Russia, the Internet, and Deja Vu

In 2001 I proposed an architecture I called MAE Europe. It would have been in Vienna and would have allowed for rapid interconnection of Internet traffic in Central and Eastern Europe. I had built our fiber across that area much on GasProm lines and we served countries from Czech Republic and Poland to Russia and Greece, Romania and Bulgaria amongst others.

Now this would have used DNS in that area so that traffic would not go back to the US and then switched back to the area. It would stay in the area, lower costs and increase speeds. Did not sell. I remember speaking with my Russian partners, some of whom were the first to get the Internet in Russia.

Now the Hill reports the Russians are planning on finally doing what was proposed. They remark:

Russia is taking steps to tighten its grip on the internet within its borders, as the nation’s legislature advanced legislation this week that would test temporarily disconnecting Russia from the global internet. The first version of the bill was approved by the legislature on Tuesday. It still has two more steps to go before it gets final approval. The bill would require that all internet traffic move through servers physically based in Russia. And it will expand the state-run communications office to oversee that routing. In a separate move, the Kremlin has also announced that it is planning to build its own version of the Domain Name System (DNS), the records systems used for the internet to direct users to specific domains for websites. Both decisions are raising eyebrows on Capitol Hill.

Surprise. It took only 20 years! Actually a bit more since I had pitched it to the Russian Parliament in 1998! They did not want to be lectured by an American.

Controlling the DNS is controlling traffic. In a sense the old MAE entities did just that, US control. What about that story about the goose and the gander?