Slashdot Mirror
Iran Bans State Bodies From Using Telegram App, Khamenei Shuts Account (reuters.com)
Iran banned government bodies on Wednesday from using the popular Telegram instant messaging app as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office said his account would shut down to protect national security, Iranian media reported. From a report: ISNA news agency did not give a reason for the government ban on the service which lets people send encrypted messages and has an estimated 40 million users in the Islamic Republic. The order came days after Russia -- Iran's ally in the Syrian war -- started blocking the app in its territory following the company's repeated refusal to give Russian state security services access to users' secret messages. Iran's government banned "all state bodies from using the foreign messaging app," according to ISNA.
How oppressive regimes are the most nervous.
Because I didn't even know about it until then... now that you can pirate stuff on it too? I might just use it. Thanks Russia and Iran!
Wikipedia tells me that Telegram doesn't have prophet in mind. Iranians must have been offended by that.
Ezekiel 23:20
The real story is that they've started using domain fronting so now the big cloud providers are getting all their shit blocked. I wonder who will blink first
All the cool kids are using it (or are they?)
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/why-i-asked-my-friends-to-stop-using-whatsapp-and-telegram-e93346b3c1f0
...are the fucking ads on Slashdot that jank the screen up and down for 10 fucking seconds as the load.
God Damned you Mother fucking Assholes.
And if you were a nice person you’d have “Karma: Excellent” next to your handle and the option to “Disable Advertisng”. Whatever else you might say about Slashdot they are one of the few sites I’ve seen to offer that feature.
Seriously? That is his designation? Thought it was pain in the ass. Or subprime lender.
Wonder how many Cisco and Huawei devices will be used in implementing this. Maybe Sandvine?
Wow..
I’ve never been interested in the various “chat apps” like Twitter, Snapchat, etc. for privacy reasons but if Telegram has been kicked out of Russia and banned by the Iranians I think that I might have to give it a look.
I can’t think of a better recommendation.
Telegram couldn't have asked for better publicity than this. Not saying I would use their service myself (I trust Moxie Marlinspike's Signal more) but a headline like "neither Putin nor Khamenei have managed to break us" is pretty badass.
Go hither and get thee an ad blocker.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office said his account would shut down to protect national security
This surely must mean that he was leaking state secrets through the messaging app. So kill the app, don't touch the leaker...
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
.. little lakey ? Yes: Iran.
Yes, and at least for me, the Disable Advertising automatically disables itself after some unspecified period of time. What's up with that?
The magical tool that disables ads even for ACs!
Signal's code has been through more scrutiny. The big downside is the service is sometimes unreliable (mostly with calling). However, with Brian Acton's recent $50M I expect that to get a lot better. It's usually pretty reliable and has top-notch security.
Telegram has wider use and is more reliable, but the DEFAULT settings encrypt your communications with Telegram's keys. For the best security, make sure you always activate private conversations to generate an ephemeral key.
We don't need no stinking First Amendment! Vlad knows what we should be permitted to see!
Er, I mean Ayatollah knows!
This is getting tiresome.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That their attempts to block are at least as futile as they are in Russia.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If your stated goal is to reduce terrorism and you prohibit state workers, are you suggesting government workers are more likely to be terrorists?
I mean, Iran and her allies are under credible war threats from multiple countries. Their ally Syria is assaulted by four nuclear powers. The US has just asked Saudi Arabia to invade Syria (wtf?). Whatever else. Iranians killed by Israel in Syria. John Bolton is their sworn enemy, and might be days from saying something in the vein of "This is 1938 and we're in Munich (...)".
To me it seems just about cutting a means of communication (and also making the population and country less Internet-observable)
Telegram is kind of an IM, but where you subscribe to "channels" too. Kind of a mix of using MSN Messenger and RSS feeds. Perfect to give tips about stock exchange, or to rat someone out. Or to give details to the wrong "internet friend".
I have to say, if there's such a risk to Iran's national security (no fake, imagined fears of US people surrounded with Canada and 10,000 kilometers of water on both sides) I think I support Iran doing this.
Furthermore before posting this I managed to re-read the blurb and even the short headline that both says it's "state bodies" that won't be allowed to use it i.e. government, military, IRGC, police, fire department or what else. So, reading the *headline* would have helped us and myself before answering.
If this bans concerns the government and not even the population, this is more akin to a "Clinton's mail server need be secured" situation than "the king bans SMS and closes the post office". Or today's story about a Western European country doing its own IM for goverment. There may be more mundane concerns even. Why have your mom, friends and the defense minister in your same contact list? And something positive in sovereign and independent entities using sovereign networks. Like it's easier to have a file server on the LAN than playing James Bond on the Internet with your data.
Russia and Iran are pikers next to the NSA/CIA/FBI elephants in the room.
There was also Apple being willing to spend millions going to court when the FBI wanted to force them into cracking a dead suspect's iPhone.
As long as it's not followed by a more general ban, I don't see any problem with this. If you're a government worker, you can expect your software choices to be dictated by security (real or imagined threats) or even purely political reasons.
There was also Apple being willing to spend millions going to court when the FBI wanted to force them into cracking a dead suspect's iPhone.
Agreed. I am posting from my iPad Pro right now.
There's a minor mistage in the article. Russia's goverment only demanded decryption keys for Telegram's cloud storage. "Secret chat" feature of Telegram uses end-to-end encryption without centralised keys.