Internet backbone Cogent cuts Russia connectivity
(2022/03/04)
- Reference: 1646427500
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/04/cogent_cuts_off_russia/
- Source link:
Cogent Communications will pull the plug on its connectivity to customers in Russia in response to President Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
[1]
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer [2]told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
[3]
[4]
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
[5]Switzerland's SWIFT data centre under guard after Russian banks excluded
[6]Microsoft says hello again to China, goodbye to Russia
[7]Russia scrambles to bootstrap HPC clusters with native tech
[8]OneWeb drops launches from Russia's Baikonur spaceport
We're told Cogent did not want to be, for one thing, used for "outbound cyber attacks or disinformation" from Russia, though it did not want to cut Russian citizens at home from the wider internet and its journalistic media and resources. It is [9]feared the Kremlin will step up its efforts to influence netizens and extract intelligence from Western systems as trade and financial sanctions bite, though there are so far little or no indications of a marked escalation in cyberwarfare.
"Our goal is not to hurt anyone," Schaeffer [10]told The Washington Post in an earlier interview. "It's just to not empower the Russian government to have another tool in their war chest."
[11]
In a letter to customers, obtained by the newspaper, Cogent said it was taking action on a moral point ... and also because the West has slapped sanctions on Russia as punishment for occupying Ukraine:
In light of the unwarranted and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Cogent is terminating all of your services effective at 5pm GMT on March 4, 2022.
The economic sanctions put in place as a result of the invasion and the increasingly uncertain security situation make it impossible for Cogent to continue to provide you with service. All Cogent-provided ports and IP address space will be reclaimed as of the termination date.
We understand this 1700 UTC deadline morphed into a rolling disconnection after customers asked for sufficient time to switch over to alternative providers.
The list of tech giants cutting Russia loose as a result of the bloody occupation continues to grow – Microsoft, AMD, Intel, TSMC, Apple, Google, Amazon, Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, SAP, Oracle, and Lenovo, for instance – plus corporations in automotive, financial services, entertainment, oil, and more, all amid fresh trade restrictions in place against the Putin regime by America and Europe.
DNS overlord ICANN yesterday [12]rejected Ukraine's request to delete all Russian web domains. Russia is also said to be contemplating its own internet-alike, dubbed [13]Runet .
The Ukrainian government has said more than 2,000 civilians have died in armed conflict with Russia since the invasion began on February 24, though the UN has recorded around 230. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YiKaGJAcJ08rNWhOgGZS@QAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-firm-cogent-cutting-internet-service-russia-2022-03-04/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YiKaGJAcJ08rNWhOgGZS@QAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YiKaGJAcJ08rNWhOgGZS@QAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/03/swift_data_centre_under_guard/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/04/microsoft_azure_china/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/04/russia-mobile-clusters/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/03/oneweb_roscosmos/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/24/cyberwarfare_russia_ukraine/
[10] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/04/russia-ukraine-internet-cogent-cutoff/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YiKaGJAcJ08rNWhOgGZS@QAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/03/icann_ukraine_russian_domains/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/04/russia_splinternet_tor_rumours/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The US-based biz is one of the planet's largest internet backbones – the freeways of the internet – and says it carries roughly a quarter of global 'net traffic.
Its clients range from small businesses to mobile carriers and broadband ISPs. Cogent's role is to pipe hundreds of terabits of your internet data around the world every second. Russian state-owned Rostelecom is among the dozens of customers Cogent has in the country.
[1]
On Friday, CEO David Schaeffer [2]told Reuters his corporation will gradually withdraw internet service from those clients. Some customers asked to be excluded from the crackdown, and may be granted continued access.
[3]
[4]
This termination of service will force those axed clients to seek other sources of network capacity. As a knock-on effect, Russian netizens could experience slower or interrupted internet connections as their ISPs and carriers react to the news. If more backbones follow in Cogent's steps, Russia will be increasingly cut off from the global internet.
Which would make President Putin's attempt to censor the web a lot easier.
