Mar 09, 2022 12:30:00

Cloudflare refuses to withdraw from Russia, 'stopping service will only please the Russian government,' CEO

A number of companies, including

Apple , Microsoft , Netflix , McDonald's and Starbucks , have announced suspensions in Russia as Russia's military invasion of Ukraine has been criticized by the international community. However, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, who offers a variety of Internet-related services, said in an official blog updated on March 7, 'If you stop the service in Russia, it will only be celebrated by the Russian government.' Insisted that it would continue to provide services without withdrawing from Russia.

Steps we've taken around Cloudflare's services in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia
https://blog.cloudflare.com/steps-taken-around-cloudflares-services-in-ukraine-belarus-and-russia/

Cloudflare refuses to pull out of Russia, says Putin would celebrate shutoff | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/cloudflare-wont-cut-off-russia-says-it-needs-more-internet-access-not-less/

According to Prince, the attack on the Internet in Ukraine began before the invasion of Russia , and Cloudflare has endeavored to keep Ukraine's employees, customers and networks safe. 'Cloudflare has been monitoring Russia's invasion of Ukraine with fear,' said Prince.

The graph below shows the amount of HTTP requests in Ukraine. Although the number of requests has decreased since Russia launched its invasion on February 24, it seems that the Internet is still available in most of Ukraine.

To counter Russia's cyberattacks on Ukraine, Cloudflare is supporting Ukrainian organizations and organizations under the

Galileo project , which provides cybersecurity protection for organizations related to human rights, journalism, democracy, etc. I am. The Galileo project supports more than 60 organizations in Ukraine and neighboring regions, of which about 25% are newly added in the wake of the Russian invasion. Many of these organizations are working to help refugees fleeing Ukraine.

To protect customer data, Cloudflare will move customer encryption key material from data centers in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, allowing encryption sessions to run in data centers away from conflict-risk locations. I am. In addition, it seems that it has implemented a mechanism that all machines will not boot in order to protect internal data if the Internet connection or power is cut off at data centers in these countries. Prince said he had to enter a unique key that wasn't stored on the site to boot the machine in the data center.

CEO Prince also mentioned sanctions by governments and businesses on Russia, noting that there was a move to block Russia from the global Internet. In fact, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mikhailo Fedrov told ICANN , a non-profit organization that operates the Domain Name System (DNS) root server system, Russia's country code top-level domains such as ' .ru ' and '.рф' . In addition, we requested the RIPE NCC , a regional Internet registry that has jurisdiction over Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, to suspend the use of IPv4 and IPv6 in Russia.

Revocation of domains and suspension of IP addresses effectively mean 'separating Russia from the Internet,' and some have pointed out that it is the Russian people, not the Russian government, who will suffer the damage from these measures. increase. In fact, ICANN rejects Ukraine's request by saying, 'Our mission is not to take disciplinary action, impose sanctions, or restrict access to parts of the Internet.' ..

ICANN rejects Ukraine's request to 'separate Russia from the Internet'-GIGAZINE

'We were asked several times to terminate all Cloudflare services in Russia,' Prince said, saying Cloudflare had discussed with government and civil society experts. As a result, Cloudflare came to the conclusion that 'Russia needs more Internet access' and said that it came to this report that 'we will continue to provide services in Russia'.

The graph below shows the amount of DNS queries sent by networks in Russia to major European news media. DNS queries have skyrocketed since the beginning of March, suggesting that many Russians want to get accurate information from overseas news media rather than domestic news media, including government propaganda. ..

The Russian government has threatened to terminate certain Cloudflare services several times in the past, and even if indiscriminately terminating Cloudflare services in Russia would damage the Russian people, it would damage the Russian government. It is Prince CEO's view that it does not give. '(Blocking Cloudflare services) restricts access to foreign information and makes people who have shielded us to criticize the government even more vulnerable.' 'In fact, the Russian government is cloudflare in Russia. We believe we'll be celebrating the outage, 'said Prince, claiming that it would be a mistake to shut down the Cloudflare service across Russia.

Cloudflare has complied with sanctions imposed on government agencies, officials and financial institutions in Russia and Belarus in recent weeks, and the Donetsk people have unilaterally approved independence by Russian financial institutions, propaganda-related organizations and Russia. It is said that it has terminated contracts with customers such as government agencies of the Republic and the People's Republic of Lugansk .