Belarusian-Chinese firewall

IT specialist Mikhail Klimarev explains how Lukashenko turns off the Internet during protests

On the day of the election of the President of Belarus, residents of Minsk began to complain about the unstable work of the Internet. There was information-there are difficulties with access to YouTube, Telegram, some VPN and TOR services. Interruptions in the work began at once by several large local communications operators: Byfly (Beltelecom), MTS, Life, Cosmos TV. Vadim Shaibakov, Deputy Director General of Beltelecom on Technical Affairs, said that problems with the network began due to foreign traffic. Then the problems with the availability of the network were repeated in Belarus and in the following days - synchronously with the beginning of street protests. What this means for Belarusians and Russians, says IT specialist Mikhail Klimarev.

-“Beltelecom” said that the Internet was turned off through many cyber attacks from abroad. Can a Beltelecom version have any reason?

- Regarding cyber attacks, this is a arrogant and uncomplicated lies. Now the authorities of Belarus resemble a person who locked himself in his house and screams to be released.

I locked myself with the key from the inside, that's the same. Nobody attacked Lukashenko, but even if he was attacked, then how successfully everything is developing: it was at the moment when you need to turn off the Internet that they attacked them. In addition to the words of the Center for Monitoring, which made a statement that they did not work [because of cyber attacks], they have nothing, they showed either access or measurement results, did not name any centers. They brought a series of random words and said that this is proof that they committed DDOS ata at the whole country.

- In this case, how did the Internet turn off in Belarus and what role did Beltelecom himself play in this, which, as we know, is a monopolist in the country?

- “Beltelecom” is a monopolist, the company itself is under the control of Lukashenko. There is also, in addition to Beltelkoma, NTSOT [National Center for Traffic Exchange] is something like the Russian MSK-IX, the largest exchange exchange, but NSOT completely subordinates to the operational headquarters of almost the KGB of Belarus. That's why

In the Internet disconnection, all wine lies personally on Lukashenko, and we are now collecting all the data and evidence in order to then attract it to the court.

There are a lot of autonomous networks: the autonomous network of the telecom operator, some university, a large enterprise-these are all autonomous networks if they have an IP address. Unlike normal countries, there are not many communication operators in Belarus, there Beltelecom is a monopolist, it has about 90% of the market. There are about 132 autonomous systems in Belarus. All autonomous systems have the right to communicate with other autonomous systems through only one point - NTSOT. They have no right in another way, especially with foreign operators. The whole bynet [the Belarusian part of the Internet] is as follows: communication operators come to NTSOT, there is an exchange of traffic, and operators are connected among themselves.

On Sunday, at 8 am Moscow time, the number of ties between Belarusian operators and not Belarusian operators fell about 5 times,

In fact, BYNET has ceased to exist.

Within an hour, a mess took place in this NSOT. And somewhere in an hour it turns out that all Belarusian traffic occurs through one communication unit. Roughly speaking, there were many channels, then all these channels were brought into one piece of equipment, and this equipment is already connected to other autonomous systems. This equipment is called DPI. In 2018, NTSOT held a competition and purchased DPI equipment at $ 2.5 million. It used to be not in combat mode, but then they launched it.

All channels were driven into one piece of equipment where the bottleneck was formed, where all user traffic did not pass.

Plus - they are trying to control this traffic. There was an attempt to close access to the Belrus2020.org website, this is the “voice” the same, they could not do it, as a result they closed all the encrypted traffic in general. As a result, all HTTPS sites stopped working in Belarus in general.

Then they began to redirect requests from the Belrus2020.org website to a phishing site. There was a prepared form on this site, supposedly activists should load all their official data, ballots, and somehow all these ballots were intercepted. Modern browsers are able to recognize fake sites, and this became known.

- What services continue to work in Belarus, despite all the attempts of disconnecting?

- Telegram is working there now, this is due to the fact that the Telegram team itself works very seriously. Yes, he works poorly, but messages are leaving. Psiphon works, this is not a VPN, but a means of bypassing locks, Lantern. Everything else is very poor now. At 10 o’clock in Moscow, on Sunday, the connection was completely lost. That is, Belarusian resources from the outside became inaccessible, and vice versa. That is

This is the same sovereign Runet that we so wanted to stick. It was organized in Belarus, I don’t think that Belarusians like it.

