
Russia lifts ban on Telegram - ComodoHacker
https://apnews.com/1da061ce00eb531291b143ace0eed1c9
======
hnarn
There's so much FUD here about how this must mean Telegram is now insecure,
backdoored etc. I sure hope those voicing these opinions actually have used
Telegram and understands how it works:

\- Telegram does log chats server-side _if you want them to_ (to be able to
see your chat history across devices). You don't have to. Telegram supports
end-to-end encryption ("secret chats") with no logging -- as far as I know
there is no proof that these chats are untrustworthy.

\- Telegram groups have never been sacred and they are deleted if they spread
illegal information. This is not the same thing as leaking someone's personal
chat history, which to my knowledge has still never been done.

I'd be glad to be proven wrong on any of these counts, I use both Telegram and
Signal and trust the latter more for obvious reasons (it's completely open
source) -- but the fact that Telegram is not perfect in every way does not
make it insecure by default.

~~~
cookiengineer
The Pentagons guideline for secure military conversations allowed to chose
between threema, whatsapp or signal - but they explicitly forbid usage of
telegram.

At the time I knew about the voice call remote exploit in whatsapp due to
their outdated hardfork, and I knew about the XSS RCE bug in signal’s
innerHTML mess... so my personal assumption is that telegram is the only
messenger where five eyes has at least no protocol level access and have to
exploit the OS it is hosted on.

You can meanwhile look that information up on vault7 or snowden leaks, so it’s
already publicly disclosed.

Anyways, if you feel safe using a stock Android ROM that isn’t AOSP and is
still using legacy 3.x or 4.x kernels... your general assumption on what is
secure is wrong.

Having said that, I don’t know whether palantir’s gotham has access to
telegram’s servers. But given their workforce and sheer amount of RE they
hire, the likeliness of telegram being a target is very high.

So with all that in mind I’d recommend telegram only with AOSP head and only
with secret chats. You don’t stand a chance if you are using the public
clearnet routing protocols either way.

And this is assuming that you don't use Windows and something like a hardened
Kali or Arch-based distro that is updated regularly and uses both a secure
transport layer for pacman and doesn't allow "some random guy's" gpg
signatures, aka you'd have to manually check every source from AUR. If you use
Windows 10, you can forget security. If you use Ubuntu or Debian, you can
forget security. If you use Steam, you can forget security. If you play any
networked games on any of your machines, you can forget security.

Joyful times where private organizations with nearly unlimited resources "hack
the planet" and seemingly get away with it.

~~~
hnarn
> so my personal assumption is that telegram is the only messenger where five
> eyes has at least no protocol level access and have to exploit the OS it is
> hosted on.

This is a very strange assumption, you mean that the "Pentagons guideline for
secure military conversations" is actually not a guideline for secure
conversations, but exploitable conversations?

Why would the Pentagon tell their own people to use exploitable
communications? There's no way of knowing if you are the only one with the
capability.

In my eyes this information (which I haven't verified and don't have time to
dig into) would rather indicate that the Pentagon believes Threema, WhatsApp
and Signal to be secure while they are doubtful about Telegram -- maybe
because they know something we don't, or simply because it's harder to audit.

~~~
cookiengineer
The underlying question really is when the point is reached between "security
through trust" and "security through audit".

I'm not anyhow claiming that Telegram is secure. But given the problems that
legal courts have when the FBI and other three letter agencies want to get
access to Telegram data (and the fact that the company moved their HQ around
Europe every time a state wanted access) seems to me much more trustworthy
than say, any Facebook software.

And I would also argue that given the fact that Gotham has full administrative
access for anything Facebook sends and that the end-to-end encryption cannot
be verified as both clients never actually connect directly would speak also
contra WhatsApp when it comes to their security claims. (install a Firewall on
Android and you'll see the whatsapp gateways/proxies).

To be honest, I doubt that the Pentagon would trust any software without
having seen its source code or at least having full access to the data that's
transferred. And I think that's a fair assumption.

The underlying issue is that the field of security has is actually that it's
not a field of trust - but rather a field of mistrust. Currently I'm
mistrusting the Pentagon more than some random dudes I've never seen; which
might be the actual point of the discussion: Can we trust the Pentagon given
their fuckups in the past?

------
bigdict
The most likely reason is that Telegram is too convenient and too useful.

Every agency in the government has an official account. The president’s
spokesman uses it to communicate with members of the media. Most recently it
was successfully used to disseminate guidance on COVID-19.

