Is Viber listenable in Russia: viber compatibility mode. Viber will not be able to comply with the FSB's requirement to decrypt correspondence. Is Viber bugged in Belarus?

A couple of years ago, the popular WhatsApp messenger activated encryption for all user correspondence and conversations. Safety of use is WhatsApp's main priority. Viewing and listening to personal dialogues is not available for hacking by third parties. However, there are some exceptions. In this article we will find out whether WhatsApp is actually being tapped.

Do secret services listen to WhatsApp?

It is possible for intelligence agencies to listen to WhatsApp. The basic rule that users should remember is that dialogues and calls are saved as a backup copy. A backup is made in case of an unexpected program failure. You can restore chats for any period.

Attention! If intelligence officers cannot cope with wiretapping, then employees of private companies are additionally brought in.

No messenger is safe to use. You can listen to conversations and view correspondence through a copy of your account. Also, intelligence agencies can access dialogues and voice SMS through the user’s family members or viewing chats from a phone with WhatsApp installed.

Did WhatsApp hand over message decryption keys to the FSB?

In 2018, WhatsApp developers announced the abolition of end-to-end encryption of SMS users. The decision was made at the request of the American authorities. An application with weakened encoding will allow intelligence agencies to freely obtain information about the actions of terrorist groups and people with mental disabilities.

The transfer of WhatsApp keys and message decryption keys to the Federal Security Service was not observed.

To protect the user from information leakage, it is recommended to enable notifications in “Settings”:

1. Find the "Account" tab.
2. Select "Security".

Now you can communicate with relatives and friends not only through messages, phone calls, social networks, but also through instant messengers such as WhatsApp, Viber and others. However, it is worth considering that all such applications are not capable of providing complete protection from eavesdropping.

Signs of wiretapping

Wiretapping can be carried out by fraudsters who may be planning a crime, by law enforcement agencies if they have an interest in you, or by a commercial organization for sale or imposition of services. To find out whether your messenger is being tapped, there are basic signs:

1. Third-party applications are regularly downloaded without your permission.
2. The battery drains quickly. It cannot be ruled out that the battery may simply go bad. However, if it tends to constantly discharge over several weeks, you need to understand what the reason is. In the settings, find which applications are already running and study why the incorrect operation is happening.
3. When talking with an interlocutor, unidentified voices, noises, crackling, humming, and rustling appear. Such phenomena, if they are heard for a short time, are considered harmless. If there is prolonged interference, you should think about wiretapping. After all, when connecting a connection, the antenna is capable of releasing energy into space, which creates a gurgling sound. This indicates that someone has turned on the microphone and is listening to you.
4. Strange actions are happening with Viber or WhatsApp. For example, the backlight constantly turns on and off, the program closes itself, some data is transferred without your knowledge, downloaded files from the Internet appear. This happens because the installed bug competes with the main functions of the device. As a result, the smartphone may completely stop obeying the owner.
5. The battery is heating up. If you have some features activated, the phone is able to automatically wake up from sleep mode, which will result in double the charge consumption. However, if the gadget is not loaded with anything for several hours, and the battery is still warm, there is a possibility that someone can control your smartphone.
6. Your added contacts are receiving spam. If your friends on Viber or WhatsApp start receiving messages of an incomprehensible nature, then at a minimum, you should set up a verification in several steps: entering a password and confirming the number.
7. A mobile device running the messenger starts making noise when brought near a TV, audio speakers or computer.
8. In sent messages you can sometimes find letters that you did not send.
9. It takes a long time to establish a connection with a subscriber.
10. The device shuts down or reboots incorrectly. If you are being eavesdropped, turning off your device may interfere with the embedded algorithms. Because of this, there is a long delay before turning off, the backlight blinks, or the device simply stops responding to commands. This may be due to technical nuances, but it won't hurt to get checked.
11. Overuse of traffic. If you regularly spend Internet traffic and money on your balance, but at the same time you hardly use it, you may be eavesdropped.

The listed signs do not provide 100% proof that the phone is actually being tapped. To check Viber and WhatsApp for wiretapping, you can install a special program that will help identify and block the permission of third-party applications to your messaging systems.

Ways to secure your phone

Mobile devices greatly simplify our lives, but at the same time they can appear on the other side in the hands of attackers. With their help, scammers can obtain data via GPS coordinates, email, SMS messages, and camera. To maintain confidentiality when working with the messenger, you need to have an idea of ​​ways to protect yourself:

1. You should not use public Wi-Fi.
2. If GPS is not needed, you should turn it off.
3. Change passwords regularly and use different ones on all accounts.
4. It is advisable to turn off Wi-Fi before leaving.
5. Use programs with encryptors.
6. Do not use files from unknown sources.
7. Constantly update the software on your mobile phone.
8. The password recovery password must be complex.
9. It is advisable to install a paid antivirus on all phones, tablets, and computers.

