Rosreestr blocking: complete list of blocked messengers
Several messengers have already been banned by Roskomnadzor. What and why - you will learn from this article.
Rumors that the government is going to ban instant messengers have been circulating for a long time. And partly the information is confirmed: systematic blocking began in the spring of this year. However, these “repressions” are not as global as they might seem. A small number of programs fell under them, and even those have the opportunity to “rehabilitate themselves.”
List of messengers blocked by Roskomnadzor
Let's list the messengers prohibited in Russia:
- BlackBerry Messenger. Cross-platform application with a large subscriber base and wide functionality. Very similar to Viber, which also has the ability to create group chats: https://o-viber.ru/kak-sozdat-gruppu-v-vajbere.html.
- Imo. Initially - a web service, then mobile and desktop versions were released. Two types of accounts: regular and business. Encrypted connection, third party protocols were disabled in 2014.
- Vchat. Audiovisual chat.
- Zello. Application - walkie-talkie. Communication is possible privately or by open channels. Cross-platform, including desktop versions. Russian audience - about 400 thousand people.
There are also instant messengers banned in the Russian Federation, but then unblocked: WeChat is a cross-platform program owned by a Chinese company, but popular all over the world, including the Russian Federation; Line is a very popular (about 1 billion downloads) messenger with built-in social network. Property of Naver Corporation, South Korea.
What are the reasons for application bans?
Any means of communication is a potential tool for fraud of varying degrees, broadcasting calls for illegal actions or extremist content. For example, during the protest wave in Turkey (2013), dissatisfied citizens actively used Zello as a means of transmitting prohibited information bypassing censorship.
In this regard, the need arose: to exclude the anonymous use of programs used for exchanging text, voice and video messages; protecting the user’s right not to receive information from unwanted sources; securing the right of the Russian government to use messengers as a means of notification in case of emergencies, etc.
The essence of the law
This is a bill that imposes certain obligations on messengers in relation to the government of the Russian Federation, and also regulates the activities of such programs. Key points:
- Mandatory user identification. Registration in the application must be carried out indicating a telephone number, which becomes the person’s identifier. The provision is based on the fact that when buying a SIM card, we transfer our personal (passport) data to the telecom operator. The operator, in turn, according to a pre-concluded agreement, provides information to the messenger.
- The ability for users to block unwanted contacts. We are talking about a ban on incoming calls and messages.
- Providing the Russian authorities with the opportunity to send mailings through the messenger: warnings regarding emergencies.
- Preventing the spread of illegal information using the application.
The companies that own instant messengers have only a few months left (until January 1, 2018) to bring the applications into compliance with the requirements stated in the bill. And which messengers were banned in Russia, Roskomnadzor can restore, but also after making changes.
The Russian government is introducing new rules for the use of instant messengers. Now only the person for whom it is registered will be able to use the account. phone number, tied to the service. This was stated in a message from the Cabinet of Ministers published on the official Internet portal legal information.
New order will take effect in 180 days. The head of Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, in a comment to Izvestia, said that this is necessary to create a safe communication environment for citizens.
“The possibility of anonymous communication in instant messengers complicates the activities of law enforcement agencies when investigating crimes,” Zharov emphasized.
According to him, now messenger administrators will check whether the user’s phone number is actually registered to the person who is communicating. To answer mobile operator 20 minutes are given. If the user's data matches the information in the company's database, identification will be considered successful. Otherwise, the service must refuse to provide the service.
In addition, cellular companies will be required to assign users unique code identification, which will be automatically generated by the messenger. The MTS press service told the publication that operators will have to make technical improvements, since the equipment currently does not meet the stated requirements. But in theory, a response to a request from a messenger within 20 minutes is feasible.
Why is it important
- On January 1, 2018, a law came into force in Russia obliging instant messengers to identify users by subscriber number. At the same time, after the law came into force, the media wrote that it was not being implemented, since there were no by-laws prescribing the rules for identifying users.
- For violation of the law prohibiting anonymity in messengers for legal entities, fines of up to 1 million rubles are provided.
Roskomnadzor decided to add BlackBerry, Imo, Line messengers and Vchat video chat to the list of sites banned in Russia. While application sites are available
Photo: Shizuo Kambayashi/AP
Roskomnadzor added the BlackBerry, Imo, Line messengers and Vchat video chat to the register of prohibited sites. Department press secretary Vadim Ampelonsky told RIA Novosti about this.
He explained that Roskomnadzor, together with law enforcement agencies, “is systematically filling out the register of organizers of information dissemination.”
Earlier, the Roskomsvoboda organization drew attention to the inclusion of messenger sites in the register. This list contains some application IP addresses and their websites. As of 15:44 on May 2, the portals of all four messengers were opening.
Roskomsvoboda suggests that the inclusion of instant messengers in the register is due to the fact that their owners refused to provide user data in accordance with the Law “On Personal Data”. RBC sent a request to Roskomnadzor for an explanation of the reason for the blocking.
BlackBerry Messenger was created in August 2005. The application is available not only on BlackBerry phones, but also on smartphones with operating system Android, iOS or Windows. The messenger's website states that the application has been downloaded more than 100 million times.
In mid-April, which was popular among truckers and activists. The agency explained its decision by saying that the owner of the service, the American Zello Inc., did not provide the Russian authorities with data on time for inclusion in the register of information dissemination organizers (ORI).
The company itself called the department's demands absurd. Zello Russia Operations Director Veronika Zaslavskaya told RBC that about 400 thousand people used this application in Russia.