~~~
mschuster91
> Most recently it was successfully used to disseminate guidance on COVID-19.

Or propaganda, given the (credible) accusations against Russia on
misinformation campaigns.

edit: I'm referring to the fact that Telegram is _the_ most popular service
for German conspiracy myth spreaders (e.g. former stars Attila Hildmann and
Xavier Naidoo), especially in regard to the COVID19 crisis. Unfortunately I'm
unaware of decent English articles, but here's a good German starter:
[https://www.br.de/nachrichten/netzwelt/messengerdienst-
teleg...](https://www.br.de/nachrichten/netzwelt/messengerdienst-telegram-wo-
die-verschwoerungstheorien-spriessen,S0HDUq1)

~~~
luckylion
That's exactly _why_ you want to use something like Telegram if you're in the
West: it's not controlled by a Western government.

I don't care much for the conspiracy nuts, but their ability to communicate
with each other would surely have been terminated had they used WhatsApp.

It's fine to use WhatsApp to praise Obama, Merkel or anything else that is
widely accepted in your society etc, but it's a terrible choice if you're on
the shit list of the government.

~~~
mschuster91
You can do whatever you want using Whatsapp (it has a proven solid e2e
encryption), the key difference to Telegram is it requires a phone number to
use which instantly reveals your real identity to any snoop, snitch or
government mole.

If it were that easy to influence Whatsapp, India would not have a real
problem with Whatsapp-mobilized lynching mobs.

~~~
luckylion
> You can do whatever you want using Whatsapp (it has a proven solid e2e
> encryption), the key difference to Telegram is it requires a phone number to
> use which instantly reveals your real identity to any snoop, snitch or
> government mole.

Both Telegram and WhatsApp required a phone number last I checked, but you can
install Telegram on a Desktop using a dumb phone for activation, you don't
need to run the app.

> If it were that easy to influence Whatsapp, India would not have a real
> problem with Whatsapp-mobilized lynching mobs.

India has no jurisdiction over WhatsApp. They can ask Facebook nicely, but
that's about it.

To stop communication you don't need to read WhatsApp-chats. You just disable
the accounts that you want silenced. And you can't do that if you don't have
control over the service (hence Western extremists use of Telegram).

If you're Russian and you want to talk about how free yourself of Putin, use
WhatsApp or Signal, that is: an American provider. If you're American (or
living in an American province) and you want to talk about how to free
yourself of Washington, you use Telegram (or a Chinese messenger). Even if
none of them can ever read your chats, they can a) use the meta data and b)
disable your ability to communicate.

This also applies if you're a common criminal: US cops will have a much easier
time getting meta data on your communication from WhatsApp than from Telegram.
It's generally a good idea to know your threat model. Unless you're a Russian
Oligarch or Ex-FSB, the FSB is not your problem. But your local domestic
intelligence service may be, if you ever step out of line.

~~~
maqp
> instantly reveals your real identity to any snoop, snitch or government
> mole.

Yeah, WA isn't anonymous. The problem is with Telegram storing all your
private messages on their cloud, by hacking the server, just knowing your
username the state level attacker learns everything about you, metadata, and
content, and because there's no forward secrecy, it will date back basically
forever unless you're constantly deleting logs, and even then you can only
hope Telegram also erases their backup tapes.

