FSB has opened a procedure against the company running the Russian encrypted messaging app, Telegram, on basis of 2016 data protection law. According to accusation, the company has not provided, after repeated requests, messenger’s encryption keys.
It was Pavel Durov himself, the “Russian Zuckerberg“, the founder of Vkontakte social network and Telegram, to post on his social page the requests sent by the Fsb to the company headquarters in London. The Federation’s higher security body wants “any information needed to decode all received, transmitted, delivered and processed messages” from the most secure instant messaging app in the world. In a word, secret services want the keys to Telegram.
“Today, Iran has officially dropped out of the number of countries that I can visit – the Tehran prosecutor started a criminal case against me there”, Durov wrote. “Russia seems to be in a hurry to join Iran. Fsb has opened a procedure for violating an anti-constitutional law. “
Jihadists’ favorite app
Telegram is used by 10 million people in Russia and over 100 million in the world. It is the favorite instant messaging app for journalists working in illiberal countries, dissidents and activists living in totalitarian regimes, jihadists of the Islamic State, and all those who simply don’t want their conversations end in other’s hands, including governments. Its end-to-end encryption used in so-called secret chats is considered one of the strongest existing ones. Impossible to access even for the FSB, as their request seems to prove.
What the Kremlin’s services refer to is the infamous Yarovaya law, launched just over a year ago. A law considered illiberal by international organizations, as it forces Internet and telephone providers to keep all the phone calls, data, messages and images exchanged for six months and all metadata for three years. The obligation also extends to online messaging services, which, if they use encryption, are required to provide access keys. Such a pervasive law that is by many considered also inapplicable. Edward Snowden estimated the cost of infrastructure to store data to $ 33 billion.
A law that opened the new course of Russian censorship on the web, and may not be the last one.
Kremlin’s eyes on the web
The Kremlin approach to the web had so far been characterized by a good dose of laissez faire. No Iranian style censorship, no China-like firewall. But things are changing.
Pavel Durov himself has long been a target of Russian secret services. His other creature, Vkontakte, the “Russian Facebook”, made him a billionaire but also made him just another Russian gold exiled. Durov farewell to his creature dates back in 2014, when he wrote on his profile that “It’s becoming harder and harder to defend the principles that once underlay our social network. The general director’s freedom to manage the company has decreased significantly in recent times. I am grateful to all users who supported and inspired me over the past seven years. I will continue to partake in the future of VKontakte as its co-founder, but I have no interest in any formal office given the new situation. I resign as Acting Director General of VKontakte”.
Durov’s decision came after a year of tensions with other shareholders of the company, which has an estimated value of $ 2,8 billions. Things changed when the investment group United Capital Partners bought 48% of the company in November. UCP is a fund led by Ilja Sherbovich, close to President Putin and member of the board of directors of Rosneft. After two months, Durov himself ceded his 12% to the CEO of the mobile telephone company Megafon, owned by the oligarch Alysher Usmanov, Russia’s richest man. In addition, recently Durov came under strong pressure to shut down pages related the Ukrainian activists of Euromaidan and to the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Durov fled abroad, leaving behind an aura of mistery, before buying a $ 250,000 passport of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Then he gave life to Telegram, an innovative app that soon seemed an answer to FSB’s meddlers. Who now are seeking him on the other side of the Atlantic ocean.
@daniloeliatweet
FSB has opened a procedure against the company running the Russian encrypted messaging app, Telegram, on basis of 2016 data protection law. According to accusation, the company has not provided, after repeated requests, messenger’s encryption keys.
