Telegram blocking: The head of the RKN released an appeal to Durov

The head of Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, published an open letter to the creator of the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov, in which he called for the registration of the service as a "organizer of the dissemination of information", otherwise the messenger will be blocked. Zharov’s appeal is posted on the website of the department.

“One requirement, and it is simple: fill out the questionnaire sent by information about the company that runs Telegram and officially send to Roskomnadzor to include these data in the register of the organizers of the dissemination of information,” the letter says.

Zharov writes that Roskomnadzor repeatedly sent letters to the Telegram administration with explanations of the Russian law "at all available addresses", but now "all available opportunities for official communication" with the developers of the messenger have exhausted.

"In the case of actual refusal to fulfill the duties of the organizer of the distribution of Telegram information in Russia, it should be blocked. Until we get the required information. The time allotted by Roskomnadzor is expired," the head of the department concludes.

Deputy Minister of Communications Alexei Volin to the question of Interfax about the possible blocking of Telegram replied : "We do not have irreplaceable." He refused to predict the consequences of blocking.

Durov himself called the "paradoxical" desire of the authorities to block "Telegram neutral in relation to Russia, while the" controlled US "WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger continues to work. "As soon as Telegram is blocked, the correspondence of Russian officials, their communication with friends and relatives and other sensitive data via WhatsApp/Viber will go to the Apple ICloud/Google Drive clouds controlled by America," Durov wrote . "What is the meaning of the national security point of view? interests ".

Information about the threat of blocking the messenger first appeared on May 16. Telegram developers then said: "Not a single government or special service in the world has yet received a bit of information from us. It will always be so." The service team emphasized that all data transmitted through the messenger are encrypted, and the keys for decryption are stored in several dates-centers in different jurisdictions. In Roskomnadzor, information about the claims of the department to the service was called "rumors."

According to the current "Law of Yarovoy", "Organizers of the dissemination of information", which are required to register their services by messengers, are required to hand over the keys of messages at the request of the FSB.

Telegram, created by Durov after his departure from Vkontakte and leaving abroad, was launched at the end of 2013. The service has more than 100 million active users around the world. The Russian user base has three times for a year and as of February amounted to 6 million. In addition to the secure exchange of messages and files, Telegram has recently provided a voice service service. In Russia, some officials and departments have Telegram channels, in particular, the Foreign Ministry and the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov. The State Duma started its channel in April this year and closed the next day.

Since April, mass blocking of messengers has been continuing in Russia for refusing to register as distributors of information and cooperate with the authorities. On April 10, the popular Zello Internet Internet was inaccessible to Russians . On May 2, BlackBerry, IMO and Line messengers got into the register of prohibited sites .