By performing all of the above manipulations, you can significantly increase protection during correspondence, file transfers and phone calls.

Interesting!

When conducting a study, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that the most secure messenger in secret chat mode is Telegram, as well as iMessage.

Almost everyone has a mobile phone, which means there is a risk of tracking a person and intercepting important data. It is impossible to get a 100% guarantee that the gadget is not wiretapped. However, you can try to protect yourself by installing two-step authentication or a paid antivirus.

Starting from version Viber 6.0 (appeared in April 2016, the application itself has been running since 2010), all the main functions of Viber are protected using end-to-end (or end-to-end) encryption: calls through the service, personal and group messages, etc. With this type of encryption, the keys to correspondence are stored only on clients’ devices, and no one, not even the development company itself, has access to them, says the privacy policy of Viber Media S.a.r.I.

According to Shmilov, over all the years of Viber’s presence in Russia (the local office opened in July 2014), it received requests from government agencies several times, but their number was much less than in Europe (the company does not name the exact number and types of requests).

There is a specific procedure for the request: law enforcement must come with a warrant that requests information about a specific user. “All we can give are logs (files containing system information about the operation of a server or computer, in which certain actions of a user or program are recorded. — RBC) conversation: when and with whom the user communicated. We are obliged to do this according to the laws that apply in many countries around the world. Apart from this, we cannot provide anything,” Shmilov said.

Moreover, for this action, including in Russia, the company charges a so-called processing fee (operation fee, the exact amount depends on the country). “First of all, because it costs us money and time. The authorities pay this fee, and they agree to do this in order to obtain the necessary information,” the top manager noted.

The FSB’s insistence on Telegram is explained by the fact that only 10% of this messenger’s correspondence (so-called secret chats) is encrypted using the end-to-end method, which means the company has the ability to decrypt all other messages, Shmilov claims. “At Viber, all chats and calls are protected by end-to-end encryption by default,” the source told RBC. Pavel Durov did not respond to RBC's request to comment on this statement.

Violators

When asked why Viber, unlike Telegram, is not yet involved in legal proceedings with either Roskomnadzor or the FSB, the company did not answer.

Viber is not currently registered in Russia as an information dissemination organizer (ORI; these include email services, instant messengers, etc.). According to the Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection”, since 2014 such services must provide Roskomnadzor with data about themselves (name, country of registration, tax identifier, etc.) for inclusion in a special register, and also store on the territory of Russia data on the facts of reception, transmission and processing of voice information, messages, images, videos and other types of user communications for six months.

The ARI registry already includes mail clients Mail.Ru Group and Yandex, the cloud service Yandex.Disk, the social networks My World, My Circle, VKontakte, dating services Mamba and Badoo, Snapchat, Telegram, etc. Viber is not listed in the register and has not yet violated the law. Viber is not yet listed in the ARI register, a Roskomnadzor representative confirmed. When asked when the department might send Viber a request to provide information for inclusion in the register, he said that a decision has not yet been made. The provision of data for subsequent inclusion in the register is carried out within five days after the request.

Another legislative requirement that is difficult for Viber to comply with is the provisions of the “Yarovaya Law”, which comes into force on July 1, 2018. From now on, ORIs will be required to store information about the fact of communication between their users for a year (currently six months), and the content of the messages themselves for six months (currently there is no such requirement).

According to Shmilov, the company will not be ready to do things that contradict its policies. Viber's privacy policy states that the company does not read the content of messages or listen to calls made privately using Viber, nor does it store these messages once they are delivered to their intended destination. If for some reason the message is not delivered to the recipient within two weeks, it will be deleted from the servers. “The privacy of our users remains our top priority, and we will adhere to this principle in any case. Including because it’s difficult to convey what we don’t have,” Shmilov insists.

Messengers without keys

The problem of the inability to transfer decryption keys is relevant not only for Telegram and Viber. Facebook-owned WhatsApp messenger uses end-to-end encryption for all chats. On Friday, March 23, the Minister of Communications and Mass Communications of Russia Nikolai Nikiforov said that the department has many more questions about Facebook and WhatsApp than about Telegram, they relate to compliance with laws, the status of ARI and interaction with law enforcement officers.

A WhatsApp representative did not answer RBC's questions.

“The problem of transferring keys is not only ours,” explains Karen Kazaryan, chief analyst of the Russian Association of Electronic Communications. — The European Union is now actively discussing how the police will work in the light of the development of cryptography and the protection of personal data. Our intelligence agencies could follow the example of the FBI in the Apple case, when authorities hacked a terrorist's iPhone with the help of hired hackers after the company refused to cooperate with them."

