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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) by tangomargarine on Friday March 23 2018, @09:25PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Friday March 23 2018, @09:25PM (#657265)

    Encryption has never been about making data safe forever. It's always been about making the data secure for long enough.

    Technically yes, no user can fully trust a computer they haven't built and programmed themselves. But ain't nobody got time to do that from the ground up. At a certain point you have to place your trust in the hardware company/source (Intel, some breadboard guy, whoever has RMS's blessing) and some programmers (Microsoft, Apache, some open source guys).

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
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