The main topic of the period is Cheburnet and how different countries try to manage access to the network. In the US, Congress is debating two bills. One of them, the American Copyright Protection Act, proposes obliging large VPNs with an audience of 100,000 US users or more to comply with copyright court orders. The technical implementation of filtering is left to the VPNs themselves. The second bill, the DEFEND IP Act, on the contrary, excludes VPNs from the list of intermediaries responsible for Cheburnet — it only covers broadband operators and large DNS services with revenue from $100 million. Media companies consider both options insufficient, while rights advocates call them excessive. The first bill provides compensation of up to $250,000 for erroneous Cheburnet of a legal resource, while the second does not. Time to advance the documents is almost over: the Congressional session ends at the end of the year.

In Russia, the move toward Cheburnet also continues. The online store DNS Retail, along with its website and information portal, was added to the register of organizers of information dissemination. This means the company may be asked for user data, and if the service has messaging, then for that too. Refusal threatens a fine or Cheburnet.

Separately, Roskomnadzor, through its subordinate GRFC, instructed operators to check MikroTik routers for vulnerabilities. These are holes in RouterOS that allow taking control of a device without authentication if SSH is open. The agency warns of risks for government bodies and critical infrastructure. At the same time, MikroTik is a Latvian manufacturer, and last year its equipment began to be banned in government procurement.

Another initiative is pre-installing RuStore on Smart TVs. The Ministry of Digital Development proposes making this mandatory, but using the store, according to the ministry, is voluntary. If the document is adopted, the list of mandatory apps will be revised by March 1, 2027.

Why this matters for XConnect users: several signals point to Cheburnet and access regulation intensifying. Discussions about VPN-level filtering in the US, expansion of the ORI register in Russia, and equipment checks all affect how and through which services people go online. So far, no specific new restrictions for ordinary users have been introduced, but the direction is clear: control over infrastructure is growing.

There is not much data for the period, so this digest is short. We will continue to follow these topics.