Crazy case

AGentura.ru editor -in -chief Andrey Soldatov and the head of the Roskomsvobod project Artem Kozlyuk about the future of the Internet in Russia

• The USSR built socialism in a single country, and Russia wants to build the Internet in a separate country.
• A package of adopted laws on the "sustainability" of the Russian Internet creates an opportunity to disable the Runet segments from the global network.
• Once again, Russia cuts itself off from the technological revolution, as already happened in the 60s.
• It is not yet clear whether the authorities will be able to completely isolate the Runet from the world. In any case, this will require billions of investments.

Sergey Medvedev: In Russia, the past occurs with a rapid pace. For a long time they tried to build socialism in a single country, and now, it seems, they want to build the Internet in a single country. Back in the distant 2014, a member of the Federation Council Maxim Kavjaradze proposed building a separate sovereign Internet and jokingly offered to call it “Cheburashka” or “Crocodile Gene”, since there is no cheburashka anywhere else in the world - let's call Cheburashka. Then it was considered not a very successful joke. But, as you know, there is no such joke of State Duma deputies, which sooner or later would not have become a law.

In the Radio Studio Liberty - Andrey Soldatov , the editor -in -chief of the AGentura.ru site, and Artem Kozlyuk, the head of the Roskomsvoboda project.

Andrey Soldatov: A preposition under which for the past five years repressive laws on the Internet have been adopted, this is always protection from Americans. For example, the transfer of personal data of Russians to Russia in order for them to become available to the FSB wiretapping system - this is done under the pretext of reaction to Snowden's exposure: "We must protect Russian citizens from the US National Security Agency." But the text of the law shows that this is not only about building defense. For example, a significant part of the bill concerns how the traffic passes through the country, the so -called traffic exchange points. Therefore, there is immediately the idea that they actually want to repeat the experience that was already in Ingushetia in October last year, when mobile Internet was cut down in the republic within two weeks. Then this was done by artisanal methods: the local FSB department called and sent instructions to local operators, and traffic was cut down, and now they want to do this already at a higher technical level.

Sergey Medvedev: Artem, can Americans really block Runet's work? It is constantly said: here, look what they did with the Iranian centrifuges-Iran was thrown back in his nuclear program somewhere in the Stone Age ...

Artem Kozlyuk: It is also mentioned that at one time there was a certain shutdown of Syria from American companies. In fact, this is more due to the vulnerability of the internal state systems of the country itself than with the desire of other states to disconnect one or another country from the Internet. And human rights organizations, and an IT industry, and lawyers, and in general the public see more the risk of disconnecting itself to the country itself from the external network than the risk of an attack from the outside. Moreover, with critical centralization of infrastructure, threats increase. The more decentralized the system, the more it is protected. This bill has in mind the maximum centralization and maximum vulnerability, and contrary to the statements of initiators, it increases the risks and threats of national security.

Sergey Medvedev: And purely hypothetically, we can imagine that any American organizations that will be given any decree in the framework of a state of emergency will be able to influence the infrastructure of the Russian Internet?

Andrey Soldatov: I think it is completely impossible to turn off the Russian Internet. Of course, the United States, like all five countries (Great Britain, USA, Australia, New Zealand), has a cyberc. Of course, they have some possibilities for striking infrastructure. But Russia has exactly the same troops, at least since 2014. The concept of cyberum, cyber weapons exists, but this does not mean that it is necessary, defending from this weapon, to completely change the infrastructure. Due to the fact that they invent a new type of machine, we do not change, for example, the infrastructure of the Moscow transport network.

Sergey Medvedev: Suppose, all this is accepted in full, unlimited financing is given ... And what will need to be done - to duplicate the entire structure of the world Internet in Russia, all cloud services, routing, its own domain names system?

It is difficult to guess the thoughts of lawmakers who wrote so legally and technically illiterate text

Artem Kozlyuk: It is difficult to guess the thoughts of lawmakers who wrote so legally and technically illiterate text. The government has a bunch of questions at once. The first is legal uncertainty in a number of terms, the second - where is funding from? Why do you give Roskomnadzor regulatory authority, if in the field of responsibility of ministries and the government itself? There, the text says that representatives of Roskomnadzor will have the right to route traffic, in closed meetings it was said that through oral orders, that is, an employee of Roskomnadzor calls the provider and says: this signal is not in the best way, but so and so.

The final type of this law is still unknown, it is assumed that significant changes will be made to it. The presidential apparatus forms comments and proposals, the document is prepared for the second reading. Therefore, it is now difficult to talk about how much we can turn off ourselves, put the Internet. In any case, this is a non-trivial task, which will require huge funds from the budget and monopolizing the operator services market: now cross-border transitions of Internet traffic are distributed by a couple of dozen Internet providers. It is necessary to transfer all these cross-border transitions to the hands of one communication operator, as well as the traffic exchange points, to build a full-scale Internet filtration model.

