The growing cold war with Russia has a new front besides oil fields and undersea territorial claims: the internet. Russia’s government is pushing for greater control over the Russian-language part of the net – and its aim seems to be to create a web that operates in Cyrillic, completely independent from the wider web.
The problem for Russia is that its top-level domain – with the ASCII suffix .ru – translates
into Cyrillic as .py, the domain name of Paraguay. That could pose security problems for
Russian users. Kim Davies, who controls the domain names at the international domain naming
agency Icann told the Guardian: “Russia has a second top level domain name of .ru in Ascii
code, but is pushing for .rf in Cyrillic.”
Wolfgang Kleinwachter, special adviser to the chairman of the Internet Governance Forum,
says: “The proposal for ‘Russian internet’ would look at how they can communicate better
inside the country. The internationalised domain name gives them an opportunity to do things
which are now being tested in China, where they are currently using Chinese characters for
three top-level domains: .net, .com and .cn.”

A tale of two servers
The key is whether Russian international domain names would use their own root servers –
which decide where to route your internet requests – independent of the existing internet
root servers which are mainly based in the US.
Kleinwachter thinks that the worst-case scenario would mean everyone would have to register
a domain name using the .rf top level domain in Cyrillic. “Then [Russia] would have their
own root and it’s much easier to control the top-level domain than hundreds of thousands of
secondary level domains.”

That would, arguably, mean Russians are safe from Paraguayan phishing – but it would also
give the Russian government more control of the net and leave Russian citizens isolated from
the international community. Davies explains that Russian Cyrillic keyboards make it
difficult for Russian users to search for domain names using the roman letters of Ascii
code. Without a bridge to coordinate it with Ascii code, a Russian-language internet would

be cut off from the global net.

China’s citizens could similarly become isolated from international opinion. “The Chinese

have the option now to keep the domain .cn in Ascii code or to cut it.” Kleinwachter says.

“If they cut it then they have an opportunity to build something like a bridge which would

link the Chinese internet to the Ascii internet. The Russians, like the Chinese, discussed

this option. My impression is that the Russian Foreign Ministry is much more open to such an

option than [China’s] Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. Another way would be to

give every citizen a fixed IP address, which would go with you wherever you approach the

internet.”

Setting up a new root server would not be expensive, Davies says, but would cause “technical

issues”. Guillaume Lovet, head of the threat response team at security company Fortinet,

explains: “If it’s about re-implementing internet protocols, it would be like installing

new, additional firmware on our home router, and new drivers on each network-enabled

computer at home. If it’s about rebuilding everything from scratch, it is comparable to

throwing everything in the bin.”

International isolation

Davies says the key downside would be how much the Russians stand to lose out on the global

operability of the web unless bridges are built with the Ascii-dominated global internet.

“Russians estimate that 90% of the communication will be within Russia and just 10% will go

outside,” says Kleinwachter. But it’s that 10% which would feel the real difference.

Kleinwachter says the speculation is that people will need a password authorised by

government agencies to use the global internet. The Kremlin therefore would be able to

control what communication the individual is having with the rest of the world. The

government says that would help it monitor cybercrime.

Lovet is more sceptical. “Russia has a very strong academic tradition of technical

universities, which form very sharp and competent computer scientists. At the same time, the

average income per head is extremely low. This combination creates an explosive cocktail.

Any attempt to confine Russian hackers inside some kind of Russian cyberspace is bound to

fail.”

Other security experts go even further. “This will put a wall between cybercriminals and

their victims,” says Jose Nazario, from Arbor, who works to protect governments and

corporations from cyber attacks emanating from Russia. “It makes it very difficult to track

Russian cybercrime. Security experts are just starting to get a picture of their methods,

and this will slow us down dramatically. It is also an escalation of tension between Putin’s

Russia and the west.”

guardian.co.uk