MOSCOW, September 19 (RIA Novosti) - Russia’s Security Council, chaired by President Putin, is set to discuss ways in which Russia could cut itself off from the global internet network in case of an emergency, Russia’s business daily Vedomosti reported, citing its sources among communication and internet providers as well as non-commercial organizations.
The measure is aimed at strengthening the Russian segment of the World Wide Web (Runet). A special internet administration could be put in place to be able to cut off Russia from the global network in order to avert any breaches in its work in the event of an “unfriendly attack”.
That is not about being permanently cut off , the providers say, but how the equipment could be aligned, so that it could be rapidly shut down in the event of an emergency situation..
Such emergency situations would include any military activities against the country or any serious mass protests within the country, says one of the newspaper’s sources. He gave Egypt as an example, which cut off the internet and cellular phone communication during its mass disturbances in 2011.
The second issue to be discussed is the policy of shifting responsibility for the administration of domains to the state from its current administrator, which is currently a public organization: “The Coordination Center for TLD RU, RF (top national domains)”.
The purpose of this move is to protect the Russian Internet from being forcibly isolated by the US, in the event that Washington wants to cut Russia from the IP-address system.
Presidential press-secretary Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the meeting of the Security Council is scheduled for Monday, September 22. However he did not specify what issues are set to be discussed, as part of the agenda of similar meetings has, as a rule, been closed to the public.
