In the summer - without the Internet

Along with heating in the country, mobile Internet will also be turned off: Muscovites are already training

The capital experienced the largest mobile internet outage in history. Apparently, this is the result of testing new blocking methods, such as “white lists”, which allegedly included UK banks. Business losses are estimated at billions of rubles, the inconvenience of guests and residents of the capital is invaluable. But the main consequences were expressed in their absence. Nothing happened.

You can describe what is happening from different angles. With business, everything is clear: you can forget about POS terminals or familiar applications such as calling a taxi or delivery. Let's say everything works through the home Internet. But the conditional courier has a mobile phone that is slowly turning into a brick, except perhaps with access to State Services. The bombers, of course, made a fuss and waited for Muscovites, who were accustomed to everyday comfort and did not want to go down to the subway, with a price tag appropriate to the situation.

They say that the demand for Wi-Fi routers has increased as an attempt to somehow expand coverage. But within a metropolis this is not serious, and to make it legal is also difficult. An open, password-free Internet “contradicts current legislation” - the user must be authorized at least by phone number. So this initiative can easily be punished. But in any case, even a powerful device in a dense urban area with a lot of electronic background will, at best, reach a distance of a hundred meters.

The issue of “security”, which the authorities so like to hide behind, cannot be seriously considered. Turning off mobile communications, experiments with cooling SIM cards and other restrictions, as can be seen from the news agenda, do not affect the situation in any way. In the end, you can always look at best practices.

Israel has been attacked daily by drones since the invention of this technology, and mailings from Iranian provocateurs through all available channels are a common thing in those parts. But no one has ever thought about depriving citizens of communications in a crisis situation.

The notorious “white lists” are both sad and funny. It’s sad because in the end they will do something; It’s funny, because the very idea lies in a deep misunderstanding of how the average website and Internet technologies work. The conditional website of Novaya Gazeta also includes a dozen external domains, without which you will be, to put it mildly, inconvenient: statistics, fonts, CDN so that pictures load faster, links to YouTube, donation form, and so on. But this is just a news publication. Some marketplace uses this twice as often. This means that so many need to be added to those same lists that their color ceases to matter.

You can, of course, act in the genre of reporting.

Collect quotes from officials, such as “everything is within the framework of current legislation” - as Dmitry Peskov likes to repeat. Which, by the way, is absolutely true, especially if you do not evaluate the quality, meaning and circumstances of the emergence of laws regulating the Internet. For deputies like Irina Rodnina, everything is obvious : “I understand why this situation is happening. We have an explanation from the country’s leadership.” No other details are given; it makes no sense to continue to multiply the statements of those in power. There are still no specifics there. Perhaps there are proposals to adopt amendments stating that citizens must be notified about such experiments - but how to do this when the communication does not work is a mystery.

Listing Moscow districts is as pointless as relying on official opinion. Considering that the city itself is hypermobile, everyone rushes here and there, even in one area such incidents are a problem. And here - more than 20. There is no point in counting more precisely. Operators do not work according to the administrative division of the city; they have their own segments. Formally, this is a disaster, especially considering how the Internet has penetrated into our lives and how much depends on it: everyday life, work, communication with loved ones.

Against this background, it would be possible to pull from the Internet the opinion of Moscow residents, who, having reached the Internet, flooded it with stories and reviews about what was happening, often not always censored. But it seems that even without this everything is clear. And citing the opinion of the other side for the sake of the notorious objectivity is even more strange. Of course, there will be freaks who will say that everything is correct, everything is as it should be. But their land is flat. So everyone can think about what is happening to the best of their experience, if they were a participant in the events or imagination, if they observe from afar.

Considering the obvious consequences, including financial ones, which are in the situation of budget cuts for what is still the largest metropolis in Europe, the logical question arises: “Why?” - and trying to get a logical answer to it can become a major mistake.

The simplest possible explanation: the state has become a hostage to its own initiatives, created in a situation of low expertise and endless interdepartmental conflicts. To simplify: once laws have been adopted, they must be implemented. The law of the bureaucratic machine. Whatever the consequences. This is, firstly.

Secondly, the first person was promised long ago to cope with all threats. The person, as you know, doesn’t really understand the Internet, so he agreed with all the suggestions. So they cope as best they can. Silently, because no one will ever be able to clearly explain in simple words why this is necessary. It’s like with Telegram - there are dozens of different opinions about why, each of which is supported by laws and legal acts.

But the main thing is that no one asks all these questions anymore. There is no one to ask, the civilian frog, which was slowly boiled, no longer croaks, but simply silently and patiently adapts to what is happening. Which allows us to draw a sad conclusion - no matter what happens next, it is pointless to expect any kind of public reaction. Fear, the need for banal survival and many years of apathy give their results. But if there is anyone who wants to ask some important questions, there is also no one to answer them.

The current convocation of the State Duma is a space between different towers without their own opinion. No one is able to articulate anything beyond basic meaningless phrases and manuals. Judging by the speed at which laws are developed and adopted, they don’t even read them.

The saddest thing about this situation is that in theory such initiatives could be a catalyst for change, but in practice they are just another illustration of general degradation, because it will only get worse. The business, suffering losses, will somehow rebuild and shrink. In the end, you can remember the good old cash and ordering a taxi by phone. Residents will tolerate this, change their habits, and find some alternative opportunities. The rapidly shrinking budget will be cut, fortunately, Moscow has plenty of opportunities for this. I will paraphrase the phrase of the Soviet leader who became popular again: “Life will become worse, comrades, life will become sadder.”

Total restriction of access to the Internet, the inability to make money on sites not approved by the state, and, ultimately, criminal prosecution for trying to ensure a normal life. Lists and registers. All this is happening right now, and there is no reason to expect that the situation will change for the better. And so that you don’t feel sad at all, you can remember this joke:

- Let's get a pig?

- It stinks so much!

- It’s okay, we’re used to it, and she’ll get used to it.

It’s the same with “white lists”.