>If you're American (or living in an American province) and you want to talk
about how to free yourself of Washington, you use Telegram

That's just stupid, why would you want less secure architecture to criticize
Americans? NSA can trivially hack Telegram servers to see your criticism if
they want. You want E2EE for your dissident group no matter what, thus Signal
will always remain a better choice.

~~~
sudosysgen
By default, Telegram does store all your messages on their server, whose
encryption cannot be trusted.

By default, WhatsApp _uploads all your messages to Google Cloud in clear_.

------
dsabanin
One of the big reasons was also the fact that they failed to ban it. They
could not enforce it at all, without blocking half of the websites, because of
Telegram's clever networking shenanigans, so everyone was still been able to
use it (without vpn or anything).

Even russian government officials have _official_ Telegram channels. All the
"news" sources quote Telegram channels all the time. All pro-gov celebrities
and stuff.

It was not a ban, but a farce that made the regime look like incapable fools.
Not that they are not, but they don't want to emphasize that so much. Not that
they don't, but at least not make it that obvious. Not that it isn't, but...

~~~
jojobas
They couldn't block it even taking down half of all websites, including
Github.

At the same time government officials kept using it, including those in charge
of blocking it.

It was an "old man yells at cloud" travesty from the beginning.

------
throwaway4666
Let's be honest the real reason to use Telegram wasn't security, I mean
whenever the topic comes up here moxie (or his advocates) pops up and tells us
it's trash and we should all use signal instead.

The real reason to use telegram is that it's miles away the best messenging
program out there. It's as user friendly as whatsapp while having completely
seamless desktop/mobile integration (something whatsapp and signal have failed
to do), it only requires a phone number for the initial signup, and generally
speaking it has all sorts of cool features and less bullshit than
alternatives.

Then there are the little things - you can create multiple accounts and switch
seamlessly, you can delete whatever message from whomever for everyone without
leaving a trace (if it bothers you just switch to secret chats), all links are
listed in each convo, you have pretty much unlimited and unrestricted cloud
storage, etc.

Then you have all the gravy like cool tools for groupchat admin, channels, and
bots of course. You can order a taxi or search up a book on scihub (bypassing
countrywide blocking) with telegram. You can even do bizarre stuff like
discover people around you or verify your identity on a service with telegram.

Yeah my texts are probably being read by the FSB. So what? Better that than
the NSA, frankly. If I really want secrecy I'll use Tor or Signal.

~~~
LeoPanthera
> you can create multiple accounts

Only if you have multiple phones. One account per number.

> Yeah my texts are probably being read by the FSB. So what? Better that than
> the NSA, frankly.

I can't tell if this is a joke. If it's not, it's fairly insulting to everyone
who believes in a world with privacy and freedom.

~~~
sushshshsh
If I am living in the USA and the FSB reads my messages, what can they do to
me if they don't like what I say?

I personally think the NSA has a jurisdiction to do more to American citizens
in the USA. I would be extra careful about the NSA if I was H1B.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
> what can they do to me if they don't like what I say?

Leave a little nerve agent on your doorknobs.

~~~
sushshshsh
Based on historical statistics, there's an approximately 5 in 8,000,000,000
chance of this actually happening, and if you've never talked to a Russian in
your life, the statistic drops to 2 in 8 billion (those poor souls who were
injured accidentally)

~~~
drran
30 million dead Ukrainians disagree with your statistic.

~~~
sudosysgen
That is an inflated statistics of people in the USSR killed by the tyrant of
their own country. If anything it supports the point made above.

------
ibudiallo
As a consequence, my website is now available in Russia.
[https://isitblockedinrussia.com/?host=idiallo.com](https://isitblockedinrussia.com/?host=idiallo.com)

The issue was that to block Telegram they had banned a few IP blocks, around
10 million ips[1]. These blocks were used in both Digital Ocean and AWS. So if
your website or service used any of these blocks, it wouldn't be available in
russia.

[1]: [https://idiallo.com/blog/website-dont-work-in-
russia](https://idiallo.com/blog/website-dont-work-in-russia)

------
gdmka
You guys aren't seeing the bigger picture.

TG LLC got 1.7 bil USD with two rounds of investment. US based investors are
returned 72% of original fund. Those 28% are 500 mil USD.

It's rumored that TG CEO got 300 mil selling his share of VK, so in the end he
returned all personal investment on TG development. Who's behind all those
funds, private investors etc. How many of those are under US sanctions really?

And now, upon failing to submit the reasonable paperwork even thought they had
quite expensive and experienced lawyers, Pavel suddenly calls for unban in
Russia. Like a week later a legislation appears and almost immediately after
that the deal is done.

Reconciliation happened unbelievably quick. Or his words have so much power
now?

Just think Crypto AG serving the purposes of BND and CIA when you talk about
Telegram.

