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posted by martyb on Friday March 23 2018, @04:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the "Land-Shark" dept.

Telegram, the encrypted messaging app that's prized by those seeking privacy, lost a bid before Russia's Supreme Court to block security services from getting access to users' data, giving President Vladimir Putin a victory in his effort to keep tabs on electronic communications.

Supreme Court Judge Alla Nazarova on Tuesday rejected Telegram's appeal against the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB spy agency which last year asked the company to share its encryption keys. Telegram declined to comply and was hit with a fine [paywall] of $14,000. Communications regulator Roskomnadzor said Telegram now has 15 days to provide the encryption keys.

[...] "Threats to block Telegram unless it gives up private data of its users won't bear fruit. Telegram will stand for freedom and privacy," Pavel Durov, the company's founder, said on his Twitter page.

Putin signed laws in 2016 on fighting terrorism, which included a requirement for messaging services to provide the authorities with means to decrypt user correspondence. Telegram challenged an auxiliary order by the Federal Security Service, claiming that the procedure doesn't involve a court order and breaches constitutional rights for privacy, according to documents.

[...] The court decision is intended to make one of the last holdouts among communications companies bow to Putin's efforts to track electronic messaging. Durov in June registered the service with the state communications watchdog after it was threatened with a ban over allegations that terrorists used it to plot a suicide-bomb attack.

What I find interesting is that Telegram has encryption keys to give them. If they do, then in my opinion they're doing it wrong.

Source: Bloomberg


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by cocaine overdose on Friday March 23 2018, @06:37PM (10 children)

    Android apps are just bytecode, so you can translate them back fairly easily and audit them yourself. If not, you can just skim the manifest, where all the permissions are and turn off anything unsavory. Or if you're a complete skrub, use VirusTotal to do a scan of the APK.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @06:50PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @06:50PM (#657214)

    Every time they push an update.

    Do they at least tell you every time? Or is it an automatic background thing?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @07:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @07:06PM (#657226)

    Unless it uses native code.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by edIII on Friday March 23 2018, @08:08PM (6 children)

    by edIII (791) on Friday March 23 2018, @08:08PM (#657241)

    I think I would prefer to just exit the entire Android/iOS ecosystems entirely. LibrePhone will be here soon, and that gives us a Linux device that does allow openness as jmorris believes is required.

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Virindi on Friday March 23 2018, @08:47PM (4 children)

      by Virindi (3484) on Friday March 23 2018, @08:47PM (#657251)

      LibrePhone will be here soon

      Wow! Just in time for the year of Linux on the desktop!!

      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:08AM (1 child)

        by bob_super (1357) on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:08AM (#657322)

        Problem: It will require being powered by a Thorium reactor.

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:32AM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday March 24 2018, @07:32AM (#657406) Journal

          Your information is wrong. It certainly will run on cold fusion.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:19AM

        by edIII (791) on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:19AM (#657325)

        LOL. That would be something. I don't expect this kind of Linux phone to take off initially, but I do expect brisk sales simply because it is entirely open, may have physical rocker switches for mic/cam inputs, and is being designed such that the carrier module can be replaced.

        The thing is, it will be orders of magnitude better in terms of security/stability because it's not carrier locked, and not locked away from user. Right now there are people operating on ancient versions of Android, replete with all the vulnerabilities, that can't really upgrade because the carriers aren't trying to be responsible sys admins. They're in to make money, and long term support of a device, it's drivers, the operating system, is simply way too costly in the eyes of the hellbound avaricious execuscum.

        It's really, really, hard to get a system with full and absolute root privileges, much less binary/blob free. The LibrePhone promises me:

        1. Actual ownership of the device
        2. Familiar OS, being a flavor if Linux
        3. A device designed around privacy and respecting my rights of ownership
        4. Easy and (relatively) pain free way to keep up to date. Especially security updates that might possibly affect Bluetooth
        5. Physical disconnect switches from the mic/cam. Who gives a shit if the government can own me, if the device is fucking blind till I push a rocker switch.

        I don't expect them take over the phone market, but I expect them to sell plenty of units to geek/privacy oriented people. That and anybody that gets well and truly fucked from playing with unsafe operating systems like iOS and Android.

        This may be a different situation where the year of Linux on the smartphone might not be that far away.

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
      • (Score: 1) by dwilson on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:32PM

        by dwilson (2599) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 24 2018, @04:32PM (#657573) Journal

        The year of Linux on the Desktop was 2004, that being the year I installed linux on my desktop.

        What year it was in your reckoning is, of course, your problem.

        --
        - D
    • (Score: 1) by cocaine overdose on Friday March 23 2018, @11:54PM

      Purism's phone? The thing that looks like a tablet? The thing I won't be able to hold in my tiny man hands?

      I'm currently running CopperheadOS and I've enjoyed it better than Replicant and Lineage. It's like a modern day mobile OpenBSD.

      The only issue with LibrePhone (and OS) is that it won't work for any phone but one (afaik). Firmware is incredibly picky and bloby, so it seems impossible to port over to android phones without too much work.