Blocking Telegram in Russia will turn into a disaster. Let's figure it out: can Telegram be blocked and why?

Telegram representatives stated in court that the law enforcement request could not be satisfied for technical reasons. “No one, including the Telegram developer, has the technical ability to decrypt the messenger keys, since the keys are stored on mobile devices, have unique characteristics and cannot be decrypted,” lawyer Dmitry Dinze said in court. In addition, according to a representative of the messenger, the terrorists used WhatsApp, rather than Telegram, for correspondence. The Moscow Meshchansky Court ignored this information and on December 12 the fine remained in force. That same month, Telegram challenged the FSB order in the Supreme Court.

What did the Supreme Court decide?

Judge of the Supreme Court Collegium for Administrative Cases Alla Nazarova filed a lawsuit against Telegram management, supporting the position of the prosecutor’s office and the FSB. During the consideration of the claim, a representative of the FSB stated that “the decryption keys to citizens’ correspondence in instant messengers do not constitute a secret protected by law,” citing the position of the Constitutional Court.

After the decision of the Supreme Court Roskomnadzor Telegram on the need to provide data to security authorities within 15 days. This is the first stage of the procedure for blocking the messenger in Russia. The second stage is a lawsuit to block Telegram if the messenger fails to fulfill its obligations. The decision to restrict access to it will be made by the court. On April 6, Roskomnadzor filed a statement of claim in the Tagansky District Court of Moscow.

Pavel Durov earlier said that Telegram will protect the privacy of users, despite threats of blocking. In addition, the company filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights against the court decision imposing a fine of 800 thousand rubles. Telegram also told Roskomnadzor that it was impossible to provide encryption keys, but the department said that “no letters” were received from the messenger.

So, will he still be blocked?

Quite possibly. According to the Minister of Communications and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation Nikolai Nikiforov, no exceptions will be made for Telegram, since court decisions “are unconditional for execution on the territory of the Russian Federation.” At the same time, he said that there are more questions for Facebook and WhatsApp regarding compliance with legal requirements than for Durov’s messenger.

However, the editors of large Telegram channels doubted that the messenger would really be blocked. "We do not believe in blocking Telegram; rather, individual officials are trying to increase their shares in this way during the period of rotation in the government. Telegram will work, millions of fans will use it at the World Cup. Our channel works on the Telegram platform, and it is not going to change ", the editorial office of the Nezygar channel (115.5 thousand subscribers) told TASS.

“If Telegram is blocked in Russia, it will, of course, be bad. But, firstly, our people have developed ingenuity, and they will be able to continue reading us even from being blocked. And secondly, the “telegram” format for presenting information is interesting to the audience, which means the content will find its consumer on other platforms,” Mash project manager Nikita Mogutin (222 thousand subscribers) told TASS.

The editors of the Karaulny channel (57.1 thousand subscribers) believe that the FSB will receive encryption keys in court and there will be no blocking, “but you will have to watch your language.”

Can Telegram be blocked at all?

Yes, its web version can be included in the register of prohibited resources, that is, sites associated with it can be blocked - telegram.org, short domain t.me. In addition, authorities may require the application to be removed from the App Store and Google Play, preventing users from downloading the messenger or its updated version.

However, the Association of Electronic Communications (RAEC) believes that completely blocking the service is impossible. “Only systematic work and pressure on application stores, primarily Google Play and the App Store, in case of “success”, some functions of the messenger will stop working, new users will not be able to install it (who did not already have it at the time of blocking),” - in the organization, adding that there may also be problems with updates.

RAEC also said that the Telegram administration has already taken measures to bypass the blocking: “The new version of the application supports bypassing potential blocking through support for proxy servers using the SOCKS 5 protocol (currently in the Android version of the application).”

Quote Not from the words of Pavel Durov

We have collected the maximum available information about the possible blocking of Telegram, while the big media are sleeping and cannot explain to their readers what, after all, happened to the messenger and whether it is really in danger of being blocked (spoiler: not everything is so bad).

1. What legal grounds could there be for blocking Telegram?

According to the “law on bloggers” (which no one implements) and the “Yarovaya law” (which cannot be physically implemented), Roskomnadzor can block services that refuse to add themselves to the register of so-called “organizers of information dissemination.” Exactly the same notification, as reported by Vedomosti, was sent to Telegram. If the service ignores two such notifications, it may be blocked.

2. Who are “information dissemination organizers” anyway?

Anyone. This label can be attached to any service at all. And block, accordingly, too (not really, actually).