In principle, the authorities could ask services to implement special encryption, the keys to which would be kept by the FSB, continues Artem Kozlyuk, head of the non-profit organization Roskomsvoboda, which defends user rights. “But, as a rule, large companies value their reputation and will not discredit themselves in front of users. Whereas Russian services such as state messengers may well submit to the requirements of the intelligence services,” he noted.

Not needed yet

According to Artem Kozlyuk, no one knows which service will next attract the attention of the FSB and Roskomnadzor. “Most likely, this happens depending on a specific situation, for example, as part of an investigation of a case or a suspicion that criminals could use one or another communication channel,” Kozlyuk noted.

According to him, until last spring, foreign services were not included in the ARI register, but now they have begun to be actively included. “We haven’t reached the very big ones yet: apparently, blocking them if they refuse to cooperate is scary. That’s why they don’t touch WhatsApp, Facebook, Facebook Messenger for now,” says Kozlyuk.​

Law-abiding service

Viber was one of the first to report on the implementation of other legislative innovations in Russia: according to amendments to the law “On Personal Data,” which came into force on September 1, 2015, services must store data of Russians in the country. A month later, Viber complied with this requirement. “Phone numbers and user logins will be stored in Russia. We do not store messages, they are on users’ devices,” a company representative said then. Viber has 100 million registered users in Russia.

You can listen to conversations via Viber

This is possible in standby mode simultaneously with a voice call. One of the users of the Habrhabr resource spoke about a problem in the popular Viber application. It turned out that using the application, you can eavesdrop on the conversation of your interlocutor if it is carried out at the same time as a voice call, the Correspondent writes.

He also noted that to listen to a conversation, you need to double-press the “Hold” button on your smartphone. At the same time, the user also noted that the user cannot find out about eavesdropping on the conversation.

Read also: Pavel Durov launched a service for publishing posts

A description of the problem has already been sent to Viber developers by email. However, they did not react immediately. The latest version of the popular Android app has fixed the issue. However, on iOS and Blackberry, wiretapping is still possible.

Viber is a VoIP application for smartphones running on Android, BlackBerry OS, iOS, Symbian, Windows Phone, Bada platforms and computers running Windows, OS X and Linux. The idea and initial development of the application belonged to the Israelis Talmon Marko and Igor Magazinnik.

As of December 2016, Viber had 800 million registered users.

In 2016, the payment company Western Union entered into an agreement with Viber, according to which users of the mobile messenger will be able to make money transfers around the world.

The other day I decided to install Viber on my phone. This program is now very popular and every day there are more and more devices using it.
And now I came across an article that shows how unsecure this program is (if you can even use this word here).

Viber, a mobile application that allows users to make free phone calls and send text/multimedia messages, provides access to personal data to intelligence agencies for those who may be interested in it.

According to a study conducted by specialists from the University of New Haven (UNH), Connecticut, USA, the Viber mobile application sends messages UNENCRYPTED. This also applies to images, videos and location.

Moreover, all this data is stored in the same unprotected form on Viber servers, instead of being deleted. UNH says it's easy to access them.

This is the second cryptographic hole discovered by UNH Cyber ​​Forensics Research & Education Group in chat mobile applications. In mid-April, they already talked about the open transmission of location information by the most popular service of its kind, WhatsApp.

Using a Windows PC as a Wi-Fi access point, the UNH team was able to intercept data between two of the most popular Android devices (HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4).

Interestingly, they didn’t need any super-equipment a la “007”. The exact same method was used to connect to the WhatsApp communication channel.

In a short video on the UNH website and YouTube, the guys demonstrate this quite clearly:

Data can be intercepted both directly at Wi-Fi access points and at any other intermediate network link. The video also states that anyone who knows the URL of messages can access the information directly from Viber servers through a regular Internet browser: the data is stored unencrypted and does not require any identification when requested.

Ibrahim Baggili and Jason Moore, who conducted the study, claim that they contacted the owners of the service about this before publishing their results, but there was no response. In an interview with CNET, a Viber representative claims that the patch for Android and iOS will be ready on Monday, and that, to their knowledge, “no users have been affected by this.”

Note that the company did not say a word about the problems on its own servers, nor did it say a word about what users of other platforms, in particular BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Samsung Bada and regular PCs, should do.

In light of all of the above, the fact that what happened is not a problem for users is too bold a statement on Viber’s part. Although, judging by the lack of an apology, the company apparently really thinks so.

In the meantime, it’s worth noting that leaky mobile chat apps are becoming commonplace, no matter how crazy it may sound. In pursuit of the next million users, service owners put them in a very unpleasant position, relegating security to the background.

