The Russians are planning on cyber-warfare and ready to take up a defensive position.

In another article they talk about them having set up and tested their own DNS servers, that "In 2017, Russian officials said they plan to route 95 percent of all internet traffic locally by 2020" and go on to state plans for something along the lines of China's Great Firewall.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/russia...-planned-test/

Google recently agreed to censor search results under threat of banishment from Mother Russia.

When they disconnect from WWW, then they can see the results.

While it is somewhat alarming if this truly does result in increased tension, it is my view it is much too little, much too late. Pandora's Box is open, the "bees" have gotten out, flown far and wide and no amount of effort now can "put the toothpaste back in the tube", the "genie back in the bottle", etc etc.. Sorry for the mixed metaphor but I imagine everyone will still get it. The greatest changes don't generally happen suddenly in one big leap but with many small steps, gradually over time.

A good example of this can be found in so-called smartphones. All one has to do is watch almost any movie older than 2008. A patent was issued in 1908 for a wireless telephone but cells didn't appear until shortly after WWII. The first handheld device became commercially available in 1973.... SMS not until 1992. By 2000 camera phones were becoming "must have" and already they began to change culture globally, with private citizens recording events that used to be secret, hidden or unnoticed and putting them out on The Webz. As for movies and the real world they reflect, a large majority of plots constructed before 2008 just fall apart if cell phones had been commonplace.

There will very likely continue to be struggle between those wishing to put the Genie back and the ever-growing number preferring to continue to "make wishes", wanting the bottle to stay uncorked, when the point is already moot. There is a really good book written about this actually a handful of them by Alvin Tofler starting with Future Shock (1970) amd more to the point with The Third Wave published in 1980 viewing human history as three distinct transition 'waves" - from Hunter Gatherer to Agricultural, from Agricultural to Industrial and Industrial to Information. In The Third Wave he likens the story of such events as Luddites who tried to stop the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution by destroying machines - similarly too little, too late... literally as hopeless as Hunter/Gatherers trying to stop Farming. Once the Genie (bees, whatever) are out....

It won't be long before the number of people in power that didn't grow up with Internet and mobile phones are such a small percentage that they will no longer have any relevance, and I am among them since I am something of an anomaly, a Boomer deeply immersed in technology but then I was born to a Mother who is now well into her 90s whose PC runs Linux. She's not savvy to the degree that many teenagers are now, but she did pave the way for her children and succeeding generations have long since increased their numbers and involvement. There is no going back. It will be interesting to see how Russia's experiment plays out but the ultimate outcome is already "written".

Sounds a little paranoid, but there we are. I certainly wouldn't blame them for disconnecting when the West is falling on it's sword testing IPV6 .

Albert Einstein was once asked what weapons they would use in WW3. He said:
"I don't know, but in the 4th world war they'll be chucking rocks!"

Except Albert Einstein was talking about nuclear holocaust. When EMPs have destroyed >90% of the electronics in the world and there is no food anywhere, your network infrastructure becomes irrelevant.

A disconnect from the internet could inflict massive economic damage, but unlike us, Russia is used to that and know what it's like--World War I, the Russian Civil War, WWII/the Holocaust in Russia, the massive military buildup that bankrupted them in the 1980s, the "Shock Doctrine" of the 1990s, etc. They would be willing to take risks and accept consequences that the comfortable West would not. Their survival as a sovereign nation and their continued independence from the West takes priority over The Economy for them.

I think the story here is the hype. It makes perfect sense for any nation to disconnect all ties to the information infrastructure of all other nations as a test to ensure everything works. I have my issues with the Russian dictartors but this move is a technical one and makes sense completely. How would, for example, my country the UK fare should they be cut off from the internet as a whole? Actually, to be flippantly dramatic, an actual concern on a slightly less severe level.

They're exercising due diligence in the event of cyberattack and the US should as well, if not from them other actors. It's not the End of the World yet. That's their Ace in the Hole. Their Trump Card, if you will.

If it comes to war between the US and Russia and it looks like they're going wind up on the losing end they have a contingency plan to nuke the Yellowstone SuperVolcano. The San Andreas Fault is also considered a viable target.

That, comrades, is Evil Genius. Dr. Strangelove would be proud.

Indeed. The Cold War lead to various atomic-weapon drills and, so, the cyberwar leads to these. There's nothing threatening or evil about wanting to be protected.

I remember those funny "duck and cover" drills from school. I used to live next door to a building that was designated a fallout shelter and appropriate metal sign replete with radioactive iconography to show it as such.

Indeed, the joke was always "Put your head between your legs and kiss your a*** goodbye...". The South Park episode, I felt, was funny but didn't quite capture the farce.

Well they already went back to typewriters for Government work/documents so maybe going offline (intranet only) is in the plans. Hmm, it would make the Amish trendy again.
Ref: https://www.techly.com.au/2014/07/17...ech-us-spying/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ter-leaks.html

PS: This makes for an interesting read:
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...arpa-kahn-cerf

If they disconnect from WWW, then the "net noise" will disappear.

Personally I think that the Russians will be far from the only ones doing this - assuming other countries haven't already got something similar in the works.

Similar to what enorbet was getting at; if we think about how the Internet has evolved, countries and people have become dependent on it for virtually, if not, everything you can think of. It doesn't matter what you're talking about, chances are most people now use the Internet for it, indeed the development of Linux itself has largely taken place over the Internet, particularly since it become widespread. I remember when you could look up how to build a bomb, and you knew that nobody, let alone government agencies were ever going to find out about it. You try that now, I'll almost guarantee you'll have the cops at your front door before you know it. When I was growing up, just having an email address meant you were the "odd one out", because you could guarantee that probably nobody else in maybe even your town, city, whatever had one. They'd probably never even heard of email before, now, who doesn't have an email address? I don't know anyone that doesn't have one.

Bearing all of this in mind, and getting back to the matter at hand; governments seem to be realising that a major cyber war is a very real possibility. So it only makes sense to "test the worst case scenario", and any good test of that involves the question of; what would happen if the country WAS "offline", and Internet access was totally cut? The only way to find out before any major cyber war starts is to cut all Internet access and see how the country handles that.

In terms of the Russians, it's pretty clear to me that they are doing this to try and prepare for any actions by the US of A. As they know that the US of A could quite possibility do that, and does have the means to do exactly that. So it's really the "evolution" of war - being "cyber war". In terms of the Russians and the Americans, the new more modern "cold war".

Instead of "boots on the ground", it's done from behind a keyboard instead, because it does not involve sending soldiers to another country, they could just sit in a room at home and do it instead.

i was going to write pretty much exactly that yesterday... hovering over the Submit button... then i thought: ah, what's the point? folks want to have another rant about how Russia is either stupid or very, very evil or both, or about a new cold war; they're going to have it regardless.

Btw i was once reading a book where the scenario was such: globally, the internet was completely ravaged by viruses, so the UK protected themselves by putting up mile-high firewalls. the result was that the UK's internet was completely isolated from the rest of the world... reminds me of the EU GDPR, which soon isn't the UK's concern anymore...

I also remember a dramatisation of the yellowstone volcano exploding (or bubbling) in some dystopian drama - was it a tv show?

2012, p'haps?

Wild-eyed Woody Harrelson with a backdrop of Jellystone blowing its top?