Tag Archives: censorship

10/25/19

Russia Shuts Down the Internet

Russia announced that it will be conducting a “trial shutdown” of the Internet country-wide. What bad could happen from that, you ask?

Russia explains it will be testing its own homebrew version of the Internet called the “RuNet.” Must have worked with a very powerful branding firm on the naming. Catchy.

The Russians will pull the plug on 1 November.

The first problem they have acknowledged is they are not perfectly certain they know how to shut down the Internet in Russia. They have been working on this idea for more than a decade and they are still not sure they can kill the Internet.

The Russians passed a law back in May that not many folks paid attention to, but the law directed the Roskomnadzor (Russia’s communications oversight agency) to gin up an “internet management and monitoring center to be able to suspend outside internet traffic.”

OK, I think he’s talking about that wacky Word of the Day site. Right?

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05/17/19

China — Reading the Tea Leaves

In case you had any doubts, the Chinese are not to be trusted.

I cite not the obvious such as the militarization of islands in the South China Sea to expand Chinese influence and to put deadly weapons upon 40% of the shipping lanes in the world, or their operation of re-education concentration camps, or their perfidy in dealing with North Korea (a vassal state which exists only because China supports it), or their reneging on things in the USA-Chinese trade negotiations.

Couple of pals hamming it up after a nice confab.

“You ready to do some de-nuking, my man?” asked President-for-Life Xi.

“Nah,” sayeth Kim, “just jerking The Donald around. Need some swag before we do that. Serious, serious swag.”

“Don’t you let him bully you, Homie,” Xi said. “I got your back. Plus, I need to jerk him around a bit my own self. Son-of-a-bitch is getting all restive about our stealing some technology. What is up with that.”

“Do it, President-for-Life. Of course, you have been stealing a lot of tech and manipulating that currency of yours. Well played. Let’s go eat, shall we?”

“What you have in mind?” Xi asked.

“Some American baloney?”

“You’re bad.”

Image result for images xi kim

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