~~~
octaveguin
So the most reasonable explanation is that Pavel is in a conspiracy with the
Russian government and is living in exile as a cover huh?

Sounds pretty complicated when a simpler answer would also exist.

~~~
gdmka
I don't feel like he's living in an exile.

For starters, the citizenship that was acquired for $ 250k something is from
Saint Kitts and Nevis, known for it's abuse of human rights. To me it's a
classical double standard behavior.

He's vocal on not being able to conduct business in Russia as he pleases and
it's a clear violation in his purview. Never heard him being involved with
fighting inequity of the new home country.

Second of all, Saudi Arabia, the unofficial Telegram HQ, is tax exempt for hi-
tech, but don't quote me on it.

~~~
LudwigNagasena
> For starters, the citizenship that was acquired for $ 250k something is from
> Saint Kitts and Nevis, known for it's abuse of human rights. To me it's a
> classical double standard behavior.

Blame the UK and EU who allow visa-free travel with SKN but not with Russia
and don’t sanction it.

It is a country with a population of 50 000 people. The only reason it is not
extremely poor is because its business model is giving citizenship to
businessmen to avoid taxes and allow them to travel freely.

Fighting an obviously lost fight against SKN and jeopardizing your whole life
sounds even more stupid than fighting windmills.

~~~
gdmka
My point is he's accustomed to cutting corners.

>>Fighting an obviously lost right against SKN and jeopardizing your whole
life sounds even more stupid than fighting windmills.

He could've applied for maltese or cypriot passport.

------
miked85
I would guess this means the gov't now has access to Telegram messages, one
way or another.

~~~
golergka
There's quite popular conspiracy theory in Russia that says that Telegram was
FSB-backed project from the start, and the whole failed ban was implemented to
promote it. However, there's still no concrete proof that government has
backdoor access to it, so if they do, they're being very careful about it.

~~~
baybal2
The most obvious fact is that Mr. Durov is not walking with a hole in his
head, as a double digit portion of anybody who had balls to be audacious about
their opposition, and is not known to have an extensive security detail.

The mob has sent hitment to people whose offences were way lesser than that.

Their ways are unyielding, and uncompromising. Putin has a record killing
people who grieved him more than a decade ago, keeping trying for years on
end. People he killed some times survived 2-3, even 4, assassination attempts
over years, just to be eventually killed by yet another one.

Knowing that, it's hard to explain how Telegram kept maintaining an office in
Russia.

~~~
ZoomZoomZoom
Sorry, but you managed to write both grotesque and extremely simplified
description of Russian political practices.

There's absolutely no point in making any physical moves against Durov even if
he was openly anti-Putin and supported opposition in any way. It's never done
like that. He's already forced out of the country and is not considered a
direct threat. He or his remaining actives may be considered a future asset,
on the other hand.

~~~
akater
> even if he was openly anti-Putin and supported opposition in any way

This implies he does not support opposition in any way. This is not true. He
does support opposition rallies—when they are held to support his cause, true,
but such is political climate in Russia that publically supporting those who
vocally oppose the state policy is a domain for very few and quite brave.

When Libertarian Party of Russia was organizing a rally in 2017 to protest
Telegram ban, Durov contacted the Party himself. (I'm a member of LP RU.)

I don't count on Telegram security but Durov's public image and actions are
certainly noticeable and appreciated by opposition.

