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Russia Files Lawsuit To Block Telegram Messaging App (reuters.com)
Russia's state communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has filed a lawsuit to block Telegram in the country because the instant messaging company has refused to hand over the encryption keys that would allow Russian authorities to read messages sent using the service. From a report: Ranked as the world's ninth most popular mobile messaging app, Telegram is widely used in countries across the former Soviet Union and Middle East. Active users of the app reached 200 million in March. As part of its services, Telegram allows users to communicate via encrypted messages which cannot be read by third parties, including government authorities. But Russia's FSB Federal Security service has said it needs access to some messages for its work, including guarding against terrorist attacks. Telegram has refused to comply with its demands, citing respect for user privacy.
If a government moves to ban a program because said government can't use it to spy on its users, what more endorsement could you possibly need?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In soviet Russia we block you!
> Ranked as the world's ninth most popular mobile messaging app
Citation needed.
I seem to remember Apple getting into a pretty public spat with the American government recently over doing precisely the opposite of what you are claiming here.
If some company HAS your keys, then you're doing communications wrong.
No, this isn't good PR for Telegram, because the suit itself proves that Telegram is completely insecure. And they could be forced by the court to openly divulge the keys. (They also might be forced or tricked to divulge the keys in other ways, perhaps unwittingly or secretly, which involve no courts.)
Fuck Russia. Fuck China. Fuck spying on people.
It's what they do.
At least they're glaringly up front about it, unlike the US TLA's relying on phony FISA courts, hardware OEM back doors, and so on to accomplish the same thing.
Give the Devil his due.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Do you say the same whenever someone in the Russian media reports something negative about the USA?
What was that one saying? I don't remember the exact words but think I got the gist.
The USA and Russia are not too different. In the USA you can stand in the middle of a mall and shout "America is a corrupt, imperialist oppressor that creates war everywhere" without being arrested by the police. In Russia you can also stand in the middle of a mall and shout "America is a corrupt, imperial oppressor that creates war everywhere" and you also won't be arrested by the police.
Most people who are involved with government agencies are EXTREMELY ignorant about technology. (And most people in general, also.)
They don't realize that, if there is a back door, a key to decrypt, it will eventually be compromised. A government employee will give the key to someone who shouldn't have it. Or, hackers will eventually discover the key.
I am American and I am sick of the anti-Russia bias on liberal Slashdot.Org. Why SHOUDNT Russia have the rights to protect there own people against the threat of things like terrorism attacks? It is no doubt the USA deep state that pushes the idea that only the USA should be authorized to have access to all communications and that is rediculous. First USA and England use FAKE chemical weapon attack to hurt Russian diplomacy and now this. The west should be ashamed of ourselves.
He left russia a few years back and took on the citizenship of a caribean microcountry in order to continue with Telegram unmolested. IIRC nobody knows his exact whereabouts or the whereabouts of the devteam - probably they're distributed around the planet and living the cyberpunk/diginomad lifestyle, flying under the radar most of the time. It sure takes some guts and wits to stick it to the FSB and other russian three-letter-authorities, you have to hand it to them. Nice job.
Sidenote: I've been using Telegram for a few years now and really like it. Definitivly up there with Signal and Threema when in comes to worthy WhatsCrap alternatives.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
USA are hippocrates. They spy on ALL nations and the peoples.
The article only gives us some information about what is happening. Nowhere it states that Russia SHOULDNT have the rights to do it.
This site also reported a lot of stuff that came to light after Snowden blew the whistle, putting the surveillance practices of the USA and UK into perspective. Did they say then that it was for the USA to do it?
Maybe Slashdot should just top reporting stuff that happens in Russia, yes, I suppose then it would not be biased any more.
they'll remember that CALEA has been a law since 1992, AT&T got caught sharing with NSA in 2005, the Snowden-plex of 2013, etc. If you're looking for people who trust their government (with reason, yet also incorrectly) then Americans aren't the people to pick on. We've been in combat with our government over this stuff for decades, or you might even say, a couple centuries.
Go talk to Europeans. Those guys are great. I love when they amusingly bring up their privacy laws, and then wonder why Americans (and Russians) laugh so hysterically. (But leave out the Brits; they've figured it out by now.)
Mainly because Apple can. They know that their VPs will not be "collected" and charged with vague "sedition" crimes, or their bank accounts seized because they told the executive branch of the country to go thump themselves.
If a company tries a public spat with China, it is a pretty fore-gone conclusion that upper level employees of the company (and likely their families) will disappear, and surprisingly, local organ banks will be full for some odd reason. Russia may be more civilized, but they would ensure in no uncertain terms that someone bashing their government will be silenced.
Even in the EU, someone bashing the government there will get hushed pretty quickly, usually under some "terrorist" law.
No, your memory sucks, Apple handed over everything they could. The issue was Apple didn't have the ability to do what was asked. Apple even said if the FBI came to them quickly they would have been able to unlock the phone but couldnt after the FBI messed with it.
It has the technology to use ephemeral keys, and any user can do it by enabling a "private conversation."
HOWEVER, for some reason, this is not done by default. The default settings use Telegram's own key for encryption.
Telegram should only use ephemeral keys (like Signal). The typical user doesn't know what they're doing or that the default settings can be decrypted by Telegram; they need the defaults to do it right in the first place.
Any application which refuses to violate security, even to the face of a government, deserves an award. Governments have to learn they have no right to their people's communication.
In Soviet Russia, it's Roskomnadz,or nothing at all!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
>The issue was Apple didn't have the ability to do what was asked.
If you believe this shit, you are a fucking moron.
>Even in the EU
You say this like Europe is some paragon of free speech compared to America. Have you been living under a rock? Are you retarded?
This is just some fake controversy to try to convince more people to use it.
He is indeed a big thin-skinned pussy but Roskomnadzor are his bitches.
"Russiaâ(TM)s media censor says news outlets canâ(TM)t publish photos of a message that read 'Against Putin' written in the snow atop the frozen Neva River in St. Petersburg."
I am confused.
Probably written in yellow colour.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap