Meanwhile:
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested Saturday night by French authorities on allegations that his social media platform was being used for child pornography, drug trafficking and organized crime.
Which has started a debate about "free speech" by the "usual suspects" Musk, JFK jnr & Edward Snowdon
However, "the immediate freakout came from Russia," reports Politico.
The blog site Dva Mayora said that Russian specialists are working on an alternative to Telegram, but that the Russian army's Main Communications Directorate has "not shown any real interest" in getting such a system to Russian troops.
The site said Durov's arrest may actually speed up the development of an independent comms system. Alarmed Russian policymakers are calling for Durov's release.
The Russian embassy has demanded that it get access to Durov, but the Kremlin has so far not issued a statement on the arrest. "Before saying anything, we should wait for the situation to become clearer," said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
However, officials and law enforcement agencies were instructed to clear all their communication from Telegram, the pro-Kremlin channel Baza reported.
"Everyone who is used to using the platform for sensitive conversations/conversations should delete those conversations right now and not do it again," Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan said in a Telegram post.
@ecksmc HAHAHA!!!!
@ecksmc hahahahahHAAAAA
@ecksmc my advice would be to assume your conversations are just as safe as any nudies sent by phone.
@ecksmc Ukrainian citizens and soldiers use it too. It simply keeps messages private. It's a tool. It's not malicious in and of itself. The difference is in who uses it and why.
That said, anything that spooks Russia is welcome. I'd say this is proof that the top people in the Russian government use it for FAR MORE than troop instructions.
@danielbsmith yeah I know others also use it but not to same extent as Russia - Russian military do rely on it more than others for secure comms & for spreading their propaganda from bloggers etc.... As well as fake news, disinformation that targets certain groups within the platform to try and split groups
Its a Russian "active measures" tool
@ecksmc My best read on this situation is that western authorities are going to lean on the guy that made telegram to divulge a weakness they can exploit or agree to install a backdoor. This is what is spooking Russia. They don't want the West having a way to access their private conversations.
Definitely keep watch. Whatever happens could potentially determine the outcome of the war in Ukraine.
@danielbsmith for sure they are trying to pressure him into that
That and just another step in the EU's plan to break all encryption by forcing encryption services to have "backdoors" and it ain't just EU that has that agenda either - this is one to watch that's for sure
That's because Telegram is widely used by the Russian military for battlefield communications thanks to problems with rolling out its own secure comms system.
https://www.politico.eu/article/telegram-ceo-arrest-pavel-durov-russian-military-communications-france/
They practically detained the head of communication of the Russian army," Russian military blogger channel Povernutie na Z Voine said in a Telegram statement.
https://t.me/voenacher/70638