Telegram invented a smart thing to evade blocking. They made a proxy server and allowed the person hosting it to add a promo link for every user connecting through this server. This way Telegram channel owners are motivated to host such proxy servers and distribute their addresses so that their channel gets promoted for users of this server (and they get more readers and more profit).
So even if hosting providers like Amazon or Google will refuse to work with Telegram (because they don't want to get blocked in Russia for this), it will be difficult to find and ban all people hosting proxy servers.
Sadly, these proxy servers can be used only for connecting to Telegram.
In 2014-2015, I've spent great amount of energy to get out of Russia. Since I left Russia in 2015, the situation with internet freedom became much worse. Especially this year when Russia blocked millions and millions of IP-addresses in unsuccessful attempts to block Telegram.
My prediction for near future is that Russia become as restrictive as China or even worse.
I don't think VPN is viable long-term solution. Look, where are VPN servers might be hosted? Amazon or Digital Ocean? Well, this year Russia just showed that they can block 20 million IP-addresses on a whim.
And I see no signs of massive public demand for free internet. Why? Because if it's popular site in Russia, then it might be unblocked in the case of accidental blocking. If it's just random site in English, it will never be unblocked. And vast majority of Russians don't speak or read English at all.
In other words, Russia has absolutely no future as a country with free internet. RIP.
My advice to fellow Russians with brains: get out of Russia, run away as fast as possible from this goddamn place.
Might be a stupid question, but why is it always Telegram that gets talked about? Are other secure communications services like Signal, Keybase, etc already blocked?
In the context of Russia, the company that made Telegram is headed by Pavel Durov, creator of the main Russian social network, vk.com. Don't know the exact history, but ultimately the social network ownership was transferred to a large IT corp, and Pavel Durov had some falling out with big wigs, and left Russia to create Telegram.
He is a kind of a rebellious figure in modern Russia, and, as younger generation generally dislikes the regime, he is viewed favorably, and a lot of Russians use Telegram because of that.
So blocking Telegram would be a "we're stronger than you" move by the government.
Signal or Keybase are not blocked in Russia. I suppose that is because they don't have many users like Telegram. WhatsApp is known to comply with Russian legislation (and ironically several of its addresses were accidentally blocked while trying to disrupt Telegram service).
> why is it always Telegram that gets talked about?
Telegram is in the news because the Russian government picks on them so much. Russian government concentrates on Telegram because it's popular with the generation of Russians born after the collapse of USSR.
Russians are the very best at memes, the memes get spread by Telegram.
Telegram has this concept of 'Channels', which are basically an easier to use Twitter.
A person makes a channel, a Telegram user can easily subscribe to it.
Many popular Russian politicians, entertainers and media figures have Telegram channels that are subscribed to by 10s of thousands of users.
I don't know how Telegram makes money, I cannot remember ever seeing an ad in Telegram.
I guess it's more to do with trends and mass adoption. Telegram is a lot more popular than Signal or Keybase, and in particular is more popular than WhatsApp in certain areas of the world. Telegram has also been very effectively marketed as a tool for political activism, so groups using it would be targets.
1) Telegram Channels has channels among other features. This is like streaming rss feeds right to your IM. Channels quickly became a most useful thing for media that is opposed to the regime or just shares the information that would be censored otherwise
2) Telegram has no censorship, the do not block those channels either
3) Their security might not be perfect, but it was enough for the said media to deliver information withough being caught in any way. Some of the media actually switched to Telegram Channels completely.
All of this (and some other minor things) goes agains the will of the regime obviously.
Not being able to see or hear what people say about you is on thing, they can deal with this like they did years ago. But they can't stand the fact that they can't controll the flow of systematized information.
If I were in Russia, I wouldn't count on Telegram to keep my communications secure. Too many aspects of the story don't make sense. There are only so many proxies Telegram has, and Russia can just block them all, like China has. That, plus some big questions about Durov and Telegram itself make me question whether Telegram is just the Russian security services pumping an app that people think is secure from them and that they'll speak freely on.
Telegram uses it's own custom MTProto protocol.