For some period of time, of course, you can make it so that the Internet will practically stop working for us, the signal will slow down using muffles, we will not be able to open sites, use some services, as the Telegram blocking clearly showed (they are connected with the Internet at their transactions). The state should calculate the risks that when such channels are turned off, we will have payment systems, online banking. With such actions we can harm critical infrastructure, which is just poorly protected. Attention should be paid to the protection of strategic objects. Yes, they, of course, have virtual private networks, there is some kind of intranet, but they are also connected through certain channels with other services and services. Then we will find ourselves in such isolation that we will live within ourselves.

Sergey Medvedev: This is a stone age! Those who regulate this do not understand that the Internet is like a living organism: they took out the liver, and something does not work out in all other organs. The Internet is a huge circulatory system, and it is impossible to block the blood flow in one of the organs without damaging the whole body.

Some great financial interests are traced here. Who will receive instant benefits from all these huge budget injections?

Andrey Soldatov: This is the first law, which, unfortunately, is, by and large, it is supported by the IT industry. Yandex and Male.ru, two main Internet holding in the country, are calm about it. And the reason is financial. Even from the 90s, when our special services were poor, if they came up with some new events or technologies, then the cost of their installation was always assigned to operators (and in the USA, for example, the state always paid for this). Every year, the new ideas of Russian lawmakers have become more and more expensive. Let us recall what a serious reaction to the "Yarovaya Law" was: it is so insanely expensive project that the operators simply howled. Finally, by 2019, our state realized what the reason for the discontent of the operators, and here they very clearly said: we would pay for everything, we will install these new boxes at all points of traffic exchange, on the cables of the operators. And thus the voltage of the IT industry, large companies, has practically naught.

But, of course, this is a dramatic change, because the idea of all this equipment is very different from what we saw before. Previously, all these equipment, for example, equipment equipment, filtering was put at the regional level and controlled by regional structures, and now they are trying to create a centralized system. That is, they want to build a special building, some center that will be able to remotely change the path of traffic in Siberia, in the Far East or in Karelia. This is an absolutely amazing idea, Soviet in spirit, completely not Chinese! In Soviet times, they wanted to do this, for this they built a central telegraph and so on. Now they decided that they have such financial, administrative and any opportunities and they can create this switch. I wonder how they succeed.

Artem Kozlyuk

Artem Kozlyuk: The lawmakers say that money from the budget will be allocated from the budget, and according to the working group under the Government of the Russian Federation, this will require about 134 billion rubles a year with an annual increase in the amount. For example, Beeline considered that only for him this system would require about half a billion million rubles a year if they purchase and unfold this equipment. Operators reasonably fear that this will not do without their financial investments. Then they will transfer this to our subscription fee or will rent unlimited tariff packages, reduce the speed of Internet traffic or go money from the budget due to our taxes, that is, in any case, this burden will fall on Russian citizens.

Sergey Medvedev: That is, we will pay for the Internet that the Internet will be more expensive and slower.

Artem Kozlyuk: Moreover, without the prospects for promoting new technologies. For example, the same 5G connection requires a high speed of passage of packages, and if they put the DPI equipment, then there can be no talk of any unfolding the system of 5G.

Sergey Medvedev: Are there the financial interests of power structures here?

Andrei Soldatov: No, such a corruption component is not seen here that the special services have broken this law in order to enrich themselves. This is not about money-this is about protection from such a terrible threat that scares the special services, starting from the beginning of the 2000s. This is the task of ensuring "political stability", preventing mass protests, which has been put before the Russian counterintelligence since 1998. This can be done by destroying the means of withdrawing people to the street. Since 2011, it became clear that these means are not old-fashioned trade unions, opposition parties or even youth movements that played a role in “color revolutions”, but online technologies. Accordingly, you need to get the opportunity to put these technologies under control.

Sergey Medvedev: In the nucleus of everything - the Maidan?

Andrey Soldatov: Maidan, "Arab Spring" and protests of 2011-12.

Sergey Medvedev: They gave rise to this paranoia, and the state wants to take control of the digital sphere.

Artem Kozlyuk: And not only our state is a global trend.

Sergey Medvedev: How much is the Chinese recipes, the "great Chinese firewall" here are a model, and how applicable to the Russian case?

Artem Kozlyuk: individual elements are applicable, but the construction of such a system as in China seems to me poorly condensed. When the Internet came to China in the 90s, he immediately became under state control, and our infrastructure developed differently, we have thousands and thousands of communication operators. It was due to their high competition that the Internet has become cheap and fast. This developed on the principles of self-regulation until 2012, until all these laws on Internet regulation were stamped, which not only introduced significant moments into the online censorship and online setting, but also dozens of laws that burden the IT industry, telecom operators, hosts and sanctions, and restrictions. We now have high risks of monopolizing this market, setting it under more stringent state control.

