Why did Telegram unlock?

While RT editor Margarita Simonyan congratulated readers on Telegram unlocking, some users cautiously perceived the news of the official return and so working messenger. Roskomnadzor motivated the cancellation of the blocking expressed by Pavel Durov's “readiness to counteract terrorism and extremism”.

Roskomnadzor agreed with the Prosecutor General’s decision to unlock the Telegram messenger in Russia. On the department’s website there was news under the heading “On the Messenger of Telegrams” (spelling saved). The department reported that he positively evaluates the readiness to counteract terrorism and extremism expressed by the founder of the messenger and removes the blocking in agreement with the Prosecutor General.

How they prepared the cancellation of blocking

In May, State Duma deputies Fedot Tumusov and Dmitry Ionin introduced a bill proposing to prohibit the blocking of access to Internet services through which government agencies disseminate official information during the period of increased readiness or emergencies. The authors of the project clarified that they mean precisely Telegram, which the authorities use to inform the population about coronavirus. Then the Ministry of Communications did not support the initiative, although the department itself has its own official telegram channel, through which export flights are coordinated for Russians who are stuck abroad due to coronavirus. The Ministry of Communications considered that such an amendment will allow you to avoid blocking by disseminating information from state bodies. Telegram and the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, Alexander Hinshtein, did not agree to unlock: “According to the logic of the authors of the bill, we can remove any messenger that places such information from the requirements established by law.”

The founder of Telegram Pavel Durov welcomed the deputy initiative: “Unlocking would allow thirty million Telegram users in Russia to use the service more comfortable. In addition, she could have a positive effect on the innovative development and national security of the country. ” Durov wrote about the “large path” to overcome the threats of terrorism and extremism: “Methods of detection and removal of extremist propaganda were improved, and now tens of thousands of attempts to extend public calls for violence and terror are suppressed by the Telegram team monthly. In the fullest preservation of the secrets of correspondence as part of the confidentiality policy of Telegram, mechanisms were developed that allow us to prevent terrorist acts around the world. Our experience in dozens of countries over the past 6 years shows: the fight against terrorism and the right to the secret of personal correspondence do not exclude each other. ”

Recall that the resource was blocked in Russia precisely under the pretext of combating terrorism, the official reason for the blocking was the messenger’s refusal to provide the FSB to the Keys of Deciding necessary for access to user correspondence. The FSB claimed that Telegram was used in organizing a terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg metro in 2017. Durov refused to provide the required keys, explaining this by the lack of technical ability to do this with a constitutional right to the secret of private correspondence.

Why unlocked Telegram?

Unlock Telegram with a joint decision of Roskomnadzor and Prosecutor General’s Office raises two main issues among users: does this news mean Durov’s consent to cooperation with special services and how departments could unlock the messenger without canceling the corresponding court decision.

According to the editor of Znak.com Dmitry Korzev, the phrase of Roskomnadzor about the readiness of the founder of the service can mean the presence of agreements between Pavel Durov and the authorities: “... Roskomnadzor’s words about the readiness of the founder of the service to cooperate in the field of terrorism and extremism - a transparent hint that the messenger may not be so anonymous. [...] well, and well The main thing is that I do not see for the Prosecutor General, Roskomnadzor and the Kremlin special reasons to unlock Telegram, unless they agreed with Durov about something. For what? They lived well with blocked Telegram, all the shame from the inability to block was already experienced, nothing prevented me from maintaining this status further. But suddenly they introduced a bill on unlocking to the State Duma, and then simply unlocked by the decision of the executive authority, even bypassing the court. For what?"

The interfax source said that Telegram administrators did not transmit encryption keys, since for technical reasons this is no longer relevant, but the messenger interacts in specific cases in the fight against terrorism. And the Moscow City Court explained that “Roskomnadzor can independently make a decision on the full or partial execution of a court decision or refusal to execute it,” since the department is both a plaintiff and an executor of a court decision.

On April 13, 2018, the Tagansky District Court granted the claim of Roskomnadzor and decided to "establish a restriction of access to Telegram resources, oblige Roskomnadzor to ensure execution." On the day of the court, the Mail.ru holding bought advertisements at Kommersant, Vedomosti and Business Petersburg for its Messenger Tamtam, which was promoted as a full -fledged replacement of Telegram with similar functionality. On the same day, Pavel Durov announced that the messenger would use built -in methods for bypassing locks. The subsequent fan shutdown by Roskomnadzor IP addresses could not cope with Telegram blocking, but more than 20 million addresses turned out to be blocked , for example, the Google search engine was blocked during the day. The Telegram application continued to function in Russia and worked all the time blocking.

In 2018, Telegram changed the confidentiality policy, adding there a item on the transfer of information about people suspected of terrorism by a court decision. In this case, the messenger has the right to open the IP address and the user phone number. Then Telegram promised to talk about all such cases in a specially created Transparency channel , but now there is not a single publication.