--- surfer@mauigateway.com wrote:
From: "Scott Weeks" <surfer@mauigateway.com>

Anyone got any technical info on how Russia plans to execute
a disconnection test of the internet? 
------------------------------------


Got crickets, so now I have to respond to my own post on
what I just found out about it.  Is that like talking to
yourself? :)

https://www.npr.org/2019/11/01/775366588/russian-law-takes-effect-that-gives-government-sweeping-power-over-internet

"The "sovereign Internet law," as the government calls it,
greatly enhances the Kremlin's control over the Web. It was
passed earlier this year and allows Russia's government to
cut off the Internet completely or from traffic outside
Russia "in an emergency," as the BBC reported. But some of
the applications could be more subtle, like the ability to
block a single post."

"The equipment would conduct what's known as "deep packet
inspection," an advanced way to filter network traffic.

"Regardless of what the government intends, some experts
think it would be technically difficult for Russia to
actually close its network if it wanted to, because of the
sheer number of its international connections."

"What I found was that there were hundreds of existing
Internet exchange points in Russia, some of which have
hundreds of participants...Many of them are international
network providers, he says, so "basically it's challenging
— if not impossible, I think — to completely isolate the
Russian Internet."

Belson says that the requirement for Internet service
providers to install tracking software will very likely
also be challenging in practice. He adds that it will be
difficult to get hundreds of providers to deploy it and
hard to coordinate that they're all filtering the same
content.

scott