Тег: Telegram

Telegram as an indicator

Sperry UNIVAC

Итак, российские власти наконец-то решились заблокировать святое – Telegram, на котором стоит не только большая часть русскоязычного комьюнити, но на него также завязаны и практически все процессы в самой стране – от пересылки депутатами мемов друг другу во время заседания, до координации действий подразделений на фронте. Естественно, это вызвало пожар, подобный Чикагскому и все наперебой (и слева и справа) умоляют товарища Сталина РКН отменить это дикое решение.

Однако, важно здесь немного иное. Блокировка Telegram – лишь следствие, а не причина. И нет, дело вовсе не в цензуре ради цензуры — например, российская цифровая инфраструктура совершенно не готова к массовому использованию населением «национального мессенджера» по причине банального отсутствия серверов, которые, кстати, Москва безуспешно пыталась арендовать в странах Центральной Азии и Китае.

Причина лежит в другой плоскости: Российская Федерация находится на пороге кризиса, причем кризиса открытого, и он, очевидно, должен открыто проявить себя в текущем году. Экономические санкции, силовое давление на инфраструктуру экспорта, отсутствие устойчивых союзнических отношений (что также связано с экономикой) уже прямо демонстрируют своё влияние на функционирование государства. Российские же экономические отчеты показывают нехватку бюджетных средств, урезание экспортных доходов, растущую инфляцию и все прочие издержки «мобилизационной трансформации».

До определенной поры Москва умело маскировала нарастающий ком проблем в глазах населения. Полагаю, что скором времени подобная политика уже не будет оправдывать себя в полной мере – и потому требуется превентивная, ещё более жесткая зачистка информационного пространства. Никаких даже условно «независимых» (не секрет, что фактически все российские каналы более 100 тыс. читателей финансируются и де-факто принадлежат тому или иному ведомству и подконтрольны чиновникам куда в большей степени, чем могло бы казаться) информационных ресурсов и средств коммуникации, доступных широким массам, существовать не должно.

Секретом Полишенеля является и то, что инициатором закручивания всех гаек являются чекисты (просто по принципу – торчит гайка? крутим!), даже если это не только не оправдано логически, но и катастрофично экономически и социально. КГБ – сама по себе организация не из приятных, но когда КГБ радостно бежит в сторону КСИР – это заставляет задуматься о том, что же их так подгоняет.

И, на мой субъективный взгляд, в действительности населению РФ нужно больше размышлять именно над этой непростой темой, а не сокрушаться и сетовать на следствия в виде ужесточающейся цензуры. Правильные вопросы находятся в области первопричин этой цензуры, а не её природы – и ответы на них куда более злободневны и оттого чудовищно неприятны для многих.

RKN is rolling out a fresh update for Telegram

Your account no longer belongs to you: what’s behind the SMS blocking in Russia

Recent case from Russia: State authorities have begun to mass-filter incoming SMS messages with authorization codes from popular messengers such as Telegram and WhatsApp. This essentially means that if you want to register or even just log back into your account, the code sent to you via SMS will not arrive. Why is this happening?

This is not a fight against fraudsters and spam, as officials claim, but a deliberate attempt by a stationary gangster to completely block Telegram without resorting to crude methods that have repeatedly failed. Telegram has been technically resisting attempts by Roskomnadzor to block it for many years, does not cooperate with the authorities of the Russian Federation on the removal of inconvenient content and does not disclose its user data to them. The state, unable to directly block the application, decided to strike through mobile operators, preventing the sending of authorization codes. A simple and effective (at first glance) tactic: no code – no account. As a result, millions of ordinary users suffered. Authorities traditionally use the argument “concern for citizens” to hide their true goal – obtaining full control over the population’s communication.

It is worth generally asking the question: why is linking to a phone number bad? For authorities, a mobile phone number is like a passport, only digital. It’s difficult to get a SIM card without a passport, and therefore all your online activity is immediately linked to you personally. Moreover, there’s SIM-swapping: fraudsters (or even intelligence services) can reissue your SIM card and gain access to all your accounts. Even using anonymous registration services like Onlinesim – it is not a panacea. These virtual numbers are often flagged by anti-fraud systems and blocked during registration; access recovery to an account is impossible after the rental of a number, there’s also a risk of logging and leaking them to intelligence services.

But what about spam if not through a phone number? Good news – there are many methods, and most of them are better:

1) Captchas and humanity tests. Yes, choosing pictures of buses can be annoying, but it’s better than giving a stationary gangster your personal data.

2) Proof-of-work. A small technical trick: the user’s device silently performs a short mathematical task during registration that requires computing power. This is easy for one person, and hell for mass bots, making their use unprofitable for the attacker.

3) Limiting new accounts. New users cannot immediately send thousands of messages, for example, within 24 hours after registration. Spammers lose interest, and ordinary people don’t even notice it.

4) Reputation system and community moderation. If a lot of complaints about spamming are received against an account, it is blocked.

5) Technical restrictions (by IP, device identifier, browser fingerprints). A good platform can easily detect multiple automated registrations and prevent them.

6) Paid verification in cryptocurrency without revealing your identity. Let spammers pay for their entertainment, and a decent person wouldn’t mind spending a few cents on entry if it guarantees anonymity.