~~~
ZoomZoomZoom
> This implies he does not support opposition in any way. This is not true.

It implied just that I don't know for sure and it does not change a lot. Even
Khodorkovsky is not considered a threat worthy of eliminating - he much better
serves the cause being a propaganda target. Durov has even more to offer to
Russian gov't (digital technology is the new arms race) so he has even lesser
chance of bodily harm.

------
alufers
Does this mean that now Telegram will give the Russian government whatever
they want, if they think it is "extremist"?

~~~
katktv
Who knows. I personally don't think Durov will give his libertarian views up
to the Russian government like that.

~~~
knodi
Blackmail.

------
f311a
More than 550k of IPs are unbanned now:

[https://usher2.club/en/](https://usher2.club/en/)

Basically, 95% of the blacklist.

------
slenk
Backdoor-ed successfully?

------
nicbou
> The company refused to hand over encryption keys, arguing that it would
> violate users’ rights to privacy and would not help weed out terrorists.

Take note on how it feels to read this line when it's about a country that
isn't yours. When the United States pushes the same argument, the rest of the
world's privacy is at risk.

This is why European governments increasingly try to keep their data on
European soil, and to trust businesses bound to EU laws.

------
SXX
Russia never actually intended to fully block Telegram. Otherwise they would
just make Google kick it from Russian version of App Store and Google play,
but they never did it.

I'm not for any of conspiracy stories, but we need to be clear about this ban
story.

~~~
lightgreen
At least Apple rejected RKN request to block Telegram.

This is a random article (in a Russian) about RKN threatening to block App
Store in Russia if they refuse to remove Telegram from the App Store.

[https://www.the-village.ru/village/city/news-
city/313713-rkn...](https://www.the-village.ru/village/city/news-
city/313713-rkn-vs-appstore)

~~~
SXX
Both Google and Apple do block apps for certain countries though especially
those used for distriution of copyrighted materials. Russia certainly can
force Apple to comply if there was wuch a goal. Or at least RKN can just break
push notifications for everyone.

I'm not the one for conspiracy theories though. Most likely they never
intended to actually block it simply because they are using it themselfs and
that's just it.

~~~
lightgreen
> Russia certainly can force Apple to comply if there was wuch a goal. Or at
> least RKN can just break push notifications for everyone.

Obviously, they are not mad enough to break everyone's phones just to block
Telegram.

> I'm not the one for conspiracy theories though.

Yeah, that was my thought. You did not provide any evidence to the claim that
RKN only pretended they want to block Telegram, while there's a lot of
evidence they actually wanted to block: they blocked millions of IP addresses
and they threatened Apple to block App Store.

> simply because they are using it themselfs

If they really wanted to use it themselves, they would not block AWS and DO.

------
shaggie76
Some of our game servers were impacted by this and we ended up having to do
elaborate message forwarding for Russian players. I find it staggering that it
took 2 years to be lifted given how much collateral damage it caused.

------
m0zg
It never was actually successfully blocked. I was in Russia while it was
blocked - it worked OK, just seemed slower than usual. A lot of people use
Telegram there, for both messaging and for reading the news outside the
entirely government-controlled mainstream using "channels". Nowadays even some
government agencies have their own channels on it, in spite of the "ban".
There's a saying in Russia: the strictness of Russian laws is compensated by
optionality of compliance.

~~~
lightgreen
> Nowadays even some government agencies have their own channels on it, in
> spite of the "ban". There's a saying in Russia: the strictness of Russian
> laws is compensated by optionality of compliance.

Technically speaking there was no law prohibiting telegram for citizens or
government officials. “Optionality of compliance” does not apply here because
no user of telegram broke the law.

------
082349872349872
What's the "12+" next to the date? Does that imply gov.ru also has NSFW
subdomains?