- It turns out that they did not have the goal of turning off the entire Internet?

- Yes, because then their services would stop working. They also need to communicate with election commissions during the elections, they need to receive data. Plus, many banking systems stopped working, in general there are quite a lot of all sorts of things that I would not want to turn off.

This is not just Telegram does not work, this is the infrastructure: cardiomonitors do not work, people just can die, this is telephony, the work of emergency services.

If a fire happens in Belarus, they will not even be able to get through to firefighters. So this is a serious thing, so they tried to preserve at least some kind of connectedness, but nothing happened.

- Is it possible to turn off the entire Internet in modern realities?

- This is called Internet shutdown when they really come and turn off the entire communication infrastructure. Another thing is that even in Belarus 132 autonomous systems are not so many, but not so few. And turning off so many providers is quite difficult. Plus Belarus is still Europe, there are rather transparent borders, you can organize communication, connecting to Russian operators across the border, there is satellite communication, and there were quite a lot of pirate links, they are not as powerful as Belnet ( analogue of Runet. - Ed. ), But even Belnet could not break the connection 100%, torn by 20%. I do not understand the reason for the disconnection.

In my opinion, they only harm themselves. Imagine the Internet turned off in the country. What's happening? The devil knows him, but definitely nothing good. Who turned off? State. Since the state, then they mow.

He who was the first to use violence is to blame. In this case, violence is in its purest form, so there is no excuse for any regime Lukashenko and cannot be. He is a criminal, he turned off the Internet, which means that the elections cannot be called any legitimate, since no one observed, no one saw. Was Lukashenko legally chose? No. You can not believe any figure that he called, including because he turned off the Internet.

- You said that terminals and many other equipment stopped working. This is a big blow to the country's economy. Why doesn't this become a stop factor for the authorities?

- Grandfather is old, grandfather does not understand how it all works. It seems to him and his entrance that these are some toys, cats, and YouTube. For the economy, there may be catastrophic consequences, up to the cessation of food supply, because it is also done through the Internet. This is the supply of products, electricity. If Shatdown lasts a week there, I am afraid that there may be very serious consequences, to the technogenic disasters. This is an important story. How it all ends, few people understand.

Shatdown is not such a rare phenomenon in the world. In India, almost every week they turn off something, but they turn off some peripherals there, a village where the infrastructure is not developed. And even there this is pain, and here a fairly developed European country is left without the Internet in the 21st century, it can turn into something very serious. The international observation group monitors this business, and most likely it will be transferred to the OSCE.

-Is there, in your opinion, some explanation of why the authorities in many authoritarian countries do not understand how detrimental for them themselves will be the consequences of the Internet disconnection?

- It seems to me that this is connected precisely with the conflict of generations, because people do not understand how it all works. Such countries are mainly managed by people for 60, for them the Internet was at first some kind of toy, then it became a threat. Like the same Putin, and Lukashenko does not know how to use the Internet. But in fact, this is not only in authoritarian countries. Almost everyone wants to rule the Internet. Now Trump is trying to somehow influence Tiktok. He does not know how it works. And now everyone is looking at him as an idiot. In Europe, the same trends. But in democratic countries there are systems of checks and counterweights, so people come there and say to those who want to turn off the Internet, that they are stupid. I think this will pass with a change in generations, but 10 years will have to be patient until all these old people retire.

- Can the Belarusian authorities subsequently create a kind of Chinese Firevol?

- What they did is the Chinese firewall in miniature.

But if Lukashenko thinks that he is a brilliant dude, then no, in Africa it was already done two years ago.

There was exactly the same thing, but there ended the thousands of the victims.

- Can it be assumed that the Belarusian scenario will repeat in Russia in 2024?

- A similar will happen in Russia, if everything that Clishas and Lugovoi proposed, we will endure. But we are more than Belarus, we have a less homogeneous device, we have different regions. We have a lot of pirate battleships, because it is economically appropriate, we have huge boundaries. It will be more difficult for us to turn off everything. But the fact that half the Belarusian version will be, that using the Internet will not become so fast and pleasant - this is definitely. The fact that this will hit the economy is also a fact.