Translated material
How to live without telegram
The New Times discussed with experts how to protect the correspondence, bypass the barriers of the authorities and what services are popular in the world
Photo: Pixabay / Gerealt
Millions of victims
The judicial confrontation of Telegram and the authorities of the Russian Federation ended on Friday defeat of the messenger in the Tagan court of Moscow. Having satisfied the lawsuit of Roskomnadzor , who demanded from the service to provide the FSB keys to decrypt user messages, the judge decided to immediately start blocking the resource. At the same time, she demanded precisely immediate blocking, because "a long non -fulfillment of a judicial decree can lead to significant violations of the constitutional rights of personal data subjects, to cause significant damage to public and private interests." The founder of the service Pavel Durov in response said that the company does not trade confidentiality, and human rights should not be infringed due to fear or greed.
Both bloggers and officials reacted to the court’s decision. The popularity of the service in Russia is now undeniable. According to Mediascope for February, it is used by more than 12 million Russians. According to the Combot service, users are more than 15 million. In total, the service has 200 million users at various points in the world. Every day, according to the Telegram-Region blog, more than 500 thousand people are recorded in it. The service is one of the most significant audiences in Iran (more than 40 million users), Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Belarus.
According to the MOMRI study, the audience of the service in Russia is mainly residents of large cities and, above all, Moscow. Channel data @aboutsMM indicate that the most users (65%) are a man. The bulk of users are not older than 34 years.
However, the most popular messenger in the Russian Federation at the end of 2017, according to the Beeline study, is WhatsApp. In the second and third places - Viber and Skype. Four is closed by Durov's service.
The audience of service in Russia is mainly residents of large cities and, above all, Moscow. Most of users (65%) men. The bulk of users are not older than 34 years old
Officials immediately admitted that people would try to bypass locks. So, the deputy head of the Ministry of Communications of the Ministry of Communications Alexei Volin said (quote for Interfax): “Telegram blocking will not lead to any shocks in the user market, because part of the audience will calmly move to other services, especially since many Telegram users have used other messengers, and those who want to remain in this product know a large number ways how to get around the lock and continue to use the service that they are used to. ”
Pavel Durov himself on his VKontakte page stated that the service will use its own methods for bypassing the blocking, however, for a complete guarantee of the application, it recommends using VPN.
There are no clear forecasts, how to reduce, if it is reduced, the audience of the service in the Russian Federation, but no one gives. Blogger Ilya Varlamov believes that the service from blocking may even win: “For the Telegram team, this is also a huge plus. The main market for Pavel Durov is now outside of Russia. In addition, Russian roots greatly interfere with the team. You yourself know - tantrums about Russian hackers and troll factories, which are now inflated in the West. Here the world receives a clear signal. Pavel Durov does not cooperate with the current Russian authorities, it does not fundamentally do not come to contact. Yes, and good advertising will not hurt before the ICO. ”
How to protect correspondence
NT -interviewed experts believe that you should not wait for a sharp outflow of the audience from Telegram. The software developer Grigory Greenberg draws attention to the fact that in the last week, according to the statistics of the AppStore and Google Play, the VPN services are released in TOP. “Users are preparing to turn off, and most will be able to bypass the prohibition of the provider,” the expert states. Greenberg added that the VPN itself is blocked in China, and their creators are pursued, therefore, in the Russian Federation, the level of locks is still not very effective.
An employee of the Israeli company in the Internet, Anton Kaplan, in a conversation with NT, said that "by real safe messages, except for Telegram (using closed chats)." According to him, whatsApp uses encryption stable to hacking, but he has questions for his keyscake mechanism. The expert emphasizes that the entire correspondence of WhatsApp users in most cases is stored on servers (that is, if desired, special services can get access to it), therefore, "in addition to truly persistent encryption, it will not be able to protect us anything."
Kaplan recommends to always use VPN to maintain anonymity, especially if there is no trust in the provider. And especially when it comes to providers in Russia.
Particularly loyal authorities are services from Mail.ru. According to the expert’s observations, the majority of criminal cases for repost in Russia were instituted for reposts in services that belonged to Mail.ru
The Israeli programmer Sergei Kuznetsov does not really trust the WhatsApp: “It is obvious that if the service is not blocked in the Russian Federation, it means that it is already cooperating with the authorities or will soon be blocked. If we talk about messengers, then Viber, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Imessage are likely to cooperate. ”
Kuznetsov notes that the companies and services related to Mail.ru are especially loyal to the authorities: “If the Messenger-Mail.ru developer company is already merged, all accesses are provided where it follows. Tamtam has already appeared from Mail.Ru, it also belongs to the Israeli and actively advertised ICQ. ”
According to the expert’s observations, most criminal cases for repost in Russia were instituted for reposts in services, one way or another belonging to Mail.ru. The programmer believes that one of the safest methods of communication in Russia was and remains “secret” chats in Telegram.
“If you want truly private communication, in no case should you use popular messengers and social networks,” Kaplan says.
The expert also does not advise using the available access to free proxy servers, but use your dedicated proxy or all the same VPN. At the same time, he emphasizes that there is no absolute anonymity and privacy in the modern world - "secrets of correspondence does not exist."
What is used in the world
Of the 187 countries analyzed by Similarweb for the most popular messengers, WhatsApp is a world leader, being the most popular in 109 countries (55.6% of the states studied). Among the countries that prefer this messenger, Brazil, Mexico, India, Russia, many countries of South America, Europe, Africa and Asia.
If you want truly private communication, in no case should you use popular messages and social networks. The expert also does not advise using the available access to free proxy servers, but use your dedicated proxy or all the same VPN
The Facebook Messenger program takes second place in 49 countries, including Australia, Canada and the USA. It follows Viber, the last of the applications, leading in more than 10 countries. This messenger is highly popular in Eastern Europe, occupying a leading position in Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine. In addition, he is popular with Iraq, Libya and on Sri Lanka.
Line, WeChat and Telegram are three more applications, the popularity of which is not limited by one country. These applications have many fans in China, Iran and Japan.
Edward Snowden, a former CIA and US NSA, in his microblog (@snowden) told which messenger considers the most reliably protected from wiretap. IPhone owners Snowden advise the Signal application, which works through VOIP and ZRTP protocols, developed by the creator of PGP-shifting by Phil Zimmerman.
Signal messenger was created by the California Open Whisper Systems. Previously, the company also developed TextSecure (an application that protects against messages) and Redphone (an application that warns the wiretap), and recently stated that in the near future she would unite the tools of TextSecure and Redphone in a new application. It is these applications that advises the owners of Android Snowden. Both programs allow you to send encrypted text messages and make encrypted calls. The National Security Agency, where Snowden once worked, included Redphone to the list of applications-hails.
The most popular messengers in the USA
The number of users, according to Statista.com:
103 million on Facebook
4 8.6 million in Snapchat
18.2 million in WhatsApp
10 million in Google Hangouts