\- Open up! Police! Your neighbours called.

\- Nu, so go next door. We didn't call for police, we called for ...

~~~
chmod775
> What's the "12+" next to the date? Does that imply gov.ru also has NSFW
> subdomains?

Might be a timezone? The most eastern part of Russia (cities such as Pevek,
Anadyr) observes UTC+12.

~~~
Etheryte
Checking the source, the element has the id "age". Not sure what it implies
one way or the other though.

~~~
dunkelheit
Yes, probably the age rating.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Internet_Restriction_B...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Internet_Restriction_Bill#Other_changes)

------
bpolovko
This is when I stop using it

~~~
iso-8859-1
Why are you stopping? Because you think they collaborate with the FSB more
now?

~~~
bpolovko
There is one certain thing - they are getting something out of that and they
want people to use it. I'm not sure what exactly. They either found a backdoor
or a struck a deal. Things like that aren't a joke in Russia. Mass control and
surveillance is a real thing, there are many reports of people being put in
jail for writing something against the government on Facebook or other
platforms.

------
loceng
Could this be an attempt to baby step closer access to infiltrate to the
Telegram team by presenting good will? As someone else commented this could
have been agreed upon through blackmail. How are these systems ultimately safe
guarded? Is it even possible while there are bad actors attempting to control?

~~~
bigdict
Non-Russians often assume some sinister motive behind actions like that, but
reality is much simpler.

The authorities failed to shut Telegram down while making active use of it
themselves. So now they are giving up because there’s not much point in
continuing the efforts.

~~~
squarefoot
By doing so they would send the wrong message though "feel free to use it
against us; we're neither closing nor monitoring it", which would be like
shooting in their feet. Unless they're just pretending it. Every government
fears what it cannot control, especially communications networks that could be
used to subvert the status quo; this applies to all governments in all
countries, including so called democratic ones. To me they're still actively
monitoring it, and I'm 100% sure they have the means of shutting it down just
in case of real necessity.

~~~
luckylion
On the other hand: if you force people to use VPNs to use Telegram ... you're
forcing people to learn to use VPNs.

And if you're afraid of people talking about stuff without you knowing, the
last thing you want it large parts of the population (or at least those parts
you're interested in) using more encryption. Basically: you can't stop it,
trying to stop it has negative side-effects, so stop trying.

------
octaveguin
It's strange that whenever telegram comes up, there's an unfounded suspicion
that it has some kind FSB/Russian government connection simply because it was
developed by a Russian.

This is insane and like pretty bigoted - not a good look for HN.

Here's the guy that leads the company:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov)

>In 2011, he was involved in a standoff with police in St. Petersburg when the
government demanded the removal of opposition politicians' pages after the
2011 election to the Duma.

He's living abroad because he's either not allowed or does not feel safe
entering Russia. VK was taken from him pretty much over his principals not to
do what HN just assume telegram does. Telegram was developed outside of Russia
to avoid being beholden to them.

The fact that Russia was actively blocking telegram should be proof enough.
The reason they stopped is because when they did, they would accidentally
blocked other services and it was kind of a disaster. They simply don't have
the expertise to run their blocking campaign. It looked bad so they stopped.

Russians are more than one-dimensional Putin-driven fake news generating bad
guys.

~~~
Avamander
> This is insane and like pretty bigoted - not a good look for HN.

No, you're just projecting. This mindset of untrustworthy until proven
otherwise is universally applied to all chat apps, from any country, it
happens under pretty much every discussion of Facebook's Whatsapp and
Messenger and it happens in discussions about WeiBo (and similar).

------
luminadiffusion
Russia did not lift this ban because they changed their stance on
encryption...

~~~
lightgreen
This in an unsubstantiated claim which does not help anybody.

------
noxer
Articles: Anything about Telegram Discussion: crypto baaad/all chats
logged/insecure by default etc. etc.

