FOGINT: Ukraine Government Telegram Restrictions
October 7, 2024
The only smart software involved in producing this short FOGINT post was Microsoft Copilot’s estimable art generation tool. Why? It is offered at no cost.
“Ukrainian Parliament to Restrict Telegram Usage” reports that Telegram faces new restrictions due to security concerns. The news story says:
The Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) will introduce restrictions on the use of the Telegram messenger app for official purposes.
Mr. Durov’s willingness to cooperate with government requests for user information is not the primary reason for this set of restrictions on Ukrainian government staff use of Telegram. The write up points out:
These measures are justified by past incidents where third parties gained access to government employees’ data through Telegram or created fake accounts
What are the measures used by Ukrainian officials to discourage the use of Telegram? Among those in use are:
- No contact synchronization
- No official information transmitted on a Telegram channel
- No Telegram app on work computers, government-provided mobile phones, or personal devices used for government communication
- “Technical blocks” will be implemented to prevent Telegram usage.
Will these measures work? The answer, “To some degree.” However, the increase in interest in alternatives has created a mini-boom for the Simple X end-to-end encrypted application. Certain ultra leaning groups are moving to other secure messaging systems.
A person who looks a bit like Pavel Durov demonstrates his patented exercise: A sudden twist and back flip from a cell in a French prison. Thanks, MSFT Copilot, good enough like some many things in 2024.
The problem, however, is that Telegram has more than 900 million users and offers a number of user-centric features not available in other E2EE applications; for example, Telegram does not charge for data storage or bandwidth. The fix is to acquire a burner phone or use specialized services.
The interesting facet of this move is that it comes after Telegram’s decision to block certain Ukrainian produced content from distribution to Telegram users in Russia. Prior to Telegram’s surprising action Ukrainian government officials disseminated text content to Russians who were members of Ukrainian Telegram channels.
That action made clear that Telegram was demonstrating its flexibility. Pavel Durov then did a cirque de soleil vault with his fancy move to cooperate with legitimate requests for information from unnamed government authorities.
FOGINT thinks Mr. Durov is confident he stuck his landing for this trick and scored a 10. FOGINT scored Mr. Durov an imaginary number.
Stephen E Arnold, October 7, 2024
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