[5]Switzerland's SWIFT data centre under guard after Russian banks excluded
[6]Microsoft says hello again to China, goodbye to Russia
[7]Russia scrambles to bootstrap HPC clusters with native tech
[8]OneWeb drops launches from Russia's Baikonur spaceport
We're told Cogent did not want to be, for one thing, used for "outbound cyber attacks or disinformation" from Russia, though it did not want to cut Russian citizens at home from the wider internet and its journalistic media and resources. It is [9]feared the Kremlin will step up its efforts to influence netizens and extract intelligence from Western systems as trade and financial sanctions bite, though there are so far little or no indications of a marked escalation in cyberwarfare.
"Our goal is not to hurt anyone," Schaeffer [10]told The Washington Post in an earlier interview. "It's just to not empower the Russian government to have another tool in their war chest."
[11]
In a letter to customers, obtained by the newspaper, Cogent said it was taking action on a moral point ... and also because the West has slapped sanctions on Russia as punishment for occupying Ukraine:
In light of the unwarranted and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Cogent is terminating all of your services effective at 5pm GMT on March 4, 2022.
The economic sanctions put in place as a result of the invasion and the increasingly uncertain security situation make it impossible for Cogent to continue to provide you with service. All Cogent-provided ports and IP address space will be reclaimed as of the termination date.
We understand this 1700 UTC deadline morphed into a rolling disconnection after customers asked for sufficient time to switch over to alternative providers.
The list of tech giants cutting Russia loose as a result of the bloody occupation continues to grow – Microsoft, AMD, Intel, TSMC, Apple, Google, Amazon, Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, SAP, Oracle, and Lenovo, for instance – plus corporations in automotive, financial services, entertainment, oil, and more, all amid fresh trade restrictions in place against the Putin regime by America and Europe.
DNS overlord ICANN yesterday [12]rejected Ukraine's request to delete all Russian web domains. Russia is also said to be contemplating its own internet-alike, dubbed [13]Runet .
The Ukrainian government has said more than 2,000 civilians have died in armed conflict with Russia since the invasion began on February 24, though the UN has recorded around 230. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YiKaGJAcJ08rNWhOgGZS@QAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-firm-cogent-cutting-internet-service-russia-2022-03-04/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YiKaGJAcJ08rNWhOgGZS@QAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YiKaGJAcJ08rNWhOgGZS@QAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/03/swift_data_centre_under_guard/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/04/microsoft_azure_china/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/04/russia-mobile-clusters/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/03/oneweb_roscosmos/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/24/cyberwarfare_russia_ukraine/
[10] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/04/russia-ukraine-internet-cogent-cutoff/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YiKaGJAcJ08rNWhOgGZS@QAAAAc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/03/icann_ukraine_russian_domains/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/04/russia_splinternet_tor_rumours/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Difficult choice to make
msobkow
If it were a more civilized time, a team of assassins would be dispatched by some competing power and a surgical cleanup of the problem could be used. But these aren't civilized times; modern times demand long and bloody conflicts to settle rulers' differences instead.
Re: Difficult choice to make
ClockworkOwl
I support the mass posting of ice picks!
Both sends a message, and provides a tool to achieve the result. As a bonus, there's good cultural synergy and a possible sense of deja-vu...
Re: Difficult choice to make
MatthewSt
It's a similar reasoning behind boycotts. One could argue that boycotting a product or company has a larger effect on the employees of the company rather than the owner. We just have to hope that all these actions "trickle up".
Captcha
Anonymous Coward
Maybe they just need to implement captcha for every connection from Russia. Just show a picture of a random person with a Ukrainian flag on their shirt, with two choices underneath: "Yes, this is a nazi terrorist", and "No, this is a normal person". If they click yes, you drop their connections...
Re: Captcha
Doctor Syntax
While I'm normally hostile to advertising something along these lines sounds like a good idea. Make it impossible to use web sites outside Russia without encountering regular reports from Ukraine.
Difficult choice to make
It hardly punishes Putin, he won't even notice the difference.
However the Russians that don't support Putin will be extremely impacted, they will be shut off from the outside world...
Putin and his cronies are the cause , they should be the only target. I imagine that this will only help reinforce his position within Russia, it's basically strengthening his dictatorship.
We in the "free world" however have to understand that we also profit from the Russian Oligarch wealth, what will be done to stop the same thing being done after the war is over.
No one is truly innocent in this dark scenario...