Russia starts Telegram blocking process

[harrybarracuda]

Can't be long before Vlad starts calling it the USSR again.... I'm just surprised Durov hasn't been "offered a cup of tea".

Russia starts Telegram blocking process

Roskomnadzor has launched the blocking procedure for Telegram in Russia. Telegram’s domain names and IP addresses have been added to the register of blocked websites, and telecommunications providers have been told to take measures to block access to them.

Under the current rules, providers will have to restrict access to Telegram resources within 24 hours from the day it was added to the register of blocked websites, which is updated twice a day.


On April 13, Tagansky Court considered the suit of Roskomnadzor and ruled to immediately block Telegram since the messenger refused to hand over its encryption keys to the special services, as required by the Russian law. "We understand that the information distributed through Telegram may violate the law, be used by terrorist and extremist organizations, pose a danger to the national security of the Russian Federation, as well as to the life and wellbeing of citizens, to the users of the network itself," Maria Smelyanskaya, the acting head of Roskomnadzor Legal Department stated in court.

After the court ruled that Telegram was to be blocked, Roskomnadzor chairman Alexander Zharov said that the messenger could be unblocked only after it complies with the law.

The FSB demanded that Telegram hand over its encryption keys in mid-July 2017. The company refused to provide the information, and the service founder, Pavel Durov, stated that the company would not comply with laws that violate privacy of its users and contradict the messenger’s values.

On March 20, 2018, the Supreme Court refused to satisfy Telegram's claim to recognize FSB's demand as unlawful. Durov said on the same day that he would not yield to the threats.

https://en.crimerussia.com/gromkie-d...king-process-/

[Klondyke]

Use by terrorists

In September 2015, in response to a question about the use of Telegram by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Pavel Durov stated: "I think that privacy, ultimately, and our right for privacy is more important than our fear of bad things happening, like terrorism."[158] ISIS recommended Telegram to its supporters and members[159][160][161] and in October 2015 they were able to double the number of followers of their official channel to 9,000.[162] In November 2015, Telegram announced that it had blocked 78 public channels operated by ISIS for spreading propaganda and mass communication.[163][164][165] Telegram stated that it would block public channels and bots that are related to terrorism, but it would not honor "politically-motivated censorship" based on "local restrictions on freedom of speech" and that it allowed "peaceful expression of alternative opinions."[166] Telegram's usage for ISIS propaganda reignited the encryption debate and encrypted messaging applications faced new scrutiny.[167][168] It also led to tabloids labeling Telegram as a "jihadi messaging app".[169]

In August 2016, French anti-terrorism investigators asserted that the two ISIS-directed Jihadists who fatally cut the throat of a priest in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy, France, and videoed the murder, had communicated via Telegram and "used the app to coordinate their plans for the attack". ISIS's media wing subsequently posted a video on Telegram, showing the pair pledging allegiance. A CNN news report stated that Telegram had "become known as a preferred means of communication for the terror group ISIS and was used by the ISIS cell that plotted the Paris terror attacks in November".[159]

In June 2017, the Russian communications regulator Roscomnadzor hinted at the possibility of blocking Telegram in Russia due to its usage by terrorists.[170]

In July 2017, Director General of Application and Informatics of the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Informatics, Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, said eleven Telegram DNS servers were blocked because many channels in the service promoted radicalism, terrorism, hatred, bomb assembly, civil attack, disturbing images, and other propaganda contrary to Indonesian laws and regulations.[171] In August 2017, Indonesia lifted the block after countermeasures against negative content were deployed in association with Telegram LLP.[172]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(service)

[bsnub]

Use by terrorists

[Dillinger]

Bet Punty aint walkin round there in his Liverpool shirt

[Cujo]

Never heard of it.

[Dragonfly]

the US will follow shortly, so let's see who is laughing

[OhOh]

stated that the company would not comply with laws that violate privacy of its users and contradict the messenger’s values.

About 10 years too late to try that defence, The income "value" to the owners no doubt.

[harrybarracuda]

Here are the "terrorists" that Vlad wants to stop using Telegram.

