Another National Internet Threatened: Russia

First it was China, experimenting with its own special DNS name space and its own Great cyber-Wall to guard what content can and cannot enter the country. Now, Putin's Russia is said to be planning to give it a try. From IGP's extensive network of spies in Moscow (well, ok, it's actually from a two month-old Russian newspaper), we learn that the Security Council of the Russian Federation has declared that Russia will create its own Web, in Cyrillic, “completely independent from the traditional WWW.” Several reasons were cited for the creation of an independent network. One was — surprise — “information safety and security.” The newspaper writes: “Today it is a matter of fact that Russian users are accessing the internet via channels which are in the control of the US government.”