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October 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 3
Russian authorities prepare a new attack on Telegram
This time around, authorities are relying on some new equipment that is expected to do the job of blocking the service more successfully than last year’s attempts. Indeed the botched assault ended up making the service even more famous and
the number of users in Russia actually increased afterwards.
Tests of the equipment, reportedly controlled by Roskomnadzor, the government media watchdog, which is also in charge of regulating the internet in Russia, are currently run by mobile operators in the Siberian region of Tyumen, according to local media reports.
Details are scanty at this point. Earlier this year, Russian media reported that RDP.RU, a Moscow- based company focused on networking solutions for telecom and Internet providers, came up with some new technology for online traffic filtration, dubbed Deep Packet Inspection. Apparently this technology, provided by RDP.RU, which is partially (15%) owned by Rostelecom, the national telecom operator, is at the centre of the government's new anti-Telegram scheme. If successful, the equip- ment and technology could be used for filtering online traffic on a larger scale.
Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov recently referred to the scheme as a system for blocking undesirable online content but admitted that it will be primarily be directed against Telegram.
Similarly, he admitted that the task is challenging and the finalizing of the project will take a while.
“We are working on this issue,” he was quoted as saying by the state-run news agency RIA Novosti. “I think we’ll have something to report within a year.”
He also praised Telegram’s programmers for constantly changing the service’s configuration,
helping to bypass traditional blocking methods, admitting that event the new system wouldn’t be able to completely block the service, but substantially disrupt its operations.
Unlike currently used blocking methods, the new equipment will not focus solely on the IP protocol, he added, but provided no further details.
Telegram was banned in Russia on April 13, 2018, following its refusal to let the Russian secret service FSB to decipher user messengers.
Incidentally, the authorities’ failed attempts to block access to the service caused substantial damages to a number of online services, which saw their IP address blocked even though they had no relation to Telegram.
Still, more than one year later, the instant mes- senger continues to be widely accessible from Russia. People have no problem using Telegram on their phones, and VPNs allow them to use the service's desktop application.
The crackdown on Telegram was executed under a controversial law on data protection, adopted in 2016 and often referred to as the ‘Yarovaya law’ (named after the legislator who initiated
it, Irina Yarovaya) or, the ‘Big Brother law.’ The legislation stipulates that Russians’ private data have to be stored within Russia, also requiring that messenger apps and other entities responsible for “distribution of information” should add additional
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