Although the traffic is encrypted, it is identifiable as Telegram traffic (fixed structure, identifiable prefix for packets).
There's an outcry for them to use TLS but I didn't see that they said anything about that.
You cannot do deep packet inspection, but can identify encrypted packets and then run heuristics and statistical packet and end-point analysis on them.
If Telegram traffic has a specific signature or predictable pattern of packet sequences and sizes married with known IP addresses, quite a lot can be done at the packet inspection level (but not « deep » per se).
Encrypted protocols are often not fully encrypted, and expose enough to determine the nature of the traffic, if not the content. Even TLS, leaving Server Name Indication (SNI) unencrypted. Fortunately there is work underway to encrypt SNI. Also, in the TLS case, domain fronting (asking for e.g. google.com from the discriminated service, to fool filters) has become one tool to evade SNI-based attacks.
Technology companies that make DPI technology for censorship should DIAF. If you work at one, you are actively making the world a shittier place. That is all.
Please don't post unsubstantive rants to HN. The idea here is: if you have a substantive point to make, to make it thoughtfully; and if you don't, then not to comment until you do.
It's not a good argument. Propaganda can always defeat morals, make people accept and do unspeakable things. Well, not all people, but still a lot of people.
Ever felt patriotic, proud of your country? That's how it starts.
Whole "West" is full of cultural differences, despite the internet is not broken. Actually, there are more well-preserved cultural differences between TN, and NY in States than between most places in Russia (except maybe Tuva, and other poorly connected regions in Siberia, and Arctic) due to centralist, paternalist, and chauvinistic policies of Moscow internet haters.
This is not related to cultural differences. The government just wants to read what people write about and block information they don't like. And I assume they have difficulties spying on opposition activists which happen to use Telegram too.
In Russia you can get prosecuted for reposting a meme on social network. Imagine how many "criminals" can be found if the police will be able to read private messages too.
Oh my god.. So you really think that a totalitarian control over what the country's population is allowed to view on the Internet is somehow a good thing and a way to stop brain drain? How come other countries manage to have their cultures flourish on the age of the Internet? I just can't see this kind of blocking bringing anything good for Russia..
I just visited Russia recently for a month and very much prefer Russian culture to that of the West. I'm thinking of going back permanently but probably won't.
Oh, no you should go back and let us know a year later how life is under Pooty Poot.
I am Russian, and I do not use Telegram, I and do not really know the technology that it relies on, so my opinion is probably worthless, but I can't get rid of the feeling that if Telegram just left the scene quietly and peacefully when the Russian authorities announced the ban, things would have been much simpler and yes, better. The authorities would have pretended that their mission had been accomplished. People who still really needed Telegram could continue to use it with the help of proxies or vpns. And the mayhem that occurred when the Russian internet watchdog started blocking millions of IPs would never have happened.
Instead we had this ridiculous escalation causing the disruption of the normal internet communications for a while, and promising even more sinister problems in the future.
I think it's in Telegrams best interest to make a big deal out of this.
More positively, not going quietly into the night when faced with state repression is pretty much in line with their ideals. I can totally see why they'd want to fight it out.
On the cynical side, grand standing here is great for PR.
So it is Telegram's fault for what your Government did? I'm sorry you have to live under this, but I think it is maybe the Government's fault for doing those things.
[+] [-] codedokode|7 years ago|reply
So even if hosting providers like Amazon or Google will refuse to work with Telegram (because they don't want to get blocked in Russia for this), it will be difficult to find and ban all people hosting proxy servers.
Sadly, these proxy servers can be used only for connecting to Telegram.
[+] [-] splatzone|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hal9000xp|7 years ago|reply
My prediction for near future is that Russia become as restrictive as China or even worse.
I don't think VPN is viable long-term solution. Look, where are VPN servers might be hosted? Amazon or Digital Ocean? Well, this year Russia just showed that they can block 20 million IP-addresses on a whim.
And I see no signs of massive public demand for free internet. Why? Because if it's popular site in Russia, then it might be unblocked in the case of accidental blocking. If it's just random site in English, it will never be unblocked. And vast majority of Russians don't speak or read English at all.
