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Russia Begins Blocking Telegram Messenger (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the it-begins dept.

Russia's state telecommunications regulator said on Monday it had begun blocking access to Telegram messenger after the company refused to comply with an order to give Russian state security access to its users' secret messages (encryption keys). From a report: The watchdog, Roskomnadzor, said in a statement on its website that it had sent telecoms operators a notification about blocking access to Telegram inside Russia. The service, set up by a Russian entrepreneur, has more than 200 million global users and is ranked as the world's ninth most popular mobile messaging app.

27 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. On the plus side... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Funny

    On the plus side, if they block people from using messaging devices, that's fewer people they have to kill when people use the messaging devices to report on news that Russia finds embarrassing.

    RIP Borodin.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  2. Kind of like product endorsement by TheZeitgeist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When Russian security services ban your product because encryption too good, isn't that like seal of approval for the encryption?

    1. Re:Kind of like product endorsement by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      Yeah, because Putin is clearly one of the world's leading Progressivists.

    2. Re:Kind of like product endorsement by BlueStrat · · Score: 1

      Yeah, because Putin is clearly one of the world's leading Progressivists.

      Exactly. Spot-on.

      Kind of like stating that water is wet, though.

      So, what was your point?

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    3. Re:Kind of like product endorsement by WallyL · · Score: 2

      When Russian security services ban your product because encryption too good, isn't that like seal of approval for the encryption?

      Not necessarily. The licensing deal between the US and Russian intelligence communities has expired, and during the re-negotiations (read: TPP), the Russians don't have the sweet cracking/listening tools available, because it was running as a SAAS from the US gov't private cloud. Damn efficient SSO and that expired service account means Russia can't log in to the tool to read all the Telegram messages, so it's best just to block it!

      In post-Soviet Russia, Telegram reads you!

    4. Re:Kind of like product endorsement by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Sure, but they have to bother with encryption because they don't have moles at ever US companies adding new deniable backdoors every day.

      What protects you from the Russians won't protect you from the NSA.

    5. Re:Kind of like product endorsement by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      Right. He is a big proponent of "aka US Liberalism". You can tell that by his focus on their favorite issues, lik LGBTQ rights for example.

    6. Re:Kind of like product endorsement by trawg · · Score: 1

      Conspiracy theory: that is what they want us to think because actually the crypto and implementation is terrible. The more people that install it as a result of this fake ban the more traffic they can snoop on.

      I don't know much about Telegram other than it seems to be the 'encrypted' instant messaging platform that I see most regularly shitted on by people in the crypto community (e.g the Signal team and some of the academics I follow on the twitters). From my casual absorbtion of info about it there seems to be a fairly strong concensus that it's not a trusted platform.

    7. Re:Kind of like product endorsement by smallfries · · Score: 1

      It depends on their motivation.

      If you know a backdoor to a service its value is inversely proportional to its popularity. If the service is heavily used then finding interesting information is a needle in a haystack problem. It's a pain in the ass to hire a bunch of people to go through the pile to hunt for the interesting messages.

      If you ban it: the only people using it in Russia are people who believe you can't read their messages and don't want you to. Traffic analysis + backdoor is a lot easier than looking for the signal among the noise.

      --
      Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
  3. Re:Good! Follow the rules or fuck off by Lisandro · · Score: 1

    Zemlya svobodnogo, tovarishcha.

  4. Re:Good! Follow the rules or fuck off by haruchai · · Score: 2

    Silicon Valley doesn't get a pass because they are currently the 'hot thing'. No one is exempt from rules and regulations.

    Except Vladimir, of course. But he can fuck off too.

    --
    Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  5. Re:Good! Follow the rules or fuck off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wow, remember when Rusky bots made an effort of blending in?

  6. Head scratcher... why not Signal and iMessage? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I wonder why Telegram was targeted specifically. Was it the group chats which there is a key that can be handed over? Why Telegram over other secure providers?

  7. Re:Good! Follow the rules or fuck off by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

    The soil of a free comrade.
    WTF do you mean by that?

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  8. Re:Good! Follow the rules or fuck off by Lisandro · · Score: 1

    Blame it on /.'s non-existent Unicode support.

  9. Re:How about regular VPN? by Narcocide · · Score: 2

    They actually already banned VPNs a few weeks ago. It looks like VPN is secure and you aren't paying enough attention.

  10. The more you tighten your grip ... by schwit1 · · Score: 2

    This seems counterproductive. The conflict is making more people aware of Russian snooping which will only push more non-secure users to use a secure messaging app.

    Is there an equivalent of the Streisand effect for this situation?

  11. 2 Reasons for using Telegram now by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    First, a government actually bans its use because they can't spy on you.

    Two, no Russian spammers on the network trying to flood it with fake news.

    And I honestly don't know what's the better reason...

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  12. Re:Good! Follow the rules or fuck off by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2

    I don't need to translate this using yandex, I am pretty fluent in Russian as it is, and besides I don't really like yandex.

    "Zemlya" means land in the sense of earth, soil or real estate. Land in the sense of a country would be "strana". And I haven't heard Russians using "comrade" for three decades.

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  13. None by Artem+S.+Tashkinov · · Score: 2

    It's a weird situation really. Whatsapp/Facebook messenger and Viber, which are no less popular in this country, are not blocked which begs the question whether these three instant messengers shared their encryption keys with the authorities.

    Also, to understand what this country really is, read for instance this. It's a mafia/authoritarian state where money rules and there's no law for those who have no money. Don't even get me started on health care, education and science - which are either semi-dead or completely dead, depending on your point of view.

    1. Re:None by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      We don't know to what extent Google/Apple/facebook etc cooperate with court orders for store based attacks on individuals.

      If Facebook rolls a compromised Whatsapp client on demand and Google/Apple pushes the update to individuals on court order then end to end encryption is kind of irrelevant. Telegram might be refusing to cooperate with this attack vector in Russia, whereas Facebook does not.

  14. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  15. Re: Good! Follow the rules or fuck off by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

    I blame it on a very bad machine translation. Never use it unless you have at least some grasp of the target language.

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  16. Re:Good! Follow the rules or fuck off by Escogido · · Score: 1

    actually, "tovarishch [rank]" (i.e. "comrade [rank]") is still the standard form of address in the russian army :)

  17. Re:Do you know why U.S. doesn't block it? by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

    Indeed, Google and Apple control your mobile phone and the US controls them. End to end encryption on a device you don't control is an illusion.

  18. Re:Good! Follow the rules or fuck off by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2

    Silicon Valley doesn't get a pass because they are currently the 'hot thing'. No one is exempt from rules and regulations.

    To quote the Russian Ambassador to the UK when giving an award to James Bond for saving Silicon Valley from Max Zoren, "After all, where would Russian computers be without it?"

    Learn your own history, Russian!

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  19. Re:Good! Follow the rules or fuck off by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

    The rank is not optional in this case, though.

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap