The science behind Russian internet censorship and surveillance
Russian federal censors have been throttling YouTube playback speeds for the past month or so, similar to how they slowed Twitter data transfer speeds in 2021. Throughout August, Russian internet users reported sudden and widespread outages in access to popular apps and services, including Telegram, WhatsApp, Skype, Wikipedia, Steam, and Discord. The crackdown on RuNet has become a familiar hallmark of Putin’s regime, but its technical aspects have been harder to understand.
In a bid to gain scientific advice on Russian internet censorship and surveillance, Meduza Sarkis DurbinianSenior legal adviser at digital rights group RKS Global (which recently released a report called “The State of Surveillance: An Examination of How the Russian State Enforces Digital Surveillance Through Law and Technology”) Philip DietrichHe is project officer for the project “Sovereign Internet Risks in Russia and Its Neighborhood” at the German Council on Foreign Relations’ Center for Order and Governance in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia.
Timestamps for this episode:
- (3:58) The technical behind internet speed limits
- (6:24) Telegram’s official role and past political controversies in Russia
- (10:05) Police Surveillance Tools and Data Leaks
- (19:15) About the FSB’s SORM surveillance system
- (30:54) VPN, Google Global Cache, and Internet CDN infrastructure