3. What are the consequences of inclusion in the ARI registry for the service? Why is all this?

ORI faces virtually impossible demands before the law. He is obliged to keep all information about user actions on the resource (so-called metadata). Since the “Yarovaya Law” came into force, ORI has had even more problems: now it is necessary to store all correspondence and complete data on the use of this service by each user and provide them to the Russian intelligence services upon request.

4. What happens to services that refuse to add themselves to the ARI registry? Are they being blocked?

They are entered into the blocking register with the mark Restricted. That is, they seem to be blocking. In fact, the main pages of instant messengers and a number of technical IP addresses are entered into the register, but they do not stop working. Thus, four instant messengers were “blocked” in Russia - Vchat, BlackBerry Messenger, Imo and Line. “Protest Moscow” decided to check how well their “blocking” works. The result is a little predictable:

So blocked. Much register. WOW
(Screenshots of correspondence between admins in Line and IMO. No methods to bypass blocking were used when creating the screenshots)

Prior to this, RKN tried to add the Zello service, widely used, in particular, by truckers, to the ARI registry. But he was refused and “blocked”. Almost with the same success as Line with Imo, except that there were more interruptions.

5. Everything is clear with these services, I don’t use them. Will Telegram add itself to the ORI register?

Apparently not. As the Telegram administration told the RNS news agency, the messenger will not transmit “not a single bit” of information to any government.

“Not a single government or intelligence agency in the world has yet received a single bit of information from us. It'll be this way forever".

“The keys needed to decrypt the data are divided into several parts and physically stored in several other data centers. Moreover, all data centers are located in different jurisdictions, so in order to force Telegram to release any data, an unrealistic level of cooperation between several states will be required,” the service stated.

It is worth noting that this answer can be understood in two ways. It is possible that the service will not register in the ARI registry and will send the RKN where they belong. But this does not exclude the possibility that Telegram will register with the ORI pro forma and refuse to comply with the requirements in fact.

6. Is this even possible? This is illegal!

Maybe. It should be understood that laws on censorship on the Internet are implemented somehow and every once in a while. For example, the “law” on the storage of personal data in Russia allegedly came into force on September 1, 2015. This text of the “law” makes a number of exceptions, and the only service blocked in Russia was LinkedIn. 15 months after the “law” came into force, yeah. Exclusively because no one in Russia needs the fuck, and RKN is trying blackmail to get at least someone to comply with their stupid laws.

7. So what, someone added themselves to the ARI registry and does not comply with the requirements of the special services?

This is unknown, but possible. Before inclusion in the ARI registry, the Swiss messenger Threema was considered ultra-secure. The service's press service claims that the release of information is possible only with the permission of the Swiss authorities and only in accordance with Swiss laws.

Once again, we do not know whether they understand the exact requirements of the law and whether they even intend to comply with them. It's very likely not. To be included in the ARI register, the service needs to provide only formal data about itself: full and abbreviated (if available) name, country of registration, tax identifier and (or) identifier in the trade register of the country of registration, location address, postal address, email address, domain name , email address of the resource administrator, hosting provider and description of the service (product) provided.

In short, all of the above characters could well have given their information away.

9. Maybe it would be better for everyone if Telegram included itself in the ARI registry and did not comply with its requirements?

As soon as there is a technical justification for the (impossibility) of blocking the messenger, we will include it in this post.

However, we strongly recommend that everyone reading these terms acquire means of bypassing blocking, incl. on mobile devices. For the sake of hygiene, the state must become more and more convinced of the unreality and impossibility of large-scale censorship and surveillance in Russia. And everyone who uses encrypted instant messengers, TOR, VPN and other means contributes to this.

Join “Protest Moscow” in the best messenger and social network on the planet! We havechat Andchannel . And also

Telegram - leave cannot be blocked

• Legislation in IT

The Internet was rocked by the desire of a certain Alexander Zharov, head of Roskomnadzor, to block the popular Telegram messenger. Experts think and argue: is this possible? Will this happen? Why is this? And so on.

I would like to throw one more small thought at this fan, which can be briefly reduced to the question: “Who framed Alexander Zharov?”

Why do I think that Zharov was framed? OK then. Maybe he realizes what exactly he is doing and all the consequences. Although, in this case, everything is much worse. For him too. I would prefer to think that he is an “innocent victim” - after all, I don’t know him and I don’t want to slander him.

So, let's take it in order.

1. Zharov sent Durov a demand to provide data for Telegram to be included in the register of information dissemination organizers.
2. Durov ignored the demand.
3. The law requires Telegram to be blocked.
4. Zharov says that he will block Telegram in a few days.

