What happened?
Roskomnadzor (RKN) announced that from March 10 it will begin to slow down the speed of access to Twitter in
Roskomnadzor threatened Twitter with a complete blocking in case of refusal to continue to remove prohibited content. The company noted that it is "deeply concerned" about attempts to "restrict communication on the Internet."
Is it legal to slow down a social network?
All thanks to the wording in the law on sovereignRunet. Where it is written that providing access to information that is subject to restrictions in accordance with Russian laws is considered a “threat to the security of the functioning of the Internet on the territory of the Russian Federation.”
Roskomnadzor should introduce this "threat" into a certainan internal list and then approve a “response schedule” containing specific measures to eliminate the “threat”. These measures include “re-routing of telecommunication messages” and “re-configuration of communications”.
These are very vague wordings thatit is possible to justify practically any actions on communication networks, including slowing down the access speed, since for this the "configuration of communication means" is really changing.
How can you slow down social media?
There is no official public information on how exactly RKN can slow down traffic.
The department began to prepare for this in the summer of 2019of the year. It was then that the territorial departments of Roskomnadzor began to send out to telecom operators throughout Russia requests to provide information about traffic exchange points, as well as connection schemes for providers' equipment.
It was through the integration of the special equipment of the TSPU into these schemes that the ILV employees were able to "control" the Runet.
The department has applied the technology of "deep analysispackages "(DPI): it works through special equipment TSPU (technical means of countering threats). J is able to filter traffic between the operator and the Internet. This is expensive equipment that has been installed by only the largest operators so far.
Due to the secrecy of Roskomnadzor, it is not yet known exactly what specific equipment is being supplied for the “sovereign RuNet.”
RKN TSPU kits analyze the entireInternet traffic (packages) of users for a number of parameters and decide whether to let it through (by default), limit the speed (rules for Twitter) or block (for prohibited sites). RKN specialists set up and manage the elements of the TSPU.
How to get around the slowdown?
As with locks, restrictionsauthorities can be bypassed just as easily as before - by installing a VPN. In this case, Twitter traffic will be encrypted within the data stream transmitted over the VPN, and it will not be detected on the side of the providers.
DPI speed limiting can also be bypassed using ESNI technology, but for this change, Twitter itself will have to be implemented in the infrastructure.
It is enough to configure DNS over HTTPS (DOH)simultaneously on the server, that is, on Twitter, and on the user side. In this case, there will be no noticeable slowdown in all ESNI-enabled browsers.
Who is affected by the Twitter slowdown?
The “braking” of the platform occurs unevenly:To ensure its operation, Twitter uses the services of the CDN provider Akamai, which provides the social network with a geographically distributed infrastructure.
This means that for users from different regions of Russia, even pictures on Twitter can be loaded from different Akamai servers.
According to the creator of the block bypass serviceAntiZapret under the nickname ValdikSS, Roskomnadzor has already begun to slow down access to some Akamai technical domains where pictures and videos from Twitter are stored (for example, video.twimg.com.eip.akadns.net).
However, there are such domains on the Akamai network on Twitterlots of. As a result, for some users, when trying to access the social network, content tries to download from those addresses to which Roskomnadzor restricts access, and for others, from those that the agency has not yet reached.
The agency really started shaping traffic withusing DPI, that is, to limit the bandwidth, however, it does this for all domains whose names contain the combination "t.co": this is a short domain belonging to Twitter.
Thus, other sites whose domains use these letters are also subject to restrictions: reddit.com, microsoft.com, githubusercontent.com and even rt.com.
Reddit, Microsoft, Steam, RT, GitHub subdomain and many other popular resources were hit.
Apparently the speed limit to resourceslike Microsoft or Steam has done more damage than slowing down Twitter. For example, users were unable to download a Windows 10 image from Microsoft's official website, download games on Steam, or use Xbox services.
What could be the danger?
- The opacity of the deceleration methods
This is one of the most frightening aspects of the newthe mechanism of restrictions on the Runet. If it was always possible to find out about the blocking of certain resources thanks to a special register of prohibited sites, then you can learn about the speed limit only from Roskomnadzor itself - if he wants to inform about it.
- Internet quality may deteriorate
This was noted in a conversation with It’s My Media by Mikhail Klimarev from the Internet Defense Society. According to him, a global check of all packages will ultimately slow down the entire RuNet.
What will happen next?
Predict whether Twitter will make concessionsit's pretty difficult now. There are examples of "negotiating" social networks (Facebook), and examples of social networks that decide that the overhead costs of such contracts are higher than the profit from partial loss of the market - LinkedIn.
And also, I would really like to dream thatTwitter will join the so-called Fediverse - a community of private social networks that can communicate with each other and do not have a single center, and therefore do not have a single point of failure.
And then there will also be no potential blockage, which can then be discussed in the bowels of the ILV in the event that shaping does not have an effect.
RKN does not yet plan to block social networks andI have just started testing out the work of the TSPU elements. It is likely that for some time various problems and restrictions will arise for many users until the department solves them either independently or with the help of telecom operators.
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