Yandex criticized the bill on isolating Runet and filtering traffic

Yandex Network Infrastructure Development Director Alexei Sokolov criticized the technology of filtering Internet traffic from the law on sovereign Runet, calling it “worsening the work of services.”

The provisions of the draft law, adopted by the State Duma on April 16 , provide for the massive introduction of traffic filtering systems (DPI / deep packet inspection). According to Sokolov, in the middle of March, Yandex tested the technology proposed by the deputies, and it was because of it that the company's services crashed, almost all of them simply collapsed.

Sokolov noted that with the current volumes of information in the world, there are no even developed DPIs that could handle Internet traffic without significant losses for users.

In turn, the general director of the Diphost provider, Philip Kulin, commenting on the law passed by the State Duma, noted that it is only theoretically possible to pass all traffic through DPI equipment, and the cost of such a project will be prohibitive.

“I affirm that absolutely no one can afford to analyze absolutely all passing traffic now ,” he said.

It should be noted that Roskomnadzor and the FSB have been looking for a contractor for a year, who could provide fast and reliable filtering and inspection of traffic, and at the same time block the Telegram messenger. The company RDP.ru won the tender. Its solution is based on DPI technology, but so far it has been tested only in the laboratory. Since DPI requires serious resources, it is hardly possible to “inspect” the entire Runet without speed degradation immediately.

The number of communication channels that special services can inspect has always been (and remains) less than the total number. If Roskomnadzor wants to view all passing traffic, it will require huge (if not fantastic) resources. This means that either there is another way, which is unlikely, or “inspect” the traffic will still be selective.

The imperfection of the DPI technology for solving the tasks set by Roskomnadzor is already visible.

It should also be borne in mind that in the updated text of the bill left a huge number of references to by-laws, which do not yet exist. The very date of entry into force of the document was postponed to November precisely in order to work out the details. Therefore, only common features can be seen: centralized management of the Runet, protection from yet unnamed “threats”, simplified blocking process, and the transfer of the business to the national IT infrastructure from 2021. No public service should depend on the West.

An important aspect is the price of the project. It was originally claimed that the law would not require budget expenditures. Now government spending is estimated at 30 billion rubles from the state and at least as much from operators.

According to experts, all these calculations are absolutely incorrect, as the law requires Roskomnadzor not only to install the means of “protection against threats” from providers, but also to modernize them. Since the scale of countering the isolation of Runet is impossible to predict, and traffic inspection systems may require scaling, it is unrealistic to predict the cost. It is safe to say that these will not be one-time expenses, but regular expenses, measured in billions of rubles.

The expenses of the state can be compensated by tax revenues, but the expenses of the operators will directly affect the tariffs. Communication will become more expensive, and the quality assurance of communication will disappear from the contract.

Publication date 17/04/2019
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