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Russia Blocks Telegram Messaging App

By Fuad Mukhtarli April 20, 2018

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Russian authorities claimed Telegram has been used by terrorists to plan and coordinate terrorist attacks.

The Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor started blocking access to the popular messaging app Telegram across the country on April 16, and was expected to complete blocking "within several hours", Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov said on the same day.

"How long will the blocking process take? It will take several hours, since the operators are unloading it, and the process of blocking will gradually increase," Zharov was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying on April 16 when asked how long it will take to block the massaging app.

He added that the watchdog will request App Store and Google Play to remove the Telegram app from their stores.

Roskomnadzor also had sent requests to communications providers to start blocking Telegram, following the April 13 verdict from a Moscow court ordering Telegram blocking across Russia over its failure to hand over encryption keys to the Federal Security Service (FSB).

Roskomnadzor said that it was ready to restore access to the messenger if it handed over the encryption keys. Criticizing the ban, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said it was out of "fear" of human rights and ruled out bowing to the FSB demand.

"Confidentiality is not for sale, and human rights must not be threatened because of fear or greed,” Durov said, according to Interfax.

Telegram added that demands to hand over encryption keys are not technically possible to comply with, since it employs end-to-end encryption. This means messages are scrambled as they are sent, and only the users involved are in possession of the necessary code to decrypt them.

Russian authorities claimed Telegram has been used by terrorists to plan and coordinate terrorist attacks. In order to block the service, they must coordinate with internet service providers (ISPs) to block domains and IP addresses used by the app.

Following the court ruling, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the restrictions can be bypassed by Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or proxy servers, which funnel a user's data through a country where the required services are not blocked. Durov also told users that Telegram would use built-in tools to bypass any restrictions.

The Telegram founder said on April 16 that the Russian authorities' move to block the app will harm the country's security, since many users will switch to services "controlled from the U.S."

"Russia's national security will fall, because part of Russians' personal data will move from a platform that is neutral towards the Russian Federation to WhatsApp/Facebook, which is controlled from the U.S.," he wrote on his account on Russian social network Vkontakte, or VK, on April 16.

Durov went on disputing claims by the block's defenders that it will reduce the threat of terrorism, arguing, "Extremists will continue to use encrypted channels of communication - on other messengers, or through VPN.”

Russian experts also warned that free VPNs used to bypass banned websites can be dangerous because they are often used by cyber criminals to get access to personal data.

According to Sergei Nikitin at the Russian cyber-security company Group-IB, "When a person adds a VPN to his or her mobile settings, all internet traffic goes through this server, including email and internet browser.”

"If the server is bad and malicious, controlled by cyber criminals - and such people are bound to turn up in this hype - then all your internet traffic can be seized, channeled to a dodgy website in order to collect non-encrypted data," Nikitin said on Telegram.

Roskomnadzor also blocked millions of IP addresses of major global providers Amazon and Google in an effort to implement the blocking of the Telegram messaging service in Russia.

Aleksandr Zharov of Roskomnadzor told Interfax news agency on 17 April that a "substantial number of IP addresses" - 18 subnets in all - on the cloud services of Amazon and Google had been blocked in a bid to implement a court ruling ordering the app shut down.

Roskomnadzor's move came after Telegram reportedly began using Amazon and Google subnets to bypass the block, and appears to have affected several online services.

In a message on Russian social network VK on April 17, Durov accused the Russian authorities of combating virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy services that can be used to circumvent the block.

Durov also criticized the Russian authorities for blocking millions of Google and Amazon IP cloud addresses used by the service.

To recap, Durov added that, although the Russian market is not a substantial part of Telegram's user base, it is “important to us for personal reasons.”