Question: what can Zharov do here? Probably something can. But essentially, he can’t do anything. All he can do is stall for time. In the best case scenario, he will lie that he does not have the technical ability to block Telegram and will not do it.

This is a good way. But he has little prospects. In the end, Zharov won’t be able to, someone else will. Have pity on Zharov. He is the head of a structure that does not have the opportunity to choose whether to implement laws or not. It's like getting into a car without brakes. All you can do is steer intensely between obstacles and pray that the gas runs out as soon as possible.

In this sense, the question is different. Why was this suicide car created and launched along this particular trajectory? Yes, I think that Zharov in this case is a willing or unwilling IT martyr. And Roskomnadzor is a device that will explode, causing maximum damage... to the state itself and no one else.

Let me explain my point. If Telegram is blocked, it won't be the end of the world. This will only cause slight irritation among several million messenger users. Less than a year before the elections. Who will users blame for this? Zharova? Who will remember about him? They will blame someone bigger and known to everyone. The one who is responsible for the actions of all subordinates.

It would seem, why does the state need to shoot itself in the knee? But let me! In 1985-1991 (the range can be expanded) this already happened, and it was called “Perestroika”. I will not go into details, but there is clearly a similar plot, when statesmen, willingly or unwillingly, understanding it or not, work for the self-destruction of the system in which they themselves work.

But if this action will harm the system, then why does the system do it? The only answer I can see is that part of the system wants to dismantle another part of the system. And for this purpose, he is trying to warm up protest movements.

In other words, it is quite possible that Roskomnadzor is just a battering ram with which they want to hurt as many people as possible. Moreover, they fit as closely as possible to a certain social portrait. Which one? Imagine it yourself. Who will feel bad if Telegram is blocked, anonymizers are banned, VPN is banned, who is most worried about the recent case of blocking the google.ru domain? I don’t know what you’ve come up with, but it seems to me that these are people who are well suited for somehow being involved in the protests in one form or another. Let me remind you that there is less than a year left before the presidential elections.

If I’m right (and I don’t want and can’t prove anything - figure it out for yourself), then there is a completely clear recipe for what exactly to do with the blocking of Telegram. It is necessary for the attacked part of the system to stop the process of blocking Telegram under any pretext that it likes.

The law banning anonymizers and other means of bypassing blocking should also not come into force. In general, if this attacked part of the system wants to survive, it should take a closer look at what is happening in the field of IT regulation. The one who stops this suicide car will receive some support points and will not allow someone to inflate protest sentiments in this area.

Those who understand at least a little about the technological part of what is happening understand that the word “terrorism” in this case can be used more likely in relation to Roskomnadzor itself, and not Telegram. Telegram is not about those real terrorists who actually carry out terrorist attacks. It's not about terrorist attacks. If the whole issue boiled down only to the fact that messengers are used by terrorists, then the alphabet would have to be banned - it is precisely this alphabet that those same terrorists use to transmit their messages. Let's defeat the alphabet - defeat terrorism!

Funny. But if I were some people, I would think about what’s going on here and why do they need all this tuning at the zoo?

First information about possible blocking Telegram appeared in Russia in mid-May in several Telegram-channels. The rumors were quickly confirmed: Roskomnadzor ordered the messenger team to provide data for inclusion in the register of organizers of information dissemination. Namely: country of registration, legal address, domain name, description of functions, postal and email addresses of the company and hosting provider.

Team Telegram left official letters from Roskomnadzor unanswered. Today (June 23), the head of the department, Alexander Zharov, said that the time allotted to the messenger team to make a decision has expired.

“I publicly address the team Telegram and personally to Pavel Durov: comply with Russian legislation! The choice is yours,” Zharov said.

The official noted that in case of failure to comply with the department’s requirements Telegram should have been blocked in Russia.

WHY DOES ROSKOMNADZOR TELEGRAM DATA?

To comply with the requirements of the law “on personal data” and the “Yarovaya package”. Team Telegram will also be obliged to move its servers to Russian territory and store information about users, their conversations and correspondence on them. And from July next year - the correspondence and recordings of conversations themselves, as well as all files sent in the messenger.

In addition, the service will be required to provide this data to law enforcement officials if a corresponding request is received.

WHAT IS PAVL DUROV'S POSITION?

The businessman issued a statement on your page"In contact with". “It’s paradoxical that blocking US-controlled Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger, but blocking a neutral towards Russia is actively discussed Telegram.

As soon as Telegram correspondence of Russian officials, their communications with friends and relatives and other sensitive data are blocked through WhatsApp/Viber will move to American-controlled clouds Apple iCloud/Google Drive", the businessman wrote.

