Russia Boosts Surveillance with "Internet Sovereignty" Law

Apparently, Russia’s new “internet sovereignty” law is about surveillance, not control. To which I’d say something that rhymes with “no pit.”

In case you missed it, Russia just passed the “internet sovereignty” law, mandating that ISPs route all net traffic through the Roskomnadzor, the country's telecoms regulator. Specifically, all activity must go through the RuNet, which has been in development for half a decade.

The idea is that, in the event of a catastrophe, Russia can sever domestic traffic from the rest of the world. But let’s face it – only a tiny handful of nations want to be cut off from the world wide web. And those countries – e.g., North Korea – have pitiful economies.

If Russia actually used an online kill switch, the effects would be nearly as catastrophic as the event that caused it. Entire industries would be plunged into the stone age. But there’s another, not-so-hidden perk to routing all internet traffic through the federal government – it gives Russia a premium surveillance tool.

Or as ZDNet pointed out, “The law's true purpose is to create a legal basis to force ISPs to install deep-packet inspection equipment on their networks and force them to re-route all internet traffic through Roskomnadzor strategic chokepoints.”

Don’t act surprised. This is the same country where a former KGB agent has been in power for two decades and which ranks 146^th on the World Freedom Index, just ahead of Gambia, Belarus, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The only mystery is why it took this long.