which is responsible for the addressing of domain names, is under the jurisdiction of the ICANN International Organization (domain names and IP address management corporation), created in 1998 with the fate of the US government. The technical management of the system is carried out by IANA (the administration of the target space of the Internet) - the ICANN Department.

13 root DNS servers are responsible for access to upper level domains. Most of them are in the USA, several in Europe and Japan. There are also many "mirrors" that duplicate the information of root servers. Nine such "mirrors" have been installed in Russia: they are located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Rostov.

The Russian authorities have repeatedly announced the intention to separate the infrastructure of the Russian Internet segment. Last year, the Ministry of Communications reported plans to localize 99 percent of Russian Internet traffic within the country by 2020, as well as duplicate 99 percent of the critical infrastructure of the Internet within Russia.