The Prosecutor General's Office of Russia was asked to check the Telegram's messenger for dissemination of propaganda materials of the international terrorist organization "Islamic State" (IS, banned in Russia). The relevant request was sent by the head of the Foundation for Democracy Studies, deputy chairman of the Public Chamber Commission on Harmonization of Interethnic and Interreligious Relations Maxim Grigoriev.
The supervisor has 30 days to decide whether the messenger's administration violates the law without blocking extremist channels. What awaits the creation of Paul Durov, argues the BBC.
Why did they attack Telegram?
Telegram launched by the founders of the social network "VKontakte" brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov in 2013. According to the administration of the resource, about 12 million messages are sent by day with the help of this free messenger, its active audience per month is 62 million.
In addition to sending messages from user to user, Telegram can show messages to all subscribers (public channels) or to a certain group (private channels).
The data transfer protocol developed by Nikolai Durov is said to exclude the possibility of intercepting messages by third parties. It is also impossible to determine who and from where updates the channels of the messenger. This made Telegram popular in criminal circles. In November 2015, the administration blocked 78 channels of the "Islamic State" group banned in Russia, but the channels continued to appear with renewed vigor.
This problem is appealed by the Russian authorities: in November 2015 State Duma deputy Alexander Ageev invited the head of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov to consider the possibility of restricting access to Telegram on the territory of the country. Pavel Durov in response to this proposed "to prohibit words, because with their help communicate terrorists."
Pavel Durov.
What materials will the prosecutor's office check?
Now a member of the Public Chamber, Maxim Grigoriev, asks the prosecutor's office to check the channels in which, according to him, instructions are distributed to commit sabotage and terrorist acts are planned in Russia.
"Over the past three months, a special line of the Public Chamber has received about 4,000 messages from citizens who have encountered extremist materials on the Internet," Grigoriev said. - Analyzing them, we discovered an unprecedented phenomenon of propaganda "Daesh" [another name of the banned IG] in Russian. Unfortunately, Telegram is one of the most popular resources for terrorists. But the company does not react to our letters in any way: I personally informed them about the channels with the explosives recipes - there was no answer. The statements of Mr. Durov that they are closing these channels, according to our observations, are not true. "
Maxim Grigoriev showed extremist materials, which, according to his own statement, he found in Telegram. The words "saltpetre" and "detonator" are found in them as often as grammatical and punctuation mistakes.
One document is still compiled correctly - it is an excerpt from a methodical manual on blasting in the Ukrainian language. The exact title of the document will not be given, since it can be found in the public domain. From the properties of the file it follows that it was created in 1999.
"This is only the top of the iceberg," Grigoriev continues. - Most of these materials are distributed through closed channels. So, taking the opportunity, I suggest that Durova still work out a systemic mechanism for suppressing terrorist propaganda in Telegram, otherwise we will have to come up with other methods of restraint. "
Agricultural fertilizer.
What is waiting for Telegram?
Try to block Telegram (or any other messenger) in Russia in two ways: prohibit mobile and Internet operators from transmitting its traffic. Or negotiate with Apple and Google app stores to block the messenger for the Russians.
"As users have found workarounds to banned torrent networks, they will also find the opportunity to use Telegram," said security expert Alexander Vlasov. - At the same time, as always in the digital environment, the more pressure there is, the more unlawful actions will be. Blossoming is not quite legal business to provide access to the messenger through foreign servers. It is better to finance "combat-ready" units of special services that will break into such closed systems. American experience in this sense is suitable for Russia. "
"On most mobile platforms, there are all the same anonymizers, proxies, browsers, which allow access to blocked sites and applications," says Artem Kozlyuk, the head of the Roskomsvoboda project.
According to him, even if Apple and Google go against the Russian authorities, there are third-party application catalogs where Telegram download is just as easy.
Thus, on March 1, Apple's general counsel Bruce Sewell at the congressional hearings called Telegram one of the most malicious applications and an absolutely unbreakable method of communication.
Original source:http://www.macdigger.ru/iphone-ipod/telegram-grozit-blokirovka-v-rossii-posle-proverki-genprokuratury-i-roskomnadzora.html