National intranet

A national internet is an Internet Protocol-based walled garden network maintained by a nation state as a national substitute for the global Internet, with the aim of controlling and monitoring the communications of its inhabitants, as well as restricting their access to outside media.^[1] Other names have been used, such as the use of the term halal internet in Iran.

Such networks generally come with access to state-controlled media and national alternatives to foreign-run Internet services: search engines, web-based email, and so forth.^[2]

List of countries with national intranets

Myanmar

Myanmar before 2011, while it was ruled by a military junta, used to have a separate intranet for domestic use called Myanmar Wide Web.^[3]

Cuba

Cuba has its own state-controlled intranet called national web.^[4][5][6][7]

North Korea

See also: Internet censorship in North Korea and Kwangmyong (network)

North Korea's Kwangmyong network, dating back to 2000, is the best-known of this type of network. Cuba and Myanmar also use a similar network system that is separated from the rest of the Internet.^[8] The network uses domain names under the .kp top-level domain that are not accessible from the global Internet.^[9] As of 2016 the network uses IPv4 addresses reserved for private networks in the 10.0.0.0/8 range.^[9]

Russia

In 2020 Russia tested internal internet known as RuNet (Internet in the Russian Federation).^[10]

China

See also: Internet censorship in China and Great Firewall

A primary insight flows from our research and it pertains to the stability of China's internet: the internet in China is a walled garden in terms of structure yet at the same time dependent upon Western Europe and the United States for foreign connectivity.^[11][12][13] Put plainly, in terms of resilience, China could effectively withdraw from the global public internet and maintain domestic connectivity (essentially having an intranet).^[14][15][16] This means the rest of the world could be restricted from connecting into China, and vice versa for external connections for Chinese businesses/users.^[17][18][19]

Iran

See also: Internet censorship in Iran and National Information Network

The National Information Network of Iran works like the Great Firewall of China.^[20][21][22] In April 2011, a senior Iranian official, Ali Agha-Mohammadi announced government plans to launch its own halal internet, which would conform to Islamic values and provide appropriate services.^[23] Creating such a network, similar to the North Korean example, would prevent unwanted information from outside Iran getting into the closed system.^[8] The Iranian walled garden would have its own localized email service and search engine.^[24]

See also

• Internet censorship by country
• Intranet
• Surveillance state
• Splinternet