Runet Isolation or Sovereign Internet: What’s Really Happening?
On May 1, 2019, the law on the “sovereign internet” was officially signed in Russia. However, experts quickly dubbed it the “isolation of Runet,” the Russian segment of the internet. But what does this really mean? Let’s break it down in simple terms.
How Does the Internet Work?
The internet is made up of clients, routers, and infrastructure, all operating via the IP protocol. An IPv4 address looks like this: 0-255.0-255.0-255.0-255.
- Clients are user computers—like the one you’re using to read this article. They connect to nearby routers and send data to other clients’ addresses.
- Routers connect to other routers and clients. They don’t have a single IP address but manage a range of addresses. Their job is to determine if they have a client with the requested address or if they need to forward the data to another router. Routers exist at various levels: provider, country, region, city, neighborhood, and even in your home.
- Infrastructure includes traffic exchange points, satellite links, continental gateways, and more. These connect routers from different operators, countries, and types of networks.
How Is Data Transmitted?
Clients and routers are connected by:
- Cables – Laid underground or underwater.
- Wireless – Wi-Fi, LTE, WiMax, and radio bridges, used where cables are impractical. These usually extend wired networks, not replace them.
- Space – Satellites serve both regular users and network infrastructure.
The Internet Is a Network
The internet is essentially a web of neighbors and their neighbors. There’s no central “red button” to shut down the entire internet. No country, including the U.S., can simply stop traffic between two Russian cities, or between Russia and China or Australia. The only way to do that would be to physically destroy routers, which is a military—not a network—threat.
There are, in fact, “centers,” but these are informational only. They tell you which address belongs to which country, device, or manufacturer. The network itself doesn’t depend on this information to function.
It’s All About People
Above the raw data layer is the World Wide Web, which we all use. Here, protocols work with human-readable data. For example, google.ru is easier for people to remember than 8.8.8.8:80. To convert human-friendly addresses into machine-friendly ones, we need registries—just like a government registry for street addresses.
There’s a global registry mapping domain names to IP addresses, and it’s located in the U.S. So, is this how Russia could be “cut off” from the internet?
Not exactly.
Who Controls the Internet’s Address Book?
According to public data, ICANN is the international contractor for the IANA function, operating independently of any government (including the U.S.), even though it’s registered in California. ICANN manages the system, but another private company, VeriSign, handles the actual operations.
There are 13 root servers, owned by various organizations—from the U.S. Army to institutes and nonprofits in the Netherlands, Sweden, and Japan. Full copies of these servers exist worldwide, including in Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don).
The main job of root servers is to verify which registries are official. Anyone can set up a server with their own list, but this could lead to fake sites that steal user data. The root servers help prevent this by maintaining a trusted list of registries.
Even if the U.S. or others tried to attack or falsify these centers, or cut off Russia, the stability of the Russian internet segment would not collapse. Encryption keys are stored in two separate bunkers in the U.S., and administrative control is so distributed that it would require global consensus to disconnect Russia. There are always backup copies worldwide, and traffic could be rerouted through Chinese or Indian copies if needed. Russian providers could also ignore the absence of root server connections, as this only affects extra security, not basic routing.
Operators and even your own computer cache popular keys and registries, so you wouldn’t notice any immediate changes if something happened.
Pirates Will Survive!
Besides official root servers, there are alternative ones, usually run by pirates and anti-censorship activists. Providers don’t use them, but if the whole world turned against Russia, these groups would still keep things running.
Peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent use DHT algorithms and don’t rely on registries at all. They search for content by description, not address, so pirates would keep sharing files no matter what.
The Only Real Threat
The only real threat would be a global conspiracy to cut all cables leaving Russia, shoot down satellites, and jam radio signals. But in such a scenario, the internet would be the least of anyone’s concerns—it would mean open war. Even then, the Russian internet would keep working internally, just with reduced security.
So What Does the Law Actually Do?
Strangely, the law mainly proposes two things:
- Create Russia’s own WWW centers (root servers).
- Hand over all border internet cable points to Roskomnadzor (the Russian internet regulator) and install content filters.
These aren’t solutions to the problem; they’re just the only concrete measures in the law. The rest is vague declarations about “ensuring internet stability,” with no methods, penalties, plans, or responsibilities outlined.
Only the first point relates to a “sovereign internet.” The second is pure censorship, which could actually make the Russian internet less stable by discouraging the development of border networks. The first point addresses a highly unlikely and low-risk threat, and would only be necessary in a very dire scenario.
Conclusion: Not Very Reassuring
In summary, the government has allocated 30 billion rubles to a law that addresses an unlikely and not very dangerous situation, and at best, won’t do any harm. The second part of the law, however, introduces censorship. So why is the government so eager to prepare for total censorship and war?