FSB: St. Petersburg terrorists used Telegram

The FSB said that the organizers and participants of the attack in the St. Petersburg metro used the Telegram messenger. This was reported by Interfax with reference to the Center for Public Relations of the Special Service.

According to the department, the Akbardzhon Jalilov terrorist, as well as "his accomplices and foreign curator" used the service "to conceal their criminal intentions at all stages of organization and preparation of a terrorist act."

The statement refers to the "total use" of Internet mixers with encryption for the "conspiratorial connection" of terrorists among themselves and with "curators from abroad" (spelling preserved. - Ed.). At the same time, Telegram is noted in the FSB, among all such services is most popular, since "provides terrorists with the opportunity to create secret chats with a high level of encryption of transmitted information."

“It is sad if the Russian special services operate such a tragedy as an excuse to strengthen their influence and control over the population,” Pavel Durov, developer of Telegram, commented on the FSB statement. “The abandonment of terminal encryption in a single country will make tens of millions of people defenseless from hackers and blackmailing corrupt officials,” Durov writes. “Moreover, weakening of encryption in all messengers will lead to undermining the national security of the country as a whole, since in this case foreign intelligence agencies will inevitably also gain access to all correspondence of Russian citizens. It will disappear - as the events in Paris showed, there are enough disposable phones and ordinary CMCs without any encryption to conduct a terrorist attack. ”

The day before, Roskomnadzor said that a few days remain before the Telegram blocking in Russia. In turn, Durov, in the next public response to the censorship department , noted that "the potential blocking of Telegram will not complicate the tasks of terrorists and drug dealers - dozens of other messengers built on the end encryption (+VPN) will remain at their disposal."

Durov noted that all similar VPN services and messengers are not prohibited in any country in the world. “To defeat terrorism through locks, you will have to block the Internet,” the Telegram developer emphasized.

The creator of the service said that its ban would violate the 23rd article of the Constitution (the secret of correspondence) and accused the officials of Roskomnadzor of ignorance of the principles of encryption of information. According to Durov, in modern instant messengers, the correspondence encryption keys are stored only on user devices and are inaccessible to the service administration. In addition to Telegram today, this technology is used by many other instant messengers: WhatsApp, Viber, Imessage, Facebook Messenger.

On Sunday, the head of Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, said that the agency "uses the latest possibility of communication and dialogue" with the developers of the service. According to Zharov, the time before the Telegram blocking "is calculated days." Zharov accused Durov of the fact that his unwillingness to convey the FSB keys of encryption "allows terrorists to still kill people with impunity."

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Telegram users from among the Kremlin officials will find him a replacement in case of blocking. “If in the end the services of this messenger will be inaccessible, then we’ll move on to another, we will see which will be more convenient. In this case there is competition, there is multiplicity, that is, a choice,” Peskova Interfax quotes.

Telegram, launched by Durov at the end of 2013 after emigration from Russia, has not yet been registered by Russian law as "organizers of information distribution." For the first time, the threat of blocking the messenger was reported on May 16 . Telegram developers in this regard 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." Meanwhile, in the RKN, reports of the claims of the department to the service were then called "rumors."

However, on June 23, Zharov made an open letter to Durov , calling on to the owner of Telegram to register in accordance with the Yarovaya Law and threatening the resource by blocking otherwise. The head of the RKN noted that his department repeatedly sent the service administration "to all available addresses" letters with explanations of the Russian law, but now "all available opportunities for official communication" with developers have exhausted.

Durov himself called the desire of officials to block the “Telegram“ paradoxical ”“ neutral in relation to Russia ”, noting that the“ controlled US ”WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger continue 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 ".

Later on the same day, Zharov said that Durov ignores user safety and provides opportunities for communicating with terrorists and other criminals. The owner of Telegram objected to this that only from the beginning of June the service has blocked more than 5 thousand public channels and groups in which terrorism was promoted. "Telegram processes requests for the removal of terrorist materials from around the world, and in any country Telegram was not blocked for non -existent" neutrality "in this matter," Durov emphasized.

In Russia, since spring, mass blocking of instant messengers for refusing to register as “organizers of information distribution” and cooperate with security forces. So, on April 10, access was closed to the popular Zello Internet , and on May 2 , BlackBerry, IMO and Line messengers got into the register of prohibited sites.