Interview with Alexander Zharov, Head of Roskomnadzor (RKN) Russia

"Everything is good with freedom, but with responsibility is bad"

Head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov - about the situation around the blocking of the telegram in Russia

Tagansky Court of Moscow on April 13 granted the statement of Roskomnadzor (RKN), which asked to restrict access to information resources, which provides the messenger Telegram. Yesterday, the number of blocked IP-addresses, which belong to American companies Amazon and Google, exceeded 18.5 million. How the ILV intends to fight bypassing locks with VPN, correspondence with Pavel Durov and representatives of the IT industry, possible blocking of the entire Internet in Russia and the prospects for Facebook, Head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov said in an interview with Izvestia.

- What happens now with the blocking of the service, considering that the situation is changing fast enough?

- At the moment, 18 subnets are blocked on Amazon and Google. I want to remind you how events developed. After the Federal Security Service has won in court, Roskomnadzor filed a lawsuit in accordance with the law in the Tagansky court of Moscow in the place of our jurisdiction. The FSB's request for access to encryption keys and, appropriately, access to chats and accounts, suspected of spreading extremist and terrorist information. At the same time, the FSB has repeatedly notified us and the other authorities that they have proven episodes of using this particular service for training and even during the terrorist attacks, both here and abroad.

- Why was it not possible to settle the issue on a pre-trial basis?

- Because there is almost no relationship with the Telegram administration, it demonstrates a complete reluctance to interact. Only the hired service lawyers of Telegram, who speak exclusively about procedural matters, and not the technical side of the matter, are contacted. Therefore, as soon as the court took the decision to block the messenger, we proceeded to implement the court decision, and on Monday at 11:30 am they unloaded the IP addresses. After that, the telecom operators started blocking.

- How does it work technically?

- Operators of communication receive unloading of IP-addresses once a day. In total, there are about 4200 telecom operators in Russia, which provides citizens with access to the Internet. They are using technical methods to block services. At the first stage we knew about more than 9000 own IP-addresses Telegram. And since it's not about blocking the page of the site, but of the whole messenger, we unloaded all four subnets. The lock for the operators took several hours, and already from 12:30 to 15:00, telegram began to deteriorate sharply, which was seen in the diagram. For many users without a special way to bypass locks - proxy programs and VPN services - the messenger became unavailable.

- At some point Telegram began to change IP-addresses ...

- Yes, even between 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm, our American Amazon, which included more than 600 thousand IP-addresses. And then we faced a serious challenge. It was necessary to understand whether there are any good resources at these addresses. Therefore, our specialists are promptly dismantled by the subnet, and are around 6:00 pm we unloaded it to the telecoms operators. From 19:00 to 22:00 our specialists have been recorded the degradation of the messenger in Russia. But then switched to Google's subnet, which had 540,000 IP addresses. Of course, such a large number of IPs allows the service to migrate very quickly, such a transition takes place in two to four minutes, so it '

- And the companies themselves are aware of what is happening, did you somehow inform them?

- Of course, all of our actions to block the subnets were accompanied by the administration of these American companies. But we have a night. However, the main thing is that there is communication. We expect that both for Amazon and for Google, their business is primary, not political motives. At the same time, Mr. Durov and the Telegram administration resort to rather tough methods, not taking into account the interests of good resources.

Now about 20 subnets are used to bypass the locks, the total number of IP addresses is more than 10 million. These are subnets of different levels: they are large, 11th level, they have more than 2 million IP-addresses. But basically it's small subnets of 12-13-14-th level, which includes several hundred thousand addresses.

- The blocking of subnets, according to the Internet users, has it's led to a malfunction of shops, banks, companies operating in the service sector and even the FCN site - yesterday, for example, it did not open ...

- This information is not true. She from a series "to me have the means, it is the truth". I can confidently say that in 99.9% of the cases nothing, technically speaking, has come up, tournament, just Telegram. As for the site of Roskomnadzor, on Tuesday it was repeatedly subjected to strong DDoS attacks.

- So you are not afraid of that by blocking a single messenger, you will block the work of the entire Internet?