Yes we got it you don't like telegram. Use whatever and move on. There is no
need to constantly come up with the same BS. Cloud chats are in the cloud
(which you probably hate too ryt?) and no, they are not e2e encrypted. Calling
it a server side logging is just straight out FUD. Also pretty sure 99+% of
all telegram user never use the secret chat feature because telegram is mostly
so useful because of all the rest. And people use it for all the rest (large
community groups/channels/bots/games). I'm sure more than 99% of my telegram
messages go to groups that are public or semi public (like you would find the
link on another platform if you are part of the community there). Its
absolutely unwanted to have any kind of nonsense encryption for such groups.
Yet all the feature telegram can provide because it does not have nonsense
encryption, like fast server side search or link to messages visible on the
web, are the reason I and other use it. Just like y'all use hacker news and
don't mind that your comments are "server side logged".

tl;dr A tool isn't broken or insecure because it does not what you want it to
do. It's just the wrong tool for you.

------
arzeth
That's because on 2020-07-01 there will be a voting on constitutional changes.
And Putin would like to give us a (false) hope that our life is going to
become better and put his government in a good light.

Context:

In Russia we have a limit of 2 terms for presidents. Putin and his mafia don't
like it, so he decided to be nullified and get additional privilegies (e.g.
after he decides to resign, he will be able to dismiss a president).

Putin has even already signed the changes because he knows we are too scared
of jail to protest IRL: even if you are protesting alone, police will likely
beat & fine you (even if you are a girl or just holding a BLANK board) for an
unauthorized demonstration. In one video the election chief almost laughed
while saying everything is already decided and legitimate and they just want
our opinion.

But for additional legitimization Putin set the voting. Probably he doesn't
want the situation as in Venezuela. And he wants to increase his ego (his ego
is very high, just compare inauguration of him and Obama/Trump).

He paid many famous people for short videos where they support some part of
the changes, typical example: "I will vote yes because I like animals!"
although we already have laws for animals.

And none of those videos mention that Putin would be the president forever.
Only half people are even aware of this change (and many are forced by
employers to make a photo that they voted yes). Oh, and our constitution
doesn't work at all anyway. Gov-t people laugh at you when you mention
anything from it. And there were news several years ago that a journalist got
a suspended sentence (условный срок) of 4 years for extremism because he
quoted the constitution.

P.S. >97% of Russian IT people seem to hate Putin according to the comments I
read everyday. And Durov should hate him much more because Putin's mafia stole
VK (that's our Facebook with nice UI/UX and awesome search) from his control.

------
MacSystem
Did they make an agreement? Now the government got access to everything that
goes through telegram?

~~~
SXX

       > Now the government got access to everything that goes through telegram?
    

Nothing in Telegram ever had end-to-end encryption by default so you shouldn't
really expect anything but private chats to be secure.

~~~
MacSystem
I see. I read that somewhere but never checked to make sure it's really so.

------
ardy42
Translation
([https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Frkn.gov.ru%2Fnews%2Frsoc%2Fnews73050.htm)):

> About Telegram Messenger

> June 18, 2020

> We positively assess the readiness expressed by the founder of Telegram to
> counter terrorism and extremism.

> By agreement with the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation,
> Roskomnadzor removes requirements to restrict access to the Telegram
> messenger.

> We are ready to cooperate with all Internet companies operating in the
> country to quickly suppress the spread of terrorist and extremist
> information, child pornography, and the promotion of suicide and drugs.

> Currently, jointly with leading Russian and foreign Internet companies, on
> average weekly materials are removed:

> \- propagandizing suicidal behavior 2,500;

> \- extremist and terrorist nature 1,300;

> \- propagandizing drug use, about places of their purchase 800;

> \- with pornographic images of minors - 300.

------
dang
We changed the url changed from
[https://rkn.gov.ru/news/rsoc/news73050.htm](https://rkn.gov.ru/news/rsoc/news73050.htm).
We have deep respect for other languages, but HN is an English language site,
and submissions here need to be in English so people can read what they're
discussing.

