The official version is that Telegram was used by terrorists who blew up the metro in Saint Petersburg.

The real reason is more simple: it's mostly used by the small middle class, people working in tech and business. The current laws in Russia were used to block LinkedIn, but they didn't touch Facebook or Twitter — that would be too much.

Wouldn't this move just make then move to WhatsApp and eventually beg the same question as the parent comment?

It could be, but much more people use WhatsApp in Russia, people like my parents who haven't noticed any laws against the free internet before. They don't touch Signal or anything else as well.

WhatsApp has lots of clients for the shitty phones poor people use and a ton of Russians use WhatsApp. It's also possible that some implementations of these WhatsApp apps or the phones that host them are hacked, while others are not so it could be less of a binary distinction than one might assume.

Terrorists breath air, therefore we should ban air for everyone?

Generally, I try to avoid criticising others but this logic is really disturbing and dangerous and I am very worried about people who stand behind it. It hasn't gotten us anywhere. It never will.

Trying to understand your argument:

Are you saying that you think banning perfectly normal everyday things "because terrorism" is ok,

... or did you miss the invisible sarcasm tag?

None of the above. What the parent comment is sarcastic about is a line of argument people use, especially politicians who want to promote their agendas.

Nonsense.

Terrorists do use the air to convey voice; air is their primary communication medium for propagating their terrible ideas, and arranging their despicable plans. If we denied them access to air, to stop their voice communication, it would severely limit their ability to harm us. Isn't saving even just one child's life worth it? And don't worry about the terrorists without air not being able to talk about the legal, daily matters. Relevant institutions are already equipped to handle deaf and mute people. They could also just use internet or other service.

Just deny them air so they can't talk, okay? It's the common sense solution. /s

Slippery slope is a thing, especially when actors with under-handed intentions ask for simplistic, ham-fisted solutions. Once a precedent is established for censorship or snooping, it's pretty hard to draw, and defend, a line in the sand.

Does this mean that we should sit back and enjoy the show because "actors with under-handed intentions" and "precedent"s? Wake up. We can only get through collectively.

> Does this mean that we should sit back and enjoy the show because "actors with under-handed intentions" and "precedent"s?

No.

> We can only get through collectively.

Yep, but we shouldn't do it by throwing away the freedom we try to defend

There is no corporate entity supplying terrorists with air. This is why this consumer-based end-to-end encrypted chat messenger space isn't going to go anywhere. Telegram is delusional if they think nations will let them operate this kind of a business. Every terrorist attack where Telegram is used will paint a bigger and bigger bullseye on their backs. The media will get in on it. The public will get in on it. Lawmakers will get in on it. Hacker News will get in on it.

The witch hunt against Facebook shows how this will look though the particulars will be different. At the end of the day, Telegram has devs that need to eat and servers to pay for and at the very least all revenue sources will be denied to them.

> Every terrorist attack where Telegram is used will paint a bigger and bigger bullseye on their backs. The media will get in on it. The public will get in on it. Lawmakers will get in on it. Hacker News will get in on it.

Here I was, thinking that we here at HN aimed higher.

> The witch hunt against Facebook shows how this will look though the particulars will be different.

Witch hunt usually implies baseless, made up accusations.

When it comes to Facebook I'd phrase it differently; maybe something about consequences or justice?

>Here I was, thinking that we here at HN aimed higher.

Why would you think that? Nothing special about HN - it's a collection of humans from a very specific culture.

>Witch hunt usually implies baseless, made up accusations.

Not only. It also implies widely inflated and hyperbolic accusations.

This in amny ways is analogous to the gun debate in the United States. Everytime there is a major shooting, there are calls for certain types of guns to be banned. Every time there is a terrorist attack coordinated by an encrypted chat app, there will be calls to wither ban it or have a backdoor.

Your comment entirely and completely ignores the express intent and purpose of the objects you compare, which makes the comparison invalid.

The parent post is a nice example of the type of underhanded rhetoric that will eventually be used to sway the public in favor of banning encryption.

Pretend your target is inherently evil, and can only be used for inherently evil things. (Terrorism! Child abuse! Piracy!) Then you're perfectly set up to vilify anyone who dares to question your position.

I think it's a nightmare either way

Yeah. Plus I shouldn't give any VCs any more ideas.

It does when they switch apps and the other users can't legally do so.

Telegram is widely popular among that part of the country who like doing illegal things; it was even endorsed by local darknet, they set up bots to help circumvent blocking and stuff like that. Really juicy target for banhammer compared to whatsapp that has a smaller and more legitimate user base (in russia).

Yes, I would like to know how that works since whatsapp is constantly being advertised as super secure because of using the signal protocol. Do Russians get a different version of the app?

Assuming they set up signal protocol correctly, which I'm sure they did since Open Whisper Systems partnered with WA to set it up right, they're likely just sharing details on users' contact lists.

Considering Facebook owns WhatsApp this isn't surprising, they're definitely happy to share this information (ever seen someone in your FB "suggested friends" list after messaging them on WA?)

If they had pushed a different version of the app to Russia or there was a way of breaking message encryption I'm sure someone would have noticed by now.

I just read that on iOS apps from the same developer can share sandbox data. That means the facebook app can read the whatsapp message history. [1]

[1] https://www.heise.de/mac-and-i/meldung/Entwickler-Facebook-k...

I think you can pretty easily guess from the #deletefacebook statement of the whatsapp founder that they did not implement the protocol "correctly".

Corporate statements about the security and privacy of their products usually leave open the possibility that they engage in lawful intercept. Even if they don't they can always just lie and use the fact that they have national security letters barring disclosure as legal cover if it ever comes out.

They could probably still use this "design feature" (that Signal doesn't have) to hack users who don't authenticate the people they're talking with (also authentication isn't enabled by default on WhatsApp, but it is on Signal):

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/13/whatsapp-...

If you're a user of WhatsApp, make sure you enable the two-factor authentication PIN, too, because otherwise it should be relatively trivial for your own government to gain access to your account by using your number with the local carrier's help (it's also possible to do it without the carrier's help, given how broken the security of carrier networks is). Many Telegram users were hacked this way by the government in Russia, too.

Whatsapp makes a local backup in internal storage everyday. There is no setting to disable this backup. There are many opportunities to access the chat history, specially for Facebook, that wouldn't require cheating with the signal protocol.

Contact lists and related metadata. Some of it is crucial, like geolocation.

Opposition activists use mostly Telegram. WhatsApp is not so convenient and not so popular among them.

Yes, every messenger operating in Russia has to share users' information.

There is a formal process for that. First, a messenger must register with Roskomnadzor (a government organization). So if a messenger is not on the list, it doesn't have to share anything yet.

What i think about it: why not build in ToR client right into the app itself, make it update itself, then always use ToR with obfs4, and openly declare that there will be no compliance, and you can't do anything?

Only concern could be the file size, but Orbot is only 12MB for example.

It will also greatly increase popularity of the messenger.

Whatsapp is unblocked because blocking it would not significantly benefit Russian intelligence operations overseas.

Cause for them to use it overseas it needs to be unblocked internally (to Russia)? Russia can always "whitelist" some applications for government officials too. Or y'know not rely on third-parties and roll their own solution, not like Signal's protocol isn't open sourced.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

Blocking Telegram helps Russian intelligence operations by making it appear like as if the Russian government did not have access to the vast majority of conversations over Telegram.

You were on about WhatsApp.... I mentioned Signal, Telegram does not use Signal's protocol.

You should seek work in Whatsapp's PR department. You sound just like them.