- Obviously, we do not have such a goal. Our goal is to realize the court decision with the least losses for good users. In its importance it is analogous to the law, and our Western colleagues, I think, understand this. Telegram should be removed from the App Store and Google Play, this is the first. Secondly, American companies must create technical conditions that will make the service inaccessible on the territory of Russia.

- Is there an agreement already?

- Firstly, as I have already said, a is is under way. Secondly, for Amazon and Google, this is certainly a serious challenge: if you look at a set of IP addresses, then, for example, 6 million IP Amazon is almost half of all that they basically have. In total there are about 13 million of them. That is, by and large, they are now deciding whether to work in the territory of the Russian Federation or not.

- Is there a possibility that it is not?

"I do not think it will happen." Still, when the main business for the same Amazon - providing hosting, they are the unlikely to lose this business, including in our market.

Yesterday we opened a hotline on the website. If we have good resources, we will understand. But we must execute the decision of the court. Again, we do not intend to "put" the whole of the Internet, we act reasonably enough, our technical experts, they are dismantle this or that subnet and look at what resources they have. In general, in such a situation, the responsibility lies with the Telegram administration, which deliberately hides behind the IP addresses of the third-party companies.

- You ask for encryption keys ...

- This is not our function, but the FSB.

- Well, law enforcement. I understand correctly that it's only banned information, it's not all about Telegram?

- Without going into the technical nuances, I will explain. Mr. Rozenberg (Anton Rosenberg, the ex-partner of Pavel Durov on the VKontakte - Izvestia network), who was involved in the creation of the Telegram and cooperated with his administration, says that the encryption protocol is used in the unclassified and open chats, it is possible to get encryption keys.

For private secret chats, this can not be done, since end-to-end encryption is used.

- What is the dilemma then, if it is possible to get keys to open chats and so it is technically impossible to get keys?

- The crucial point is that if the Telegram administration had an intention to cooperate, they would enter into a dialogue with the FSB. But this communication is not there, all communication goes in one direction. We send requests, but we do not get an answer.

Now Telegram helps to earn even small, but money. Small business should develop, etc. Here any messenger can be compared with a certain income house. People live in it, do business, spend their free time, communicate. Let's imagine that terrorists appear in this apartment house. It is quite logical in this case law enforcement bodies. But the owner refuses. Here's the situation with Telegram looks exactly the same. And respectable people, probably, should draw for themselves some conclusions. Are they ready to live in a "bad house", the owner of which does not intend to observe the laws of the country, or to move to another.

- And if you do not like the other?

- I understand that there is a personal habit, but there are a lot of other messengers. Statistics say that. And the position "our favorite TV-channel is the best, we want to work only in it," it seems to me, the terrorist threat outweighs.

- That is, the mass installation of VPN and other ways of circumventing the lock? People go to the gray zone as a matter of fact, which, in theory, should only complicate the work of law enforcement agencies ...
- If you ask me, it is possible to block all proxy programs - I think not. Starting from the self-written on the knee and ending with commercial ones. But some of the most widespread use is yes, it is possible to block. And we see programs that provide access to terrorist content.

In addition, the law adopted last year regarding proxy programs says that they can be entered into a separate register, upon submission from the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the FSB. They can not be blocked. No new laws are needed for this, all the authority for this is.

- Why is it only Telegram? To other messengers from the FSB and the FCN there are no questions?

- The ILV does not have the authority to conduct operational research activities. Such powers are with the FSB. And based on their information, it is through Telegram and Internet radio. Zello that terrorists communicate. Zello we eventually blocked, the situation was similar, they also ran to the Amazon IP addresses from us. However, the company still refused to host them. As for other services, the situation is simpler, apparently, but I do not want to speculate and speak in the subjunctive mood.

- How much in the digital age does it make sense to block something? Do not you think that this game of "cat and mouse" can be infinite and will not lead to anything?

- Ultimately, in countries where the Internet is used, there are two approaches. The first - as we do in the PRC. This is the blocking of the prohibited body. The second approach is used by Western Europe and the United States. If you go to Europe on a torrent tracker or a pirate resource, with a probability of 99% you will receive a notification of a fine of several hundred euros. If in the US you even accidentally get to the site with child pornography, for the first time you will be warned, in the second.

