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telegram

The Russian regime is waging state of war on the private messaging app Telegram, and there is already some collateral damage. Telegram was banned in the country recently after failing to plow over its encryption keys as ordered by the courts. Russian federation is attempting to enforce the ban in any possible way, but information technology's only causing a mess for internet users in full general, not simply those on Telegram.

Telegram was founded in Russia in 2022, but is currently based in the United kingdom. It'due south similar to apps like WhatsApp and Point. It supports encrypted communication between parties, which makes it hard or impossible for authorities agencies to mind in. A surveillance police passed in Russia back in 2022 was framed every bit a measure to combat terrorism, but information technology essentially granted the government access to all electronic communications. Messaging providers like Telegram are no longer permitted to apply encryption that the government can't crack.

Russian agencies probably went after Telegram considering it's one of the about popular messaging services in Russia, and it was founded in that location. Telegram knew the ban was coming when it refused to hand over the keys, so it moved its operations to servers on Amazon and Google IP addresses. Today, Russia has reportedly blocked 2 million IPs in Amazon's cloud and some other million over Google's way.

All this, and Telegram reportedly withal works for near users. Other services are non working well, though. In that location are many other services hosting content on these servers, which are no longer accessible in Russian federation. For instance, Russian users are complaining the group management service Trello and the game GuildWars 2 are both down.

Since it's proving harder than expected to block admission to Telegram'south servers, Russian regulators are going subsequently sources of the app. Both Apple and Google have been contacted with demands they remove Telegram from the Russian version of their app stores. Even third-parties that host the app are getting similar notices. APK Mirror, which mirrors costless Android app APKs from many developers, was told to cake access to Telegram APKs in Russia.

Even if Russian federation's scorched Earth approach succeeds in blocking access to Telegram, users could but fire up VPNs to connect. Russia also frowns on VPN usage, only that'southward even harder to stop. Telegram has 200 million monthly active users, and about 14 million of them are in Russia. They're non all going to switch to the government-approved alternative TamTam, owned by Putin marry Alisher Usmanov. That definitely sounds like a trap.

Now read: 20 All-time Privacy Tips