Separate elements are applicable, but the construction of such a system as in China is poorly condensed

There are still many other differences in China. For example, there is an army of pro-government bloggers, and we still have the “troll factories” are not so widespread, they only create an info-shim, but do not search for some content and transfer it to state structures on a wide scale. We have a media jacket, "safe Internet", " media Guard " who are engaged in this, but not on such a mass scale as in China. You write some kind of keyword that Chinese rulers do not like, and you will not even be able to find it anywhere: everything is tightly automated. In order to build such a system, it is necessary that the Internet immediately gets under tight state control, and this is the infusion of billions of funds from the state budget, building a model in which there is a Ministry of Censorship, which controls this sphere and introducing certain rules. But Russia still wants to imagine itself as a democratic state, so I do not think that our government is now ready to declare itself a censor. While they say that censorship is prohibited with us.

Sergey Medvedev: All this is served under the stability sauce: "All the sake of you, citizens: when the Americans want to deprive you of the Internet, we will fight back our Russian technologies."

Artem Kozlyuk: We are unlikely to be able to build a model one to one with Chinese, and it is ineffective. There are those who need to calmly go through the same VPN. And if the Chinese authorities ban the use of VPN, it will hit their economy.

Sergey Medvedev: Can they ban VPN in Russia at the legislative level?

Artem Kozlyuk: The law that passed as a law on the ban on the VPN, but in fact about its rigid regulation, entered into us by virtue of a year and a half ago, but still does not work.

Andrey Soldatov: When you carry out censorship, the question of whom you press on - to companies that provide services or users. The Chinese have already followed the path of pressure on users. In some regions, if you put a VPN on your phone, then your service is chopped off and the SSEMSK receives you: contact the nearest police department for a fine. We do not have this. And in some regions of China, there is already a legislative obligation of users to install a certain type of software on the phone that watches you. In Russia, thank God, this is not, because it is too expensive.

Andrey Soldatov

For Russia, a conversation about the threat from Americans in the field of the Internet looks completely peculiar, not at all like China. The authorities need to understand how to control the infrastructure of the Internet, which is all built on American technologies. To produce such stations is not a very simple task. You can buy them from the Chinese. A similar story was, for several years, Russian lawmakers and officials played with the idea that we could get help from China. But the Russian special services were frightened, and no longer espionage from the USA, but espionage from China. There were too many scandals in the UK, and in the USA, and in Canada about the fact that Chinese communication equipment contains many different bugs.

Artem Kozlyuk: In China, the state offered users a worthy replacement - an interesting service that replaces social networks and payment system. I doubt that the Russian state can now give birth to such a high -quality service that will combine all these services with a possible disconnection of Facebook and Google in Russia. Still, it was necessary to develop such services much earlier. The moment is missed, now users are accustomed to the great degrees of freedom and the availability of certain services.

Sergey Medvedev: is the Russian IT industry absolutely loyal?

Andrey Soldatov: Of course, there is some kind of resistance, especially at the level of small city operators, Internet providers. There are also people who entered this business in the 90s with a completely different psychology and ideology, liberals in essence. But in general, unfortunately, this happens. Still, for how many years the sanctions have been going on, and people began to give up, it seems to them that their dream to build truly international brands will not take place. And they decided that it was necessary to turn into real Russian national companies and play according to these rules.

Sergey Medvedev: It will inevitably change the corporate culture: when Yandex turns into Rosneft, this cannot but affect the quality of services and innovations.

Artem Kozlyuk: The population is becoming more and more informed, switches to a new level of Internet grade. Пользователи, сталкиваясь с блокировками, начинают узнавать не только о новых сервисах, но и о том, что они обладают какими-то правами и свободами (свобода слова, доступ к информации, право на распространение информации).

Сергей Медведев: Все-таки россияне – не законопослушные китайцы. Мне кажется, уровень правового нигилизма в сети только возрастет, если все это всерьез будет проводиться.

Андрей Солдатов: Здесь существует определенная ошибка логики у спецслужб. Их логика заключается в том, чтобы максимальным образом надавить на людей, создающих информационные волны, которые могут привести к протестам. Идея еще Комитета госбезопасности была в том, чтобы контролировать людей, которые создают проблемы. В Советском Союзе их было не очень много, на пике – около двух тысяч диссидентов. Но когда вы имеете дело с обществом, живущим в интернет-эпоху, количество людей, которые могут распространять информацию при возникновении любого кризиса, увеличивается по экспоненте. Те инструменты, которые вы сделали, чтобы контролировать эти две тысячи активистов, не работают на контроль миллионов.

