Russia Allegedly Runs Experiments To See If Local Internet Could Function Despite Isolation From The World Wide Web

Russia has allegedly been running tests on isolating the country from the World Wide Web as preparationfor possible information blackout in case of a political chaos in the country following growing concerns of a Kremlin campaign that aims to restrict freedom on the internet, reported Telegraph Oct. 15.

The ministry of communications of Russia, as well as national internet regulator Roskomnadzor ordered a traffic-block on all foreign communications channel to Russian internet provider-controlled communications hubs through the use of a traffic control system known as the Deep Packet Inspection (DPI).

The goal of the tests is to determine whether Russian internet could still function despite being cut off from the global internet.

According to Discovery News Oct. 19, Russian security services expert Andrei Soldatov stated that the tests were done as the government gets ready to isolate the flow of information from the rest of the world.

"This is actually just one of a series of such experiments, and it gives us a very good idea of what they have in mind," said Soldatov. "If you look at the doctrine of information security, it is all about the same thing: the fear of Western countries using the Internet as an instrument of influence in Russia and so on."

However, Russian officials deny that such tests occurred and a spokesman for Roskomnadzor also reiterated that there was not such experiment."

Russia has reportedly implemented several restrictive internet laws in the past few years, including those that are considered "extremists," harmful to children, those that promote suicide or contains child-pornography, militant material, drug-related contents.

In August, a Russian government agency even banned access to a Wikipedia page in Russian-language for including banned information on a kind of cannabis, noted Daily Mail Oct. 16. Internet giants Twitter, Facebook and Google were warned in May of the possibility of being banned in Russia once seen violating internet laws of the country.