[OhOh]

Not much traffic it seems. Is the street blocked off ahead with water cannons carrying a water/soluble CW?

[harrybarracuda]

Not much traffic it seems. Is the street blocked off ahead with water cannons carrying a water/soluble CW?

There are these amazing technological marvels known as "traffic lights".....

You might see them if you ever got out of your parents basement.

[OhOh]

your parents basement

Both gone, house sold ........

[HuangLao]

The invented bad guys.
Will always exist.

[harrybarracuda]

He wants to be careful that he doesn't outstay his welcome....

A former employee of the NSA, Edward Snowden, supported the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, and called the attempts of the Russian authorities to block the messenger censorship.
Former employee of the US National Security Agency Edward Snowden described the requirement to provide the FSB with the keys to decrypt messages of Telegram users as a “totalitarian demand.”
“I have criticized Telegram's security model in the past, but Durov's response to the Russian government's totalitarian demand for backdoor access to private communications—refusal and resistance—is the only moral response, and shows real leadership.” Snowden wrote on his Twitter.
“Roskomnadzor's mad quest to punish Telegram for protecting user's rights has totally broken Russia's Internet today. Enormous numbers of sites completely unrelated to Telegram are blocked in a morally and technically ignorant censorship effort,” Snowden added.

https://en.crimerussia.com/gromkie-d...am-censorship/

[misskit]

Russia's federal censor blocks millions of IP addresses in crackdown on Telegram, disrupting Internet services across the country

On the morning of April 16, Russia’s federal censor ordered Russian ISPs to start blocking access to the instant messenger Telegram. At first, Roskomnadzor ordered Internet providers to cut service only to Telegram’s own IP addresses. Soon, however, the government also banned hundreds of thousands of IP addresses belonging to Amazon’s cloud service, which Telegram was using to circumvent Russia’s block. Roskomnadzor later blocked more than a million IP addresses in Google’s cloud service, as well. Now there’s even a special website dedicated to tracking how many IP addresses Roskomnadzor blocks in its battle with proxy servers. (Note: at the time of this writing, the total number of blocked IP addresses was almost 16 million.)


So far, Telegram is still accessible to many users in Russia, though other websites have suffered outages, suffering collateral damage in Roskomnadzor’s hunting efforts. The radio station Govorit Moskva, for example, said its website was temporarily inaccessible because of traffic routing problems caused when ISPs started blocking one of the subnets it uses. The messenger Viber, the social network Odnoklassniki, and several ewallet services have also experienced technical difficulties.


On Tuesday, Roskomnadzor even launched a special “hotline,” which people can call to report the accidental blocking of “innocent online resources.” The agency also complained about “unverified reports” that its crackdown on millions of IP addresses has inadvertently cut off access to various websites and services unrelated to Telegram. (At the time of this writing, Roskomnadzor's hotline was inaccessible — possibly due to the reported DDoS attacks against the agency.)



Can people still download Telegram? Yes, but on April 17 Roskomnadzor formally ordered Apple and Google to remove Telegram from their app stores in Russia. At the time of this writing, neither company had complied.


Russia’s federal censor has reportedly started notifying the owners of various proxy servers that they will be blocked in Russia, if they refuse to cut access to the instant messenger Telegram, according to Pavel Chikov, a lawyer for the “Agora” human rights group, which has represented Telegram in Russian court.


https://meduza.io/en/news/2018/04/17...ss-the-country

[misskit]

Telegram founder pledges 1 million dollars to fund proxy servers to beat Russian censorship

Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced in a Vkontakte post on Tuesday that he promises to donate $1 million of his personal funds to award “Bitcoin grants” over the course of a year to the administrators of proxy and VPN services that allow Internet users in Russia to access Telegram, which the government started blocking on Monday, April 16. Durov is also calling on others to join him in funding the circumvention effort to defeat Russian censorship.


In a message of Telegram, Pavel Durov's official channel thanked Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft “for not taking part in political censorship.” Durov also stated that Russia accounts for “less than seven percent of Telegram's total user base,” though he says it's important to him “personally” that the messenger “does everything it can for its Russian users.”


https://meduza.io/en/news/2018/04/17...ian-censorship