Telegram Now Being Targeted By Politicians Because Terrorists (Also) Use It

from the ineffective-noise dept

Wed, Dec 28th 2016 7:01am — Tim Cushing

Victims of terrorist attacks are busy suing Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for supposedly providing material support for terrorism by not shutting down ISIS-related accounts fast enough. Twitter has gathered more negative attention than most, thanks to its inconsistent application of the "Twitter Rules." Not only has it fielded lots of complaints from so-called "alt-right" figureheads, but non alt-righter Senator John McCain tends to use the service as a national security punching bag during periodic ~~bitchfests~~ hearings on phone encryption.

End-to-end encryption is also the bane of several governments' existence, but even all this concern about unintercepted criminal communications has yet to tip the scale towards mandated backdoors. Instead, pressure is being applied in other ways. Twitter recently killed off a few hundred thousand terrorist-linked accounts, so those looking for a new terrorist support network d/b/a a social media service have begun sniping at secure messaging service Telegram.

Telegram has been the recipient of periodic signup surges, thanks to government action around the globe. WhatsApp, which recently added end-to-end encryption, has been routinely blocked by a handful of national governments, with Brazil denying access to its citizens most frequently. Every time WhatsApp is blocked, other encrypted messaging services see their user bases grow.

The same will happen with alternatives to Telegram, which is now being labeled as ISIS's favorite chat app. The recent addition of a desktop version means encrypted communications aren't limited to terrorists with cellphones. That's apparently problematic, at least according to a few US legislators.

Just three days before the assault on the Berlin Christmas market, senior members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee urged Durov to immediately take steps to block content from the Islamic State, warning that terrorists were using the platform not only to spread propaganda but also to coordinate actual attacks.

“No private company should allow its services to be used to promote terrorism and plan out attacks that spill innocent blood,” stated the letter, signed by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), the chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on terrorism and nonproliferation, and Rep. Brad Sherman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.

There's a big difference between "allow" and "encourage," but Rep. Ted Poe seems to think those terms are synonymous. Pavel Durov, the ousted founder of Russia's Facebook, VKontakte, is the person behind Telegram, which recently added end-to-end encryption. Durov pushed back against what he felt were unlawful demands for information by the Russian government while helming VKontakte. He fled the country and now lives in "self-imposed exile," stating that living in Russia is "incompatible" with running an internet-based communications platform.

So it's unsurprising his next project has focused on secure messaging with social media trappings. One of the few effective tools against government interference is "invisible" communications, which is why dissidents, journalists, and activists embrace encrypted communications platforms. (Politicians use it too, because they love obliterating FOIA-able paper trails.) Obviously, this also works out well for criminals and terrorists, who are no more fans of government interference than those with more altruistic aims.

The Washington Post article is largely based on a report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which actively monitors Telegram for ISIS activity. MEMRI has observed a large number of terrorist communications on the platform and says terrorists are migrating there from Twitter in large numbers. This is to be expected considering recent efforts by Twitter to purge more of these accounts.

However, the report -- while pointing at the encryption and secret, invitation-only chat rooms provided by Telegram -- also highlights the fact (inadvertently, perhaps) that terrorists aren't nearly as security-focused as their new love for Telegram would suggest. Its post summarizing the report notes that terrorists are also using Tumblr blogs for communications and uploading content to the Internet Archive. (This might explain some of the NSLs the Internet Archive's been receiving...) So, terrorists haven't "gone dark," at least not completely, and there are still open communications that can be scooped up and other metadata generated during Telegram use that might be instructive.

Also, the Washington Post's coverage appears to buy into the silly moral panic here, using ridiculous terms like "military grade encryption," which proves that whoever wrote the article doesn't know what they're talking about.

The problem with holding Telegram up as a villain is that efforts to kill or throttle the service are also going to harm thousands or millions of innocent people who are trying to keep their own oppressive governments from intercepting their communications. As Durov himself pointed out last year, any communications system like his is going to be used by bad guys as well. That's just the nature of any communications platform.

