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Ukraine Bans Official Use of Telegram App Over Fears of Russian Spying (reuters.com) 49

Posted by msmash from the breaking-news dept.
Ukraine has banned use of Telegram on official devices used by state officials, military personnel and critical workers because it believes its enemy Russia can spy on both messages and users, a top security body said on Friday. Reuters: The National Security and Defence Council announced the restrictions after Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency, presented the Council with evidence of Russian special services' ability to snoop on the platform, it said in a statement. But Andriy Kovalenko, head of the security council's centre on countering disinformation, posted on Telegram that the restrictions apply only to official devices, not personal phones.

Telegram is heavily used in both Ukraine and Russia and has become a critical source of information since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But Ukrainian security officials had repeatedly voiced concerns about its use during the war. Based in Dubai, Telegram was founded by Russian-born Pavel Durov, who left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his social media platform VKontakte, which he has sold.
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Ukraine Bans Official Use of Telegram App Over Fears of Russian Spying More

Ukraine Bans Official Use of Telegram App Over Fears of Russian Spying

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  • You military guys better go back to semaphores and hand-written, hand delivered, OTP-ciphered messages. Okay okay, maybe I'm joking a little bit but not much. I'm kind of curious if some enterprising 3D-printer Hackaday style hardware guys have tried to create an open-source design for a secure communicator (hopefully one that runs off 18650 or AA batteries so you can eliminate that source of risk).

    Sounds like hard-pressed military folks might need those along with a few FGC9 mk3 submachine guns hot off

    • Re:After what Israel did to Lebanon (Score:5, Insightful)

      by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Friday September 20, 2024 @11:27AM (#64803051) Journal
      You're not joking that much. Ukraine is using wired communication [bbc.com] to prevent eavesdropping on communications. Not everywhere, but where feasible or needed.
      • That is some Battlestar Galactica [stackexchange.com] shit right there. Bravo to them for the solution. I wonder if they had to go dig the gear out of a museum or if someone still makes wind-up wired phones.

        • I'm on the last two DVDs of the series. Watching if for the 5th(?) time. Still funny how I pick up new things each time I watch, or take someone's line in a different manner.

          As for Galactica, the part where Galactica WAS networked so they could run their calculations was one of the less believable elements. The Cylons, based on how advanced they were, should have been able to crack through the firewalls much faster.

    • You military guys better go back to semaphores

      Oh, yeah, I'm sure there's no way that could be intercepted [youtube.com].

    • seriously! An OTP may be onerous to create/disseminate/replace regularly but you gain something that is pretty damn secure... unless of course the enemy takes one off of a dead/captured combatant.

      With NATO/OTAN supporting Ukraine in this war, I am surprised they are not providing encrypted comms to the Ukraine Military.

      A $200 garden variety 3d printer can print an FGC9, can it also print the transistors and such needed for a comms device? I doubt it has the microfine capability to print any sort of IC'

      • A $200 garden variety 3d printer can print an FGC9, can it also print the transistors and such needed for a comms device?

        Please tell me you're joking.

  • I am wondering why the military doesn't (Score:3)

    by 0xG ( 712423 ) on Friday September 20, 2024 @11:04AM (#64802989)

    develop it's own encrypted communications app?
    Sure, ir is non-trivial, but given that just about every soldier has a cell phone, and given that the military has lots of resources, I'm sure they could build their own infrastructure.

    Obviously, it's not reliable as VHF radios, but they could even integrate the two systems...

    • Possibilities (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Friday September 20, 2024 @11:14AM (#64803015)

      So if you want it available through an app store, even restricted via a policy (not generally available to everyone) you have to submit your code to Google or Apple or whomever, which I'm guessing a military isn't going to do.

      The other option is to side load it on an Android device, which I'm pretty sure is going to be locked down on a government device.

      It's not impossible, but I think the bureaucracy and regulation of government IT would make it incredibly difficult to implement.

      I'm kind of surprised they don't just do encrypted email, which is natively supported on most built-in mail clients. Then you have control of the server and the certificates.

      • I suspect the deployment security issues are a bigger problem than creating a custom secure app.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Most of these phones are personal devices of the conscripts getting thrown into the meat grinder. They know how to use a phone, so no need to train them how to use a walkie talkie properly, no need to provide tens of thousands of them.

    • Like everything, it costs money. Even Russia doesnt have its proprietary secured communications system. NATO has spent alot of money to have communications that work with the alliance partners in combine nation situations. Imagine if China tried to partner up with Russia in some war ... its a no go.
      • In the case of Russia, they developed their own secure communications system. It was highly publicized and vaunted . . . and it did not work. In the early days of the invasion, Russians stoped using it and resorted to unsecured methods like older cell phones. I was reading that part of the problem was the system relied on a 5G network; however, Russia in their wisdom destroyed many of Ukraine's 5G towers instead of capturing them. So they had to default to use 4G towers.

