Putin Asked to Investigate Damage Caused By Telegram Web-Blocking

In a report presented to President Vladimir Putin, Internet Ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev says there should be an investigation into the actions of telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor after it tried to block Telegram last month. Millions of innocent IP addresses were caught up in the dragnet, a result of Roscomnadzor not carrying out a damage assessment, Marinichev says.

After a Moscow court gave the go-ahead for Telegram to be banned in Russia last month, the Internet became a battleground.

On the instructions of telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor, ISPs across Russia tried to block Telegram by blackholing millions of IP addresses. The effect was both dramatic and pathetic. While Telegram remained stubbornly online, countless completely innocent services suffered outages as Roscomnadzor charged ahead with its mission.

Over the past several weeks, Roscomnadzor has gone some way to clean up the mess, partly by removing innocent Google and Amazon IP addresses from Russia’s blacklist. However, the collateral damage was so widespread it’s called into question the watchdog’s entire approach to web-blockades and whether they should be carried out at any cost.

This week, thanks to an annual report presented to President Vladimir Putin by business ombudsman Boris Titov, the matter looks set to be escalated. ‘The Book of Complaints and Suggestions of Russian Business’ contains comments from Internet ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev, who says that the Prosecutor General’s Office should launch an investigation into Roscomnadzor’s actions.

Marinichev said that when attempting to take down Telegram using aggressive technical means, Roscomnadzor relied upon “its own interpretation of court decisions” to provide guidance, TASS reports.

“When carrying out blockades of information resources, Roskomnadzor did not assess the related damage caused to them,” he said.

More than 15 million IP addresses were blocked, many of them with functions completely unrelated to the operations of Telegram. Marinichev said that the consequences were very real for those who suffered collateral damage.

“[The blocking led] to a temporary inaccessibility of Internet resources of a number of Russian enterprises in the Internet sector, including several banks and government information resources,” he reported.

In advice to the President, Marinichev suggests that the Prosecutor General’s Office should look into “the legality and validity of Roskomnadzor’s actions” which led to the “violation of availability of information resources of commercial companies” and “threatened the integrity, sustainability, and functioning of the unified telecommunications network of the Russian Federation and its critical information infrastructure.”

Early May, it was reported that in addition to various web services, around 50 VPN, proxy and anonymization platforms had been blocked for providing access to Telegram. In a May 22 report, that number had swelled to more than 80 although 10 were later unblocked after they stopped providing access to the messaging platform.

This week, Roscomnadzor has continued with efforts to block access to torrent and streaming platforms. In a new wave of action, the telecoms watchdog ordered ISPs to block at least 47 mirrors and proxies providing access to previously blocked sites.

Source: Torrentfreak.com

Alexander Zharov, the head of Roskomnadzor, called the methods of bypassing the locks used by Telegram, pirated, reports Interfax.

Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2018) on Friday, he explained that the ways to bypass the locks used by Telegram are pirated, since the messenger, without identifying themselves, uses the IP addresses of various subnets, in fact, hiding behind the "living shield" of respectable resources that are on these networks.

Zharov specified that blocking such a complex application is a process. According to him, at present, the degradation of the service is from 15 to 30%. "The fact is that work to circumvent the blockade is coming with the final equipment, that is, with smartphones and user tablets, so the degradation is different on different gadgets," Zharov said. He noted that the logic of Telegram's actions is understandable to Roskomnadzor. "And we understand how we will act in the future." Wait for the news - the process continues, "Zharov summed up.

According to the head of Roskomnadzor, the agency will seek a one hundred percent blocking of Telegram, many users are already giving up the messenger.

All the latest terrorist attacks, including those in Russia, were coordinated through the Telegram messenger, this is confirmed by the results of the operative-search activity of the Federal Security Service, "Zharov said.

At the same time, Roskomnadzor is in dialogue with the lawyers of Google and Apple regarding the removal or restriction of access to the Telegram application in the company's online stores, Zharov said.

He noted that the lawyers of Roskomnadzor and companies "interpret the third point of the court's decision in different ways, which says that Roskomnadzor and other legal entities should limit access to the application."

"They do not want to recognize themselves as" other persons, "they want a direct demand on companies," Zharov explained, recalling that precedents, when Russian companies asked the company to restrict access to applications in online stores App Store and Google Play, is.

As previously reported, on April 13 the court ruled to block Telegram in Russia for failure to comply with the FSB's requirement to provide keys to decrypt messages. Roskomnadzor then restricted access to the messenger, and blocked VPN and proxy services that provided access to Telegram in Russia.