It's unclear at this point if US legislators are actually going after Telegram. At this point, they can't do much more than sign letters and release statements of disapproval. Telegram isn't an American company. If the US government decides US-based companies aren't doing enough to fight terrorism, any pressure applied to those platforms that results in greater censorship or increased demands for user data will simply push users to services that haven't been tampered with yet. This generally means communications sought by law enforcement will now be even further out of reach, controlled by providers located outside US borders.

The same goes for terrorists and criminals. No one's going to sit around and wait to get swept up. Getting into a panic about an encrypted chat app does little more than advertise its effectiveness and send more users its way. And once it becomes a favorite target of governments, users will migrate to other platforms, starting the whole cycle over again.

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Filed Under: communication, encryption, isis, moral panic, telegram
Companies: telegram

27 Comments

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Ninja (profile), 28 Dec 2016 @ 7:44am

Because there aren't open source software out there that terrorists can't simply set up their own Terrorgram and still do whatever they want while all the rest of us are screwed and forced to use less secure alternatives because the 'legislatives' of the world seem to be populated by idiots.

Or let's ignore the fact that there are engineers, doctors and other specialists in their ranks so they could go and write their own stuff. And let's further ignore the fact that they could and will disguise such applications as some inoffensive Tinder knock-off or a solitaire game.

Meanwhile let's hope the world-ending meteor comes as soon as possible.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 7:59am

“No private or public supplier of firearms should allow its goods and services to be used to promote terrorism and plan out attacks that spill innocent blood,”

FIXED!
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 8:07am

Also, the Washington Post's coverage appears to buy into the silly moral panic here, using ridiculous terms like "military grade encryption," which proves that whoever wrote the article doesn't know what they're talking about.
Just as a side note, while military grade encryption is usually just BS, there are in fact standards written, such as FIPS 140 which are basic guidelines of which cyptographic algorithms to use, how to handle failure, PKI storage, et al.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIPS_140
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 8:15am

The big problem with the human condition is that a few people fighting as to who will rule the rest are what shape society. We can't have privacy because it gets in the way of those fighting each other for power,
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 8:21am

Re:
"because the 'legislatives' of the world seem to be populated by idiots."

You mean the idiots are voting in idiots...

The world is a shitball because humans are shitballs.
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art guerrilla (profile), 28 Dec 2016 @ 8:22am

Re:
thank you, a non cow, exactly the point i was going to make...
we are not only THE munitions supplier to the world (if that wssn't deplorable enough on its face), BUT we also are DIRECTLY and indirectly responsible for the terrorists who buy them...
ffs, we are a vertically integrated terrorist organization...
we have met the terrorists, and it is us...
(with apologies to pogo)
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I.T. Guy, 28 Dec 2016 @ 8:32am

And think... all this time I have been using plain old encryption when I could have been using Military Grade Encryption.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 8:42am

Re: Re:
Well, YOU can recognize your OWN terrorism if you like... but we are going to REFUSE to recognize our OWN!

~US Government
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Ninja (profile), 28 Dec 2016 @ 9:25am

Re: Re:
And thus the need for a meteor! Or a miracle that makes people settled for a middle ground that benefits everybody. I believe the meteor has a higher chance of happening in the next millenia.
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Machin Shin (profile), 28 Dec 2016 @ 9:26am

Re:
Well lets not forget the automakers, cb radio manufactures, heck while we are at it, what about those darn food producers. Those dang farmers keep growing food and you just know some of that food is being eaten by darn terrorists. We should outlaw making food! That will show them terrorist who's boss!
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 28 Dec 2016 @ 9:41am

Re:
Given all the things the Military has screwed up in their procurement processes, maybe that is a good thing.
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REM(RND) (profile), 28 Dec 2016 @ 9:58am

So, people are upset that they can't read messages terrorists send to each other because they got them kicked off of services terrorists used that we COULD read from? I think we deserve everything we get at this point.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 10:34am

If a terrorist doesn't use Telegram, we'll be forced to manufacture one
So we can wail about terrorists (ab)using encryption.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 11:26am

Déjà Vu All Over Again
"And once it becomes a favorite target of governments, users will migrate to other platforms, starting the whole cycle over again."