      • Surely Russia and China have bigger issues: how many of them speak or write each otherâ(TM)s languages? NATO countries benefit by many people speaking English as a first or second language to a certain degree, or learning their neighbourâ(TM)s language? Itâ(TM)s interesting that one of the delays in Ukraine deploying F-16s was that some of their pilots had to learn English first.

  • Seriously (Score:3)

    by SmaryJerry ( 2759091 ) on Friday September 20, 2024 @11:10AM (#64803005)
    How can you fight a war without encrypted communications. Let me guess they are using Whatsapp instead?

  • Pavel Durov is half-Ukrainian (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mi ( 197448 ) <slashdot-2017q4@virtual-estates.net> on Friday September 20, 2024 @11:14AM (#64803013) Homepage Journal

    Telegram was founded by Russian-born Pavel Durov, who left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his social media platform VKontakte

    Unbeknown to many Russian assholes, who demanded I use Russian language on VKontakte "because it is a Russian network", Durov's mother Albina Durov (née Ivanenko) is an ethnic Ukrainian. I don't think, it matters, but it is interesting.

    Anyway, I doubt, Durov's cooperation with Russian government, whatever its extent — if any — is voluntary, but, of course, Ukrainians cannot afford the risk...

    • Good reading.
      https://www.wired.com/story/th... [wired.com]
      https://istories.media/en/news... [istories.media]

      IMHO Durov and his Telegram platform are clearly compromised and infiltrated by the FSB.

    • that is funny! VK users complaining that you aren't speaking Russian! But, I imagine their are facebook buttheads demanding people speak only American English as well... I had thought that recently Putin had demanded to have access to telegraph messages for his state security apparatus, with what he thinks are reasonable threats to the creator(s).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        VK users complaining that you aren't speaking Russian!

        I think, they would've been Ok, if I used English. Or French. It was my using Ukrainian, that was particularly irritating :-)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Reality is of course that things like defense of Kiyv and Kharkiv were arranged on Telegram, so we know for a fact that it's not infiltrated. Or if it is, it's so poorly infiltrated, that Russians literally allowed enemy to organise successful defenses of their main cities on it and fail to gain any meaningful advantage from it.

      This is more likely the case that French came to Ukrainian top brass and told them what they have to say publicly in the wake of the recent brouhaha with them grabbing Durov. Which i

  • Has some really brilliant scientists and engineers, I would be surprised if they didn't/couldn't release their own app to manage comms.

    That said, apparently up until now they have been using this app which is controlled by Russia (in some sense at least!)

  • The smart thing to do would be continue using it (Score:3)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Friday September 20, 2024 @12:45PM (#64803243)

    The smart thing to do would be to continue using it... ...to feed bullshit to the enemy and others listening in.

    Use your secure comms for official stuff, while organizing and carrying out a deception campaign on Telegram.

  • This isn't about military communications (Score:3, Informative)

    by Train0987 ( 1059246 ) on Friday September 20, 2024 @12:52PM (#64803259)

    This isn't about legit military comms it's about Ukrainian soldiers who keep posting selfies on TG that give away their positions and getting entire companies wiped out.

    • So, do this -- keep on posting selfies.. that are fake or misleading or just wrong and confusing.

      You'll have to convince to the troops to stop using TG for retarded self-gratification, and instead, coordinate a mass effort to use it for trolling, misdirection and even leading the enemy into traps and ambushes.

      When given lemons (enemy listening in) make lemonade (use it to fuck with them a bit)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Biggest problem was not soldiers but civilians, and it was taking photos of things like aftermath of strikes which allowed analysis, and it was pretty much over in 2022.

      Ever since then, Ukrainians have been filtering out things like background and location before posting it almost universally, and there's a law in place with pretty steep punishments for those that don't. It's mainly a problem for Russians right now who do not have the same information warfare discipline. It's why we get videos of Ukrainians

  • Whelp ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Friday September 20, 2024 @02:30PM (#64803611)

    Guess it's back to using pagers and walkie-talkies -- oh wait ...

  • Only Ukranian spying allowed (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    supported by the Western intelligence agencies.

  • I don't get it! Telegram is supposedly end-to-end encrypted and even Telegram cannot read back and forth communications. France doesn't like this so they arrest the CEO. Meanwhile Ukraine is banning Telegram because it's not secure saying Russia can snoop and read Telegram communications. So is it secure or not? Is there a "backdoor" we don't know about but the Russians do? The only thing that comes to mind is that the Russians have managed to capture a cellphone with Telegram already logged into a chann

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