An ‘Internet Civil War’ Sparked After Russia Attempted to Block Telegram

Ladies and gentlemen, this world is full of surprises. We are already aware of the extent American citizens took in order to tell Russia to stay off the elections. But now, there’s been a spectacular backfire over the blocking of a popular instant messaging app.

It seemed like such a good idea, too. Block the popular messaging app Telegram without much deliberation and the people will comply. Russia’s Communications Censor Roskomnadzor then started to block access to the Instant Messaging service.

The allegation that fueled Roskomnadzor to do this was because of, what else? The fact that Telegram is a service that has encrypted communication. Since the company responsible for the messaging app didn’t want to give up the encryption keys, well, you can imagine why they were angry.

Enter Evgeny, who requested that his second name not be mentioned for fear of intimidation by the authorities. He saw the whole process happen and mentioned his disgust towards the censor company. “It feels as though it’s a bunch of ignorant people who don’t understand anything, who did not consult any experts, that did this.”

By the time the block was happening, Evgeny and his team managed to create a line of proxy services to counter their efforts. But Roskomnadzor wasn’t going to give up and they expanded their blocking efforts, however, they also inadvertently blocked IP addresses of other companies.

This sort of collateral damage was the entry point at what many have dubbed an “Internet Civil War”. With users in Russia increasing the popularity of the app and also delivering a powerful backlash against the Censor Company.

The backlash was so heavy that the Censor Company has actually reported being DDoS’d multiple times. Showing that there was another attempt at control that completely blew up in their faces. However, it brings up a more worrisome climate to our world.

Considering the fact that Russia’s officials want to stop using America-based applications. It’s starting to look like this nation is attempting to close itself off like North Korea. However, if there’s anything learned from today, the citizens are not going to have it without a fight.