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Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

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Re: Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

#91

Post by codedokode »

azangru wrote: post #83
frostburg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're exactly arguing from from a legalistic perspective.

I am alternating between two perspectives: one is that of an internet user who was caught in a fight between a company and an enforcement agency; the other is that of a disinterested observer. This other position tells me that if we disregard for a moment that Telegram is a tech company championing privacy (and therefore a protagonist in most retellings of the story) and the Russian government is an embodiment of thu…

You are misleading people not familiar with Russian legislation. There is no law saying you can ban random IP addresses.

Re: Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

#92

Post by kardos »

lucb1e wrote: post #80
aaomidi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like TLS would've fixed this. Iran is blocking Telegram very easily. If they also used anything with TLS 1.3 or HTTPS with TLS 1.2, the plaintext SNI would've been enough to detect Telegram.

Wait, didn't TLS 1.3 have encrypted SNI? I haven't yet read up on the details but iirc that was one of the major new things.

Unfortunately no, but there is an RFC [1] in the works for the more distant future

[1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-rescorla-tls-esni-00

Re: Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

#93

Post by azangru »

codedokode wrote: post #91
azangru wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am alternating between two perspectives: one is that of an internet user who was caught in a fight between a company and an enforcement agency; the other is that of a disinterested observer. This other position tells me that if we disregard for a moment that Telegram is a tech company championing privacy (and therefore a protagonist in most retellings of the story) and the Russian government is an embodiment of thu…

You are misleading people not familiar with Russian legislation. There is no law saying you can ban random IP addresses.

I am not familiar with the Russian legislation myself, to be honest. Are you saying that Roskomnadzor, the Russian governmental agency, actively broke the Russian law? Have there been any articles or legal discussions about it you could reference? Has anyone threatened to sue (I know it’s pointless in Russia, but still)?

Re: Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

#94

Post by binmanthrowaway »

PeterMikhailov wrote: post #82
mbowcutt wrote: post #35

Might be a stupid question, but why is it always Telegram that gets talked about? Are other secure communications services like Signal, Keybase, etc already blocked?

> why is it always Telegram that gets talked about? Telegram is in the news because the Russian government picks on them so much. Russian government concentrates on Telegram because it's popular with the generation of Russians born after the collapse of USSR. Russians are the very best at memes, the memes get spread by Telegram. Telegram has this concept of 'Channels', which are basically an easier to use Twitter. A…

Why make money if you can make happiness?

Re: Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

#95

Post by jammygit »

codedokode wrote: post #46
mbowcutt wrote: post #35

Might be a stupid question, but why is it always Telegram that gets talked about? Are other secure communications services like Signal, Keybase, etc already blocked?

Signal or Keybase are not blocked in Russia. I suppose that is because they don't have many users like Telegram. WhatsApp is known to comply with Russian legislation (and ironically several of its addresses were accidentally blocked while trying to disrupt Telegram service).

How does Telegram differ from Signal from an end-user point of view?

Re: Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

#96

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

ex3ndr wrote: post #70
ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did it come from? Any stats? Pure interest. By the way, how do you exactly know where the user got to know about your service, and, specifically, that this spread didn't involve VK?

Not sure that it will be ethically correct to share some internals of the Telegram company. Initial source was never VK and Russia. Russians is ~1% of Telegram userbase or something like this. How? By the number signups with russian phone numbers.

Oh, than it's just me being not clear enough. Everything I've said was only about Russian segment, because I was countering an opinion that Durov's creds played a significant role in adoption in Russia.

Re: Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

#97

Post by codedokode »

azangru wrote: post #93
codedokode wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misleading people not familiar with Russian legislation. There is no law saying you can ban random IP addresses.

I am not familiar with the Russian legislation myself, to be honest. Are you saying that Roskomnadzor, the Russian governmental agency, actively broke the Russian law? Have there been any articles or legal discussions about it you could reference? Has anyone threatened to sue (I know it’s pointless in Russia, but still)?

Can you read Russian? Then here is the link: [1]

A Russian company filed an action against Roskommnadzor demanding to compensate a loss of 5,000,000 RUB (~$75 000). The court dismissed it though.

Here is another example: [2]

[1] https://www.gazeta.ru/tech/news/2018/08/27/n_11956687.shtml

[2] https://www.rbc.ru/society/06/08/2018/5b6848b39a794769383b9e...

Re: Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

#98

Post by codedokode »

azangru wrote: post #93
codedokode wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misleading people not familiar with Russian legislation. There is no law saying you can ban random IP addresses.

I am not familiar with the Russian legislation myself, to be honest. Are you saying that Roskomnadzor, the Russian governmental agency, actively broke the Russian law? Have there been any articles or legal discussions about it you could reference? Has anyone threatened to sue (I know it’s pointless in Russia, but still)?

There is one more thing. When RosKomNadzor blocks an IP address, it states the reason for doing that. If you look at IP addresses of Telegram proxies, for example here [1] you'll see that the reason for blocking is not a court decision (which ordered to block Telegram). The stated reason is an order from Prosecutor's Office.

But when the Russian company filed an action against RKN, the Prosecutor's Office representative said that they didin't order to block unrelated IP addresses; it was RKN's own decision [2] [3]. And this is not according to the law. Doing everything according to the law would be too slow.

[1] https://reestr.rublacklist.net/rec/518267/

[2] https://roskomsvoboda.org/40800/

[3] https://www.gazeta.ru/tech/2018/08/06/11885923/i_snova_pro_t...

Re: Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

#99

Post by [deleted] »

hal9000xp wrote: post #36
ISL wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reasonable chance that the throwaway poster intended to be divisive, whether as a troll or something more intentional.

The scary thing is that while living in Russia, I've encountered many people with similar views (face to face). I know it's hard to believe for western people but there are lots of people in Russia who completely obsessed with ideas of "unique Russian identity", "God chosen nation", "Russian world", "saint Russia vs. soulless American imperialism" etc. Putin understands feelings of this part of society and successful…

[deleted]

Re: Russia tries more precise technology to block Telegram messenger

#100

Post by azangru »

azangru wrote: post #93
codedokode wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misleading people not familiar with Russian legislation. There is no law saying you can ban random IP addresses.

I am not familiar with the Russian legislation myself, to be honest. Are you saying that Roskomnadzor, the Russian governmental agency, actively broke the Russian law? Have there been any articles or legal discussions about it you could reference? Has anyone threatened to sue (I know it’s pointless in Russia, but still)?

@codedokode Can't reply to your post with the links. They are interesting, and I am very curious about further developments — whether there will be more suits against Roskomnadzor for indiscriminate IP blocking.

I found a site with the documents about the particular case that you referenced (articles in the news media are so superficial). There aren‘t yet materials available about the defendants’ legal position or about the justification of the judge’s decision, but I hope they will be uploaded soon enough:

https://kad.arbitr.ru/Card/f268f6cc-0fa2-4d48-b325-5ae3b7a4d...

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