Source: IzvestiaThe Moscow City Court
did not satisfy the demand of Telegram representatives for unblocking, as
reported by Vedomosti. Thus, the blocking of the messenger in Russia remains in force. According to Telegram representative Ramil Akhmetgaliyev, the messenger team will not stop at this and will again challenge the court decision. Most likely, the messenger developers will file a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights. True, in order to fulfill this task, they need to go through all the necessary stages of the courts in the Russian Federation.
“Russia today has missed the chance to become the first country to develop mechanisms for interacting with instant messengers and law enforcement agencies, and to find a balance in how to ensure national security without affecting the interests of citizens,” said Ahmetgaliyev.
Telegram continues to assert that Roskomnadzor does not have any authority to file a complaint with the court. Lawyers of the company stated that the prosecutor’s office has these powers, but Roskomnadzor can only prove its point in court. However, Roskomnadzor refutes the claims of Telegram, insisting that when filing a claim to block the messenger, all the requirements were met, and the department had all the necessary rights.
In turn, Akhmetgaliev called the actions of the Tagansky District Court formalistic and reminded that Telegram is not able to fulfill the requirements of the FSB for the transfer of encryption keys, as they are located on users' devices, and not on certain servers. An expert from Telegram was also brought in to attend the court hearing. He explained some of the technological aspects characteristic of the work of the messenger.
The representative of Roskomnadzor told the court that for about a year he was trying to get the company to bring the messenger architecture into a format that complies with Russian law. Simply put, the agency is trying to force Telegram to embed software bookmarks into the application architecture that would allow law enforcement agencies to access the content of program users. “A rather long period has passed, and we are talking about the architecture of the messenger. The FSB and Roskomnadzor tried to get a year from Telegram to bring the messenger architecture in line with the law. We believe that any architecture of the messenger can be changed in such a way that the Russian legislation is implemented, ”said a representative of Roskomnadzor in court.
According to the representative of Roskomnadzor, this would completely solve the problem with encryption keys. The ministry and intelligence agencies insist that Telegram is used by terrorists. Telegram lawyer Dmitry Dinze insists that the company cannot transfer user data, since this is technically impossible. However, Roskomnadzor believes that its requirements are completely fulfilled and has filed a lawsuit to restrict access to Telegram in Russia.
Representatives of the FSB called the process of blocking the messenger no alternative. According to them, the negative effect of Blocking Telegram is not comparable to the effect of preventing possible terrorist attacks. Whatever it was, but for most Russian users the messenger continues
to be accessible .
It is worth remembering that many sites and companies have
suffered due to Telegram locks. Roskomnadzor recognized this. True, the ministry believes that blocking blocks that include millions of IP addresses has affected only a few hundred sites. Experts do not agree, talking about thousands of sites and services. As for the amount of losses due to blocking, it reaches $ 1 billion. In order to collect information about the victims, a special hotline was also opened.
The decision to block Telegram was made by the Tagansky District Court on April 13 of this year at the suit of Roskomnadzor against the messenger. Then a representative of the Federal Security Service claimed that the company was obliged to provide them with the decryption keys. “This network is used by individuals, including terrorists and extremists. They spread information that can be used to harm the life and health of citizens, ”the official said. A little later, a court decision was made to block the messenger.
The FSB demanded keys to decode messages in the summer of 2017. However, Telegram refused to comply with this requirement, and in October the company was fined 800,000 rubles by a decision of the World Court in Moscow. Already in December 2017, Telegram tried to challenge the order of the special services in the Supreme Court and return the money, but it did not bring success.