Это может быть не обязательно какой-нибудь политический протест, а, например, трагедия в Магнитогорске. Понятно, что законопроект о фейк-ньюс был принят в связи с Магнитогорском. Решили, что надо контролировать блогеров: вдруг они начнут писать, что это был теракт? Но запугиванием можно хорошо контролировать, когда у тебя сидит пять человек, обсуждающих какую-то тему, но когда происходит трагедия, люди в панике начинают обмениваться информацией и в эту секунду, шаря информацию, не думают, какие могут наступить правовые последствия. Так что эта логика всегда будет проигрышной.

Сергей Медведев: Насколько это глобальный тренд на создание контролируемых национальных сегментов интернета?

Артем Козлюк: Здесь даже выделили такой термин, как "балканизация интернета" – огораживание, ограничивание, построение границ в виртуальном пространстве, хотя всем известно, что интернет был создан, чтобы как раз убрать эти границы. Он создан, чтобы функционировать даже в условиях ядерной войны, поэтому был сделан максимально помехоустойчиво, против различных привязок, блокировок и ограничений: сигнал всегда найдет дорогу от одного абонента к другому, какие бы перегородки ни ставились.

Андрей Солдатов: Мы живем в мире, где все определяется тем, где создается трафик. Сегодня трафик создается не с помощью электронной почты, а социальными сетями и пользователями. Да, первоначально была атака на глобальность интернета со стороны правительств (Франции, Германии, Бразилии), особенно после разоблачений Сноудена. Они говорили, что надо прокладывать свои кабели, избегать американцев, ведь до сих пор трафик идет через Америку. Но потом в голову пришла одна простая мысль: если вы на своей территории сумеете создать такие места, где будет генерироваться трафик, то есть заставите социальные сети держать свои серверы на нашей территории с данными наших пользователей, то это может решить проблему, тогда этому сигналу просто не нужно будет ходить в Америку.

Мы уже видели в Советском Союзе результат того, что безопасность ставится выше технологического развития

Сейчас борьба происходит именно здесь, и очень сложно понять, кто победит. Давление социальной сети очень велико, особенно в Европе, но существует еще и встречное движение: глобальные компании тоже заинтересованы в локализации. С 2007 года серверы Гугла стоят в России, и не из-за давления Роскомнадзора или Кремля, а просто Гугл хочет хранить трафик как можно ближе к пользователю. Когда у вас есть два встречных потока – с одной стороны государства, желающие избавиться от американской монополии, а с другой стороны, сами сервисы, которые хотят предоставлять локализованные сервисы, то где-то в середине они могут встретиться.

Сергей Медведев: Как же тогда видится будущее глобального интернета? Будет продолжаться эта "балканизация", локализация, замыкание на где-то суверенные, а где-то просто корпоративные сети?

Андрей Солдатов: Мне кажется, что мы поделим интернет на две части: будет сеть для людей, которые заинтересованы в глобальном характере интернета, и они будут пользоваться какими-то своими социальными сетями и сервисами, и будет огромная масса людей (как и сегодня), которые пользуются интернетом для практических нужд: покупок, походов в кино и так далее. Они, конечно, будут пользоваться своим локальным интернетом и, возможно, даже не поймут, что уже отрезаны, потому что не пользуются многими услугами, не читают "Нью-Йорк таймс". В этих условиях мы можем прийти к такому локализованному интернету, причем в очень многих странах мира.

Сергей Медведев: Соответственно, может возникнуть некое элитное разделение. Так в СССР были люди, читавшие самиздат и слушавшие Би-би-си и "Голос Америки", а были те, кто открывал газету "Правда" и слушал три программы радиоточки.

Артем Козлюк: Не будем сбрасывать со счетов и развитие технологий. Сейчас уже создаются прообразы каких-то децентрализованных сетей. Нас ждет очевидное развитие интернета. Глобальность, к которой привыкли люди, будет воплощена в другой технической форме.

Сергей Медведев: Россия в очередной раз отрезает себя от технологической революции, как произошло в 60-е годы, когда при Хрущеве была убита компьютерная отрасль, все отдали под контроль генералитета.

Андрей Солдатов: Посмотрите на последнюю редакцию доктрины информационной безопасности, которую Путин подписал два года назад: там прямым текстом написано, что операторы, телекоммуникационные компании перед внедрением новых сервисов должны ходить в спецслужбы и спрашивать: уже можно или еще подождать? Мы уже видели в Советском Союзе результат того, что безопасность ставится выше технологического развития.

Сергей Медведев: Испанский социолог, визионер Мануэль Кастельс, которого называют современным Марксом, считал: причина распада СССР во многом была в том, что он не вписался в мировую информационную революцию, фактически исторг себя из нее. Я боюсь, что нынешняя Россия, принимая закон о суверенном интернете, "закон Яровой" и подобные пакеты законов, может повторить ту же судьбу, если она пойдет тем же самым путем, наступит на те же грабли, на которые наступил Советский Союз и распался.