It's true: besides Whatsapp And Facebook Messenger, the messenger data is also not included in the notorious register Viber. At the same time, as RBC reports with reference to VimpelCom data, Whatsapp 68.7% of Russians use it, Viber- 45.7%, and Telegram- only 7.5%.

Soon after Durov’s post on Vkontakte, the head of Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, responded to him. In his opinion, “Durov is neutral towards terrorists and criminals who use his messenger, and absolutely ignores the safety of ordinary users Telegram».

WHEN DID THE CLAIMS AGAINST TELEGRAM APPEAR?

Face criticism from a variety of countries for the team Telegram not the first time. In October 2015, British police detained two young people in preparation for a terrorist attack - as it soon became clear, they discussed all organizational issues in a secret chat in Telegram. The British government has raised the issue of banning data encryption for correspondence.

A month later, terrorist attacks took place in Paris. French intelligence services quickly found out that the terrorists also kept in touch through Pavel Durov’s messenger. Moreover, the morning after the attacks precisely in Telegram There was an appeal from a representative of the ISIS organization banned in Russia.

After the events described, Durov gave an interview CNN, in which he said: “if criminals did not have Telegram, they would have found another way to communicate.”

In May of this year, criticizing encrypted chats Telegram The head of the Russian FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, spoke.

HOW WILL EVENTS DEVELOP?

If Telegram will be banned in Russia, tomorrow it will disappear from AppStore And Google Play, and the application itself will become unavailable.

However, the messenger team announced support for proxy servers - a way to bypass possible blocking in Russia. This means that if they manage to release an update before they are banned, users of the messenger will be able to continue using it.

The nuance is that the announced update is intended for Android, as well as desktop versions of the browser. For users iPhone you will have to use other means of communication.

Today Telegram is one step away from being blocked by Roskomnadzor. The management of the service, represented by Pavel Durov, does not comply with Russian legislation and ignores the requirements of the communications control service. Therefore, obviously, we can soon say goodbye to the secure messenger - iPhones.ru analyzed the situation.

What's going on between Telegram and Roskomnadzor

The head of Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, has already stated that the popular Telegram messenger may be blocked in the Russian Federation in the very next few days.

He is convinced that the service’s management is violating Russian legislation, thereby providing a huge service to terrorists.

Therefore, if Pavel Durov does not change his position and does not begin to comply with the requirements of the law and the control service, Roskomnadzor will ask Apple and Google to remove Telegram from the App Store and Google Play and block network addresses that are associated with the service. But Pavel Durov does not intend to follow Zharov’s and Roskomnadzor’s lead in general. Moreover, he is already preparing for the possible bypass of blocking through proxies and even accuses the government of absolute incompetence.

What irritates the government most about Telegram are private secret chats, which allow you to set a period of time after which all correspondence in them will be cleared - and on all devices that participated in the communication.

In this case, end-to-end encryption is used, which involves the direct transmission of messages between devices. Even with a strong desire, messenger employees will not be able to access such information - what can we say about government agencies or control services.

Roskomnadzor demands keys to decrypt messages Alexander Zharov

If you do not take into account secret chats, which today are almost the most important advantage of Telegram, all communication in this and other instant messengers (WhatsApp, Viber, etc.) does not take place directly between devices, but through service servers. It is much easier to gain access to such correspondence. But this requires access to the information flow and special keys to decrypt messages.

Today in the world there are two main ways to get everything you need to read correspondence in instant messengers. There is a Chinese way, in which the owners of instant messengers and other similar services are “asked” to provide the desired tools. And there is an American one, in which government specialists simply hack the whole thing on their own.

Roskomnadzor bases its policy on the behavior of our friends from the Middle Kingdom. Therefore, it invites messenger owners to register on a special list of “organizers of information dissemination.” From Zharov’s official address to Durov:

“I must state that at the moment all available opportunities for official communication with the Telegram messenger team have been exhausted.”

“There is only one requirement, and it is simple: fill out the form sent with information about the company that manages Telegram. And officially send it to Roskomnadzor to include this data in the register of information dissemination organizers.”

“In case of actual refusal to fulfill the duties of the organizer of information dissemination, Telegram in Russia should be blocked.” Members of this hobby club are required to store data about user activities and provide access to it upon request.

At the same time, Alexander Zharov, on the one hand, refutes the need for access to user data. And in an interview with the Vesti program, he loudly insisted that there was no question of reading the correspondence.

But, on the other hand, before that, in an interview on NTV, he said that he needed keys to decrypt user data in order to gain access to messages that could be identified as terrorist.