Image caption Not all messengers cooperate with Russian intelligence services, but this puts them at risk of being blocked
The Russian government has prohibited Internet messengers from disclosing any information about interaction with intelligence services. Users of instant messengers that comply with Russian law will never know how often these services satisfy the curiosity of the FSB.
Administrations of instant messengers (in the current law they are called organizers of the dissemination of information on the Internet, ORI) must ensure “non-disclosure of any information about specific facts and the content of such interaction to third parties,” follows from the text of the government decree of January 18. The document was published on the official legal information portal on Monday, January 22.
To transfer user data to intelligence services, messengers must install special software and hardware. Which ones exactly are not specified. By its decree, the Russian government prohibited the placement of these funds outside the country.
The resolution directly concerns instant messengers that are registered in the Roskomnadzor ARI register. These include Telegram, Agent Mail.ru, Chinese WeChat, Russian social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki.
It is forbidden to be transparent
International IT companies report intelligence agency calls in transparency reports published twice a year. Thus, the latest report from Facebook refers to the second half of 2016, reports from Google, Twitter and Microsoft - to the first half of 2017. Russian social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki do not publish transparency reports and refuse to provide them upon request.
The government has not determined the punishment for disclosing information about interaction with the special services, notes Daryana Gryaznova, a lawyer for the human rights group Team 29.
“If ORI refuses to comply with these requirements, there are formally no charges under which one can hold him accountable - the Administrative Code establishes liability for the disclosure of information, access to which is limited by federal law, as well as for failure to fulfill the obligations assigned by federal law (and here by-law act),” notes the lawyer.
Gryaznova reminds that in accordance with the law on operational-search activities, information about forces, means, sources, methods, plans and results of such activities is a state secret.
"There is only one meaning - if the internal affairs bodies Federal service security and other bodies that carry out operational investigative activities have decided to read your correspondence, they will do it, and now they want to force representatives of the messengers not to tell anyone about this,” the lawyer sums up.
The government decree completely closes the transparency of law enforcement and any public control, says Sarkis Darbinyan, partner of the Center for Digital Rights, lawyer in the field of cyber law.
"Projects such as Ranking Digital Rights examine the reports of large IT companies and rank them based on the level of transparency. Judging by the position of the government, the work of such projects in Russia will be impossible, and the entire process will take place behind closed doors. This can be extremely bad affect the digital rights of Russian users,” the expert believes.
Messengers are obliged...
The Russian law on messengers came into force on January 1, 2018. According to it, messengers are required to identify users by phone number.
The law obliges instant messengers to ensure the possibility of sending electronic messages at the initiative of the authorities, as well as to limit the transmission of messages that contain “illegal information.” If the messenger fails to comply with these requirements, the law allows telecom operators to block access to the service by court decision.
For violations of the law, instant messengers may be subject to a fine of up to 1 million rubles.
Russians were prohibited from using instant messengers anonymously. The government has approved new rules, according to which services are now instant messages Only those who link them to a real number and confirm their identity through the operator will be able to use them. During the identification process, the messenger will send a request to the operator to find out if the subscriber is in the database. The operator will have 20 minutes to provide a response. Each user will be assigned a unique code.
For operators, compliance with the new legislation will require additional costs, stresses leading analyst of the Fintech Lab accelerator Sergei Vilyanov: “Operators will have to process millions of requests, and given that today every citizen has more than one SIM card, companies will have to constantly respond to these requests and create a load on your equipment. It turns out that everyone will have to write their full name, surname and patronymic when registering in the messenger. This is, firstly, strange; this is not accepted in instant messengers. Secondly, what happens?
We take the user base - first names, last names, patronymics, probably also date of birth will be required - and hand over this information to foreign companies.
After all, most of the messengers that are popular in Russia today are foreign developments. There is no practical benefit in this."
According to Roskomnadzor, which proposed the bill, anonymous correspondence in instant messengers prevents law enforcement agencies from investigating crimes, and the new rules will supposedly be able to fix this. But Internet Ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev does not believe this. According to him, this will not only not help the work of the police, but will also complicate corporate communication: “This is simply illegal, some kind of huge security hole. Roughly speaking, you have created some kind of platform and simply by searching through and contacting telecom operators you can get the entire sample from databases with phone numbers, first and last names of registered subscribers. This is a surreal situation. In addition, the issue remains open from the point of view of corporate communications. Who will identify the employee who uses corporate communications? Then they won’t be able to install instant messengers at all; we will prohibit businesses from communicating. I do not see, firstly, the meaning, and secondly, the technical and legal enforceability of this law.
Apart from damaging the reputation of the authorities, he will not be able to bring anything.”
If the user changes their phone number, identification will need to be repeated. And those who have not passed the verification will not be able to send messages. But how the new rules will work in practice is unclear, said leading analyst of Mobile Research Group Eldar Murtazin: “Today this is a complete utopia, because it is almost impossible to achieve this. In practice, we will be faced with the fact that we will again have a situation like with the Telegram ban. There is a ban, but everyone uses the messenger. It’s just that taxpayers’ money will be wasted, formally there will be a flurry of activity, and operators will be forced to “break” the Internet, which in itself is ridiculous. But it is impossible to ensure that all this works in some digestible form. De facto, all the most popular messengers are outside Russia. Just as Telegram does not comply with Russian legislation, they will not follow the government’s lead and do anything.”
Since January, Russia has already had a law in force that provides for a fine for the refusal of instant messengers to identify users. For legal entities it ranges from 800 thousand rubles. up to 1 million rubles
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