In other words, Russia has absolutely no future as a country with free internet. RIP.
My advice to fellow Russians with brains: get out of Russia, run away as fast as possible from this goddamn place.
[+] [-] konart|7 years ago|reply
Not always on option. It's easy to leave when you have no family to take care of or parents, or other relatives with needs etc.
[+] [-] aaomidi|7 years ago|reply
We need to hide services properly and make the cost of blocking a single service very expensive.
[+] [-] amaccuish|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbowcutt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rizzin|7 years ago|reply
He is a kind of a rebellious figure in modern Russia, and, as younger generation generally dislikes the regime, he is viewed favorably, and a lot of Russians use Telegram because of that.
So blocking Telegram would be a "we're stronger than you" move by the government.
[+] [-] codedokode|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PeterMikhailov|7 years ago|reply
Telegram is in the news because the Russian government picks on them so much. Russian government concentrates on Telegram because it's popular with the generation of Russians born after the collapse of USSR.
Russians are the very best at memes, the memes get spread by Telegram.
Telegram has this concept of 'Channels', which are basically an easier to use Twitter.
A person makes a channel, a Telegram user can easily subscribe to it.
Many popular Russian politicians, entertainers and media figures have Telegram channels that are subscribed to by 10s of thousands of users.
I don't know how Telegram makes money, I cannot remember ever seeing an ad in Telegram.
[+] [-] lucideer|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] konart|7 years ago|reply
1) Telegram Channels has channels among other features. This is like streaming rss feeds right to your IM. Channels quickly became a most useful thing for media that is opposed to the regime or just shares the information that would be censored otherwise
2) Telegram has no censorship, the do not block those channels either
3) Their security might not be perfect, but it was enough for the said media to deliver information withough being caught in any way. Some of the media actually switched to Telegram Channels completely.
All of this (and some other minor things) goes agains the will of the regime obviously.
Not being able to see or hear what people say about you is on thing, they can deal with this like they did years ago. But they can't stand the fact that they can't controll the flow of systematized information.
[+] [-] cameldrv|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charlesdm|7 years ago|reply
Anyone who can shed some light on how they might be doing this? I'm curious.
[+] [-] partyfaker|7 years ago|reply
There's an outcry for them to use TLS but I didn't see that they said anything about that.
Here's a nice article for more info: https://blog.susanka.eu/how-telegram-obfuscates-its-mtproto-...
[+] [-] netneutral|7 years ago|reply
If Telegram traffic has a specific signature or predictable pattern of packet sequences and sizes married with known IP addresses, quite a lot can be done at the packet inspection level (but not « deep » per se).
[+] [-] gnode|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sdf43543t345|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charlesdm|7 years ago|reply
Anyone who can shed some light on how they might be doing this? I'm curious.
[+] [-] zzzcpan|7 years ago|reply
Ever felt patriotic, proud of your country? That's how it starts.
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway99990|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sctb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kingofhdds|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codedokode|7 years ago|reply
In Russia you can get prosecuted for reposting a meme on social network. Imagine how many "criminals" can be found if the police will be able to read private messages too.
[+] [-] gerhardi|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] village-idiot|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] neuromantik8086|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] onetimemanytime|7 years ago|reply
Oh, no you should go back and let us know a year later how life is under Pooty Poot.
[+] [-] azangru|7 years ago|reply
Instead we had this ridiculous escalation causing the disruption of the normal internet communications for a while, and promising even more sinister problems in the future.
And Gitbooks still don't work properly here :-(
[+] [-] village-idiot|7 years ago|reply
More positively, not going quietly into the night when faced with state repression is pretty much in line with their ideals. I can totally see why they'd want to fight it out.
On the cynical side, grand standing here is great for PR.
[+] [-] SEJeff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonymfus|7 years ago|reply
I am Russian and I like this escalation because it makes more people to hate Putin making overthrow of his regime more likely.
[+] [-] nradov|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mushka|7 years ago|reply