computer science

Runet

Runet is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Runet rather than just read about it. In short: The Russian Internet (Russian: русский Интернет, romanized: russkiy Internet), shortened as Runet (Рунет), is the part of the Internet that uses the Russian language, including the Russian-language community on the Internet and websites. Geographically, it reaches all continents, including Antarctica (due to Russian scientists living at Bellingshausen Station), but mostly it is based in Russia.

Key takeaways

Runet belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Runet to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Runet from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Russian Internet (Russian: русский Интернет, romanized: russkiy Internet), shortened as Runet (Рунет), is the part of the Internet that uses the Russian language, including the Russian-language community on the Internet and websites. Geographically, it reaches all continents, including Antarctica (due to Russian scientists living at Bellingshausen Station), but mostly it is based in Russia. The term Runet is a portmanteau of ru (code for both the Russian language and Russia's top-level domain) and internet. The term was coined in 1997 by the Azerbaijani-Israeli blogger Raffi Aslanbekov (Раффи Асланбеков), known as "Great Uncle" in Russia, on his Russian-language column Great Uncle's Thoughts. The term was popularized by early Internet users and was included in several dictionaries, including the spelling dictionary of the Russian Academy of Sciences, edited by V. V. Lopatin, as soon as in 2001. Similar, "local to Runet" sub-cultures of ChuvashTet and TatNet later emerged along with alike entities of Uznet (Uzbekistan), Kaznet (Kazakhstan) and others.

Use For ordinary users, the term Runet means that the content of websites is available for Russian users without foreign language skills, or that online shops have an office in Russia (for example, Russian search engines, e-mail services, anti-viruses, dictionaries, Russian-language websites occupying niches similar to those of Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, eBay, PayPal, Foursquare, etc. for usage in all post-Soviet states). Being on the Runet gives a company some advantages, as many local IT companies are more successful than foreign services on the Russian market. The term can describe the situation of the 1990s to the early 2000s: foreign companies didn't want to operate in the Russian market and localize their products, so Russia-based start-ups were more attractive to Russian speaking users. Nowadays, some Russian users are not interested in usage of such services as Facebook or Google Maps because local services have more Russian-specific features and local community (VK.com, Yandex, etc.), though many international websites have very high quality Russian localization and Google search has had full support of Russian morphology. This is also more or less applicable to most post-Soviet states, who use the Runet and are forming a common lingua franca community like English on the Internet. Many officials of the Russian government actively use this term as a synonym for Internet in the territory of Russia, i.e. for Internet infrastructure, which is subject to Russian law (including Russian censorship laws, copyright, corporate, advertisement laws, etc.), but the Russian online community doesn't support this use of the term as millions of users use the Russian language on the Internet while living outside Russia; Russian is spoken in large parts of eastern Europe that do not fall under Russian territory. Some Russian officials automatically believe that the Russian Wikipedia is based in Russia as a business entity and try to control the content of the website or establish a Russia-based clone of Wikipedia.

Domains According to reports conducted by Yandex, Russian is the primary language of 91% of Russian websites (in Yandex's list). In the autumn of 2009, Runet contained about 15 million sites (estimated to be about 6.5% of the entire Internet). Domains with a high proportion of the Russian language include .su, .ru, .рф, .ua, .by, .kz. Russian is used on 89.8% of .ru sites and on 88.7% of the former Soviet Union domain, .su. Russian is the most used language of websites of several countries that were part of the former Soviet Union: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan, and 81.8% in Tajikistan.

Statistics As of 2013, there were approximately 59.7 million Russian-speaking Internet users, representing about 3% of the global online population. In April 2012, Russia ranked ninth worldwide by number of Internet users and fourth by share of Russian-language online content, accounting for 4.8% of the total. In September 2011, Russia surpassed Germany to become the largest Internet market in Europe, with 50.8 million users. By March 2013, Russian was the second most widely used language on the web.

Historical overview

Historically the term Runet has been described in several ways.

In 2009, a Yandex report stated that the Runet can include sites written in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Kazakh languages, as well as sites in any language published in the 12 national domains of the original CIS nations: .am, .az, .by, .ge, .kg, .kz, .md, .ru, .su, .tj, .ua or .uz. Russian-language Internet. According to the definition in Yandex slovari dictionary published in 2001, the "Runet is the Russian Internet. The borders of Internet are usually not based on the "geographical borders", but rather on "languages", and therefore the term Runet is usually considered to be not only websites in .ru domain, but also all Russian-language and/or Russian-oriented websites". "Economic dictionary" of 2009 says "Runet is Russian-language part of the Internet". This is a common meaning of Runet. Practically, this definition makes it the Russian-language online community of post-Soviet states and their diasporas. .ru domain. Runet is the part of Internet, whose websites are in the top-level .ru domain. This definition would exclude Russian (language) or Russian (country) sites intentionally using other domains. Highly popular alternative domains include ".net" for humorous impact or strength of statement (as this means "no" in Russian), popular havens for illegal activities like ".me" (piracy) or ".cz" (to avoid prosecution for facilitation of prostitution), or ".com" for international expansion – the latter being home to Russia's #2 site by Alexa rank, domestic-owned and based international social network Vk.com. Runet Day is a semi-official term for April, 7, when .ru domain was created back in 1994. Internet in the Russian Federation. According to the definitions found in some early Yandex dictionaries, "Runet is the Russian part of [the] Internet". Also, Russian officials strongly suggest that Runet is the Internet in Russia.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Runet

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Runet claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Runet before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Runet ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Runet

In research: Runet appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Runet in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Runet is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Internet in Belarus, Internet in Kazakhstan, Internet in Kyrgyzstan, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Runet outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Runet in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Runet means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Runet out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Runet in simple terms?

Why does Runet matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Runet?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Runet.