Pavel Durov is confident that such demands contradict the constitution of the Russian Federation. Moreover, Telegram is not the only messenger with end-to-end encryption. There are WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, but for some reason no one has any complaints about them.

Pavel Durov is preparing to block the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov

In 2013, a new messenger called Telegram appeared in the world. Its founders were the brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov. They once created the popular social network VKontakte, which they no longer have any connection with today.

The service was based on the security of correspondence and encryption mechanisms that would prevent anyone from reading it - this became the foundation of the service. Therefore, providing access to it to government organizations is the last thing.

Telegram is used by a third of a million users every day. And the total audience of the messenger today exceeds 100 million people, which makes it the tenth most popular in the world. The latest test update of the messenger application for Android at the moment (4.1.0 beta) already includes the Russian language. Not yet today, but soon it may appear in the final ones - including on iOS.

Telegram does not focus on Russia as one of its priority markets - also because of our attitude to the legislative process, freedom of speech, and so on. But the messenger's share in the country is estimated at between two and six million users, which puts it in fourth place after WhatsApp, Viber and Skype. “It’s paradoxical that blocking US-controlled WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger is not on the agenda in Russia, but blocking Telegram, which is neutral in relation to Russia, is being actively discussed” - Pavel Durov And Pavel Durov is not afraid of attempts to block the messenger. He has already noted that this will be extremely difficult to do. And he emphasized that the messenger is already actively preparing to bypass such actions, for which proxy servers using the SOCKS5 protocol will be used.

But the most effective way to combat Telegram will not be blocking network addresses or other similar manipulations. Roskomnadzor will definitely ask Apple and Google to remove the messenger, which is contrary to Russian law, from the App Store and Google Play app stores.

Of course, it can obviously be installed from branches in other countries or downloaded using alternative methods. However, this will definitely cut off the flow of new users, which has increased significantly in anticipation of the potential blocking.

Presidential Advisor for Internet Development German Klimenko also joined the confrontation between Telegram and Roskomnadzor. He is confident that there is simply no problem in blocking the messenger in Russia - at least local users will not even feel it.

He insists that there are a large number of other communication services operating in our country and that psychiatrists have not yet detected incurable addiction to Telegram. Klimenko recommends what he himself uses - social networks Facebook, VKontakte and even greetings from some distant past in the form of ICQ. “As for replacing Telegram with something else, in Russia alone there are more than 30 of them. The most famous of them is ICQ. I used Facebook and now I use VKontakte, ICQ,” - Klimenko about the possible blocking of Telegram However, the editors of iPhones.ru today do not see a full-fledged replacement for the messenger - in this case, we focus on the full range of capabilities that the service offers Pavel Durov.

Ordinary features like group chats, voice calls, stickers, and so on are available in almost all instant messengers today. The most popular alternatives like WhatsApp, Viber, Skype or Facebook Messenger definitely offer this. But if we talk about security, which Telegram places special emphasis on, you can pay attention to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (Signal and similar solutions are not mentioned due to the small audience in the Russian Federation). They also use end-to-end encryption mechanisms, so they can be similarly secure - even if there are opponents who believe that their correspondence will fall into the hands of American intelligence agencies.

Public chats, which the media and bloggers have long acquired, have long been a popular feature of the service. WhatsApp and Viber have them, but in much poorer quantity and quality. But it will be very difficult to find adequate bots like Telegram. Skype is trying to do something similar, but there is simply nothing useful for a Russian-speaking user here yet.

It would be stupid to deny the popularity of Telegram in Russia, so the service obviously has a large number of users from different parts of our country. Many of the messenger's fans call it their quiet haven - a real outlet and secluded corner. And they really don’t see alternatives in the form of other solutions.

If you have the warmest feelings for Telegram and do not want to suffer from blocking, we recommend that you download the messenger on all devices on which you may need access to it in the future. Even if it is blocked by Roskomnadzor, it will obviously bypass prohibitions through a proxy and work adequately without dancing with a tambourine.

But re-downloading the messenger may cause minor difficulties. If Apple and Google decide to remove the messenger from the Russian branches of the App Store and Google Play, it will obviously remain in others, from which it can be downloaded without major problems.

Moreover, there is a huge chance that the messenger will remain in purchases. Therefore, it can be downloaded again from there in just one click. But for many users it will be much easier to actually find an alternative to Telegram. And today I myself don’t see this as a big problem, because most people just need communication to solve personal and work problems. Its much more popular analogues in the Russian Federation - WhatsApp and Viber - can handle this without any problems.