As we learned to salute regarding "piracy" torrent sites, "Hail Hydra!"
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unixninja92 (profile), 28 Dec 2016 @ 11:28am

Telegram end to end encryption
Telegram has had both a desktop app and end to end encryption for years. Neither of these things are new to Telegram.

For a while secret chats (end to end encryption) were only available on the mac app, and not the cross platform qt app. I'm not sure if that is still true.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 11:57am

Re: Re: Re:
"middle ground that benefits everybody."

That does not exist. Cultures clash for a reason!
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 12:27pm

Telegram is garbage anyway. Unfortunately, their marketing has fooled lots of morons into thinking messages are encrypted by default, and fails to mention the fact that they're storing your message history in plain text by default as well.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 28 Dec 2016 @ 12:48pm

Re:
I'll just leave this here.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/12/giving_up_on_pg.html
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 1:31pm

Re:
“No private or public supplier of electricity should allow its goods and services to be used to promote terrorism and plan out attacks that spill innocent blood,”

“No private or public supplier of water should allow its goods and services to be used to promote terrorism and plan out attacks that spill innocent blood,”

“No private or public supplier of automobiles should allow its goods and services to be used to promote terrorism and plan out attacks that spill innocent blood,”

etc., etc., etc..
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 2:43pm

Re: Telegram end to end encryption
The availability of "secret chats" (using Telegram's home-brew crypto, which shouldn't be trusted) is irrelevant, since they aren't the default, and therefore aren't used 99.9% of the time.

Telegram has run a PR campaign that has convinced people that their messages are encrypted by default. This is dangerous, and Telegram should be avoided.
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David (profile), 28 Dec 2016 @ 3:36pm

America is the world
All our legislators believe firmly that everyone else is just colony of our beleaguered USA.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 5:01pm

sometimes you just can't help it...
"No private company should allow its services to be used to promote terrorism and plan out attacks that spill innocent blood"

so, what about ma-bell or hell the entire internet?! we might as well put paper in there too, they've used it in the past i'm sure they'll use it again. you heard it here, gov't wants to BAN PAPER! i've heard they speak to each other too, up next: BAN AIR, or at least allow only the US gov't access to the AIR and they can license it out with approved background checks.
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Châu, 28 Dec 2016 @ 8:50pm

Tox
Tox
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Dec 2016 @ 8:51pm

Apparently I have such a low opinion of government efforts thanks to Techdirt, that having not heard of Telegram as a messenger program, I thought you meant actual telegrams. And I wasnt surprised at the government doing such a thing, because I assumed theyd sink to pretty much anything, but rather that someone still ran a service that made use of such an old technology.
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Ninja (profile), 29 Dec 2016 @ 2:14am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh it does. It's just that the benefits won't be exactly as everybody wishes but rather 'average benefits' that reach all instead of awesome benefits that reach a few.
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Pat Bryan, 29 Dec 2016 @ 5:29am

Poe
Congressman Ted Poe is a Tea Party "Freedom" Caucus drone whose political existence is facade and buzzwords. He engages in the topic of 'Worldwide Terrorism, ISIS and Islamic Extremism, Oh My!' only because it scares the shit out of his constituency to get his sorry butt reelected. He does what the leadership tells him, and is thoroughly ineffective.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2016 @ 11:49am

“No private company should allow its services to be used to promote terrorism and plan out attacks that spill innocent blood,” stated the letter.

Oh, I get the confusion: According to ISIS, there are no innocent blasfemist atheists pigs. They are guilty of non-believing.
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