Company Telegram Messenger LLP was fined 800 thousand rubles for refusing to grant the FSB access keys to correspondence of several users. Two of them are suspected of organizing the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg metro on April 3, found the Republic.
The publication writes that the FSB wanted to decrypt messages with six phone numbers whose owners, according to service, was “suspected of involvement in terrorist activities”. In its request, the FSB did not mention the names of the people for three numbers were only given nicknames.
According to Rossvyaz, four phone was purchased in Moscow and the Moscow region, two in Dagestan and Krasnoyarsk region. Republic learned that only three numbers from the list was in the Telegram, and another one for WhatsApp, the other two phone is not tied to any of the popular messengers. “This, however, does not mean that earlier they did not use Telegram because deleting your account erases all the information”, — stated in the investigation edition.
Two numbers from the request of the FSB belonged to the brothers and Akram Abror Azimov, arrested on the case of terrorist attack in the subway of St. Petersburg. Both rooms enjoyed Abror Azimov. During the interrogation, he said that communication with the organizer of the explosion, he used WhatsApp, not Telegram.
At the time of request to the representatives of the messenger phones brothers for three months was the intelligence officers. The FSB was convinced that all involved in the terrorist attack in St. Petersburg metro used exclusively Telegram “to conceal their criminal intentions at all stages of organization and preparation of a terrorist act”.
Two more people, whose number is listed in the security services remain at large and use Telegram. Phone one of them was in the capital region, second in the Krasnoyarsk region. The latter, according to a source in Republic power structures have distant relative of one of the defendants in the case about the explosion of the Petersburg underground. The remaining two numbers are not registered in the messenger and inaccessible.
The principle of end-to-end encryption used in “secret chats” Telegram, does not allow the company to obtain the keys for their decryption — they are stored only on the parties to the correspondence. Thus, technically, the messenger cannot fulfill the requirement of security services and to open access to read users ‘ messages.
16 Oct Meshchansky district court of Moscow ordered Telegram Messenger LLP to pay 800 thousand rubles for refusing to provide security services keys to decrypt the communications of users. In November, it may take a re-trial. According to the results messenger can block in territory of Russia.
The explosion in the subway of Saint-Petersburg took place on 3 April 2017. Killing 15 passengers and the alleged suicide bomber, Akbarian Jalilov. In the case arrested the brothers Azimova and seven other people.