How much does a “sovereign” Runet cost?

It is difficult to calculate how many copies were broken in disputes over one of the most ambitious network projects of the Russian authorities: the sovereign Internet. Popular athletes, politicians, and heads of Internet companies expressed their pros and cons. Be that as it may, the law was signed and the project began. But what will be the price of Runet sovereignty?

Lawmaking

The Digital Economy program, the plan for the implementation of measures for the Information Security section and other sections was adopted in 2017. Around the middle of 2018, the program began to be transformed into a national one, and its sections into federal projects.

In December 2018, senators Andrei Klishas and Lyudmila Bokova, together with deputy Andrei Lugov, submitted to the State Duma a bill “On an Autonomous (Sovereign) Internet”. The key ideas of the document were the management of the central elements of the critical Internet infrastructure and the mandatory installation by Internet providers of special equipment managed by Roskomnadzor.

As expected, with the help of this equipment Roskomnadzor will be able, if necessary, to introduce centralized management of communication networks and block access to banned sites. It is planned that for providers it will be installed for free. The owners of cross-border Internet channels, Internet traffic exchange points, technological communication networks, Internet information distribution organizers with their own AIS numbers, and other owners of AIS numbers will also be under control.

In early May 2019, the President signed into law the Sovereign Internet. However, the Security Council of the Russian Federation approved the costs of implementing these measures even before the bill was submitted to parliament in October 2018. Moreover, the Security Council almost 5 times increased the cost of collecting information about addresses and numbers of autonomous systems and working with technical means of managing communication networks - from 951 million rubles. up to 4.5 billion rubles.

How will this money be spent

480 million rubles. will be spent on the creation of a distributed information security management and monitoring system as part of the development of the Russian state segment of the Internet RSNet (designed to serve government agencies). 240 million rubles. allocate for the development of software and hardware that provide the collection and storage of information about addresses, numbers of autonomous systems and the relationships between them.

Another 200 million rubles. will go on the development of software and hardware that ensure the stable and safe functioning of the domain name system. 170 million rubles. will be directed to the development of software and hardware that provide monitoring of traffic routes on the Internet and 145 million rubles. spend on the development of software and hardware tools for monitoring and managing public communications networks.

What else is planned

At the end of April 2019, the Government adopted a resolution on subsidies from the federal budget for the establishment and operation of the Center for Monitoring and Management of the Public Communications Network and the corresponding information system. Under this document, Roskomnadzor received the right to determine the organization to which subsidies will be sent.

The organization selected by Roskomnadzor, within the framework of creating the Monitoring Center, will have to fulfill a number of tasks:

• To develop software and hardware for monitoring traffic routes on the Internet;
• To develop software and hardware for monitoring and managing public communication networks;
• Ensure the collection of information about addresses, numbers of autonomous systems and their connections, traffic routes on the Internet, as well as the management of software and hardware that ensure Runet security;
• Launch a system of filtering Internet traffic when using the Internet by children.

Most recently, the government instructed Roskomnadzor to distribute subsidies for the establishment of a communications network monitoring center, the development of tools to collect information about Internet traffic routes, and the creation of white lists for children to use the Internet.

The total cost of measures for the implementation of which Roskomnadzor will allocate subsidies is 4.96 billion rubles. However, in the federal budget for 2019-2021. For Roskomnadzor, only funds were allocated for the creation of a center for monitoring and management of public communication networks in the amount of 1.82 billion rubles. The general cost plan for digital security and related projects is given in the infographic .