So what to do? Fortunately, the world hasn’t split into two halves on Telegram and WhatsApp. There are messengers created by people who understand the value of privacy.

Session – complete anonymity without a centralized server.
Threema – Swiss confidentiality. The app costs around $5 one-time payment, but it doesn’t require a number or even an e-mail.
Briar – Even if they cut off your internet, it will find your neighbor via Bluetooth, which is very important for protest participants.

Why is this important to all of us? Freedom of communication is the most basic condition of any freedom. In a world where states are trying to tie every person to their phone number with digital handcuffs, any attempt to maintain anonymity becomes a small revolution. And remember: either you control your data and your identity, or the state will do it for you!

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Epitaph for TON

When I was asked a year ago whether TON had any prospects, I, as “smart Masha,” reasoned about the network effect and other technical and economic challenges the project needed to overcome to stand a chance—and generally demonstrated my skepticism. The reality turned out to be much simpler and more hopeless: the project was simply banned.

For this very reason, in a recent post about Bitcoin’s rise, I pointed out that Bitcoin’s dominance among cryptocurrencies seems to me to be the only viable scenario. Not because “helicopter money” flowed into Bitcoin, as Grigory Bazhenov tried to present my position, but specifically because Bitcoin is invulnerable to regulators. They can curb its penetration, they can pressure the exchange of Bitcoin for fiat—but they are unable to destroy it. Even if the NSA manages to find and imprison the real Nakamoto—what would that affect? At most, a heap of Bitcoins would be dumped onto the market, but the market would swallow them without choking. However, sanctions against Durov, Zuckerberg, or Buterin are indeed capable of seriously affecting the projects they lead. This link turned out to be the weakest. This is the Achilles’ heel of any potential “Bitcoin killer.”

Of course, all the software developed as part of Durov’s project is open source, and it has already been launched under the name free TON, but it lacks the very network effect that was the main bet and the killer feature of TON—Durov officially stated that he would not support such projects, which means the new free crypto has no hope of being integrated into Telegram.

But every cloud has a silver lining. It was precisely thanks to my review of TON’s capabilities that I became acquainted with Lightning—and I continue to recommend everyone use it. Over the past year, it has become much easier to use, and while the Lightning manual used to take up a separate page on my site, now it is a short paragraph on the donations page.

Durov created a great achievement—VK. It was taken away. He created an even greater one—Telegram. It took off, but it didn’t seem like enough to Pavel. He reached for the greatest of all, and it is not his fault that it didn’t work out. But what is truly bad is that now Durov will have to cover the losses at the expense of Telegram. I hope he has learned lessons from the VK case and will try not to ruin the project.

Anonymity, protest, division of labor

A post from the Telegram channel “IT criminal cases SORM rossiyushka” is actively spreading across the network about how important it is for everyone to set the correct privacy settings in Telegram, after first updating it to the latest version. The update was made following the outrage of protesters in Hong Kong, who discovered they were being deanonymized by adding all possible phone numbers to the contact list, after which Telegram’s friendly interface immediately gave up the activists’ accounts by phone number. The hole has now been patched, but the old settings are still there by default; they must be changed manually.

Not long ago, I also mentioned a post from the Cryptoagora channel about how to obtain fake bank cards and SIM cards without intermediaries (spoiler: realistic silicone masks are used).

And very recently, Bitarch spoke out regarding the fact that automatic facial recognition systems are inevitably doomed to false positives, meaning that one can not only cover their tracks this way, but also try to feed the opponent members of their own gang: other security forces, odious officials, and so on.

In light of the fact that the Russian authorities are actively purchasing cameras for facial recognition at mass protests, the opportunity arises to provide the press with headlines like: “Zhirinovsky threw feces at a Rosgvardiya officer,” or “Three Putin doubles urinated on a cop.” But—no.

The complication of the protest and the tightening of the screws by the regime currently dictate a clear maintenance of the boundary between legal and illegal actions. During a legal protest, whether agreed upon with the city administration or not, a person limits their toolkit and also expects other protest participants to do the same. Any other behavior will logically be perceived by them as a provocation. At the same time, at other times when the streets are not flooded with security forces, nothing prevents anonymous individuals from carrying out well-prepared actions that discredit the regime, appearing on camera in the images of, for example, Petrunko or Kusyuk.

It is also worth considering in advance which role in the protest suits you best and not striving for versatility. You can sit anonymously on the internet and write articles of a quasi-extremist nature, or you can speak from a podium—but it will be very difficult to combine both functions, as attention to a known activist increases the probability of deanonymizing their persona. You can attend agreed rallies, appearing on surveillance cameras and in cell operator logs, but it will be difficult to combine this with posting flyers or smashing police windows, deanonymized using Russian Elephant. Finally, you can donate to projects you like, although earning money for this may not leave you, for example, with opportunities for serious offline activism.

There will be no post tomorrow; in my offline incarnation, I am going to observe the elections. But if the whim of running for office myself had entered my head, I would have had to hand the channel over to someone else. There is no helping it; every choice entails costs. So let’s drink to the hope that tomorrow we will not regret the choice we made today!

Put on a mask — don’t get caught