- That is, we still want to follow the path of China?

- We still have our own unique way. China answers the question not "what to block", but "how to block." Conditionally, we disconnect this traffic, this one is not. At us all the same the legislation is much softer, we are talking about what information is forbidden, what is resolved, and speeches about blocking of traffic at an input in the country.

- In connection with the blocking of Telegram, they talked about a possible redistribution of the market-in particular, that they want to remove the messenger and replace it with another. It sounds, for example, the name "TamTam", which belongs to Mail.Ru Group ...

- Except as on the Internet, about preferences of the messenger company Mail.Ru or some other I have not heard anywhere. No one negotiated with me on this issue. And it seems to me that it's impossible to force the user to abandon some usual service at one time, for example, Telegram, and massively invite him to rush into "TamTam" or somewhere else - it's impossible.

I think that we are talking about "TamTam" in connection with several features: it also has the opportunity of creating channels, the interface of both messengers is undoubtedly similar. And the parallels and the creation of conspiracy theories for the period of "post-telegram" are connected with only one thing: Mr. Durov was related to both Mail.Ru and Telegram. I do not see a different topic here.

- As a person who works with informtechnology, with the Internet, it's not a shame for a person who works with information technologies that a Russian citizen created a competitive product first, but he was "pressed", let's call it so. Then the second - now it is blocked. That is, his country was not needed. And all this against the backdrop of the president's words about the importance of technological breakthrough ...

- You know, it's insulting! Because, of course, the team that made "VKontakte" and Telegram - a strong and gifted. Pavel Durov as the team really is. There is his brother Nikolai Durov, who, according to his colleagues, is really, if not brilliant, a very strong programmer. Of course, both VKontakte and Telegram from the point of view of the software are user-friendly and user-friendly services. The question is how Mr. Durov recruited his audience.

If you pay attention, the main feature of VKontakte was originally pirated content. This could be compared to the Tor network, but without the "onion" routing chips. The same thing happened again in Telegram. At the same time, VKontakte, despite all the work done to clean up the pirated content, is now in the so-called 301th list of the US Department of Commerce as a pirate resource.
So the words that the Telegram messenger is already deleting child pornography and terrorist accounts is a certain cunning. Because with one hand I delete, the other. And I believe that for Mr. Durov this is a certain philosophy. He talks all the time about freedom, but if we talk about absolute freedom, then this is absolute responsibility. And then everything is fine with freedom, but with responsibility everything is bad.

- What does the ILV intend to do with a massive blockade?

- Neither ILV, nor the FSB, nor the state has any questions and claims to those people who are engaged in ordinary life in Telegram - they create bots, channel channels. The question is not to the users, the question to the messenger administration. Mr. Durov, as a gifted marketer and PR man, "takes arrows" to the audience and creates a conflict between authorities and the audience. And it just is not. Attempts of some Telegrams to call for mass downloading of VPN is an attempt to expose themselves as elite. "We are at the ball, and you, who did not download, watch in the window." However, it seems to me, for people it should be important who they are with - terrorists or normal people.

- Last year, there started talks that Facebook will be blocked. How is the situation now, have you met with the administration of the service?

I meet with representatives of Facebook. At the same time, I constantly hear: Zharov is losing everything to Facebook, because there are some special relations. There are no special relations in our last meeting with our representatives in February.

Until the end of 2018, we will inspect the company, and there are several of them in the world. - and compliance with other laws. If none of this or some of this is fulfilled, or the Russian state is informed of the intention to conduct such actions, then, obviously, there will be a question of blocking.

- And what are the forecasts?

- Let's not make a guess. Let's hope that I will answer for your question.

- Will there still be attempts to enter into a dialogue with Pavel Durov?

- Mr. Durov has all the addresses on us and with the FSB. Now, for the resumption of negotiation, the minimum is. We just talked about the talented programmers of the team of Pavel Durov, who created the services of VKontakte and Telegram. But talent is only one side of the coin, and the other side is compliance with the law and responsibility. And in the confrontation of the two, of course, the most talented literary characters are the greatest detective Sherlock Holmes and the criminal genius Professor Moriarty - my sympathies have always been, are and will be on the side of Holmes and the law.