Viber already had a couple of similar incidents last year. In July, it was discovered that notifications from the app were even appearing on the locked screen of Android devices. And three months earlier, the technical support section of the Viber website was hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (according to the company, no data leak occurred).

Unfortunately, Viber is not alone here.
The founder of $19 billion WhatsApp, Jan Koum, talks about “respect for user privacy encrypted in [their] DNA” amid regular cryptographic breaches.

Another already familiar service, Snapchat, once ignored warnings about the dangers of unlimited search of users by phone numbers, which resulted in the leak of 4.6 million user names and phone numbers.

Regardless of how this story ends, there is only one conclusion that can be drawn: modern instant messaging applications should not be corrected after the fact for such shortcomings. Encryption is one of those things that should be present in them initially and without additional reminders.

Well... Everyone makes their own conclusion about what is more important to them: convenience, free, low traffic consumption, or such “side effects” as interception or even just access to any materials and simple negotiations carried out using this program.

End-to-end encryption always works

We understand the value of private communications, which is why end-to-end encryption is a standard in Viber, not just a feature that can be turned on or off in the application settings. No one, not even Viber, will be able to read your messages or eavesdrop on your conversations. Messages are encrypted when they are sent from your device and are only decrypted on the recipient's device.

And that is not all

Not only do we encrypt every message you send, but we also delete it from Viber servers immediately after delivery. We only store your message until the recipient comes online and receives it. If the recipient's device is turned off or does not have access to the Internet, your message will be stored on the Viber server in encrypted form until the recipient gets in touch.

If five years ago everyone was actively using the popular ICQ messenger, today Viber has taken the place of ICQ. And now the pressing question is whether it is also possible to install Viber on your home PC so as not to be distracted by messages on your phone and be constantly in touch with friends or at work. In Viber, the convenience of communication also lies in the fact that here you can communicate with people of similar interests, and not just correspond with friends. And don’t let Viber wiretapping bother you.

Viber spy program or how to read someone else's viber from a distance

This is one of the most secure instant messengers known today.

It is very convenient if there is a Viber button on your desktop - this makes it possible to communicate in chats without interruption from work, without interrupting your business to occupy your hands with the phone. To install Viber on your computer, you should first download the official version for your operating system. There are two options available - Viber for Windows and Viber for OS Macintosh.

Before downloading, you must specify the location on your hard drive where the file will be installed to install the program on your PC, after which it will automatically begin downloading. The installation file itself looks like a Viber icon, packed in a box and is recognizable, although it differs from the mobile version.

During the installation process, you need to click the “Accept & Install” button and wait for the installation.

As soon as Viber is installed on your PC, a window will appear on the screen to link the desktop version of the messenger to your phone number. This can be done in a couple of minutes; there is nothing complicated about installing Viber on a home PC linked to a phone, and even an inexperienced user can handle it.

A window will appear on the screen with the question “Do you have Viber on your mobile phone?” — answer YES, enter the phone number to which a four-digit activation code will be sent, usually within 1-2 minutes. In the “Activation” window that appears after entering the phone number, you need to enter the received code, and you can start using Viber on a personal computer without a phone.

If you don’t have Viber installed on your phone yet, you should first download it and then install the program on your PC. The first versions of Viber could be installed on a tablet without a SIM card and linked to any specified phone number, after which Viber could be activated on the desktop. Now this useful option is not available, and to install Viber on a PC, you first need to activate the program on any smartphone.

Yes, indeed, in the modern world it is foolish to believe that you can be under absolute protection, especially in the world of digital technology. Any protection can be easily overcome, and you will not even notice the fact of penetration. Such capabilities are available to intelligence services that regularly monitor activity in order not only to solve, but also to prevent crimes, as well as terrorist acts.

Is it possible to listen to an Internet messenger?

From a technical point of view, this is not very difficult. The fact is that absolutely all programs, games, services and sites work using one global network called the Internet.

Russian intelligence services took on WhatsApp and Viber

Communication on the Internet is carried out by transferring network protocols.

Although they are encrypted in real time, intercepting and decrypting a data packet has not been difficult for a long time. Even student programmers can do this, not to mention experienced IT specialists.

Are you being monitored on Viber?

It is difficult to answer this question unequivocally. As you already understand, this is possible, but it’s unlikely that anyone needs your secrets. Most likely, if someone is spying on Viber, it is only for potentially dangerous citizens who are at risk.

Therefore, if you do not write or say anything illegal, do not call for the overthrow of the government and other violent methods of fighting anyone, then you can, do not worry. You are a completely law-abiding citizen and are not interested in special services.

How to listen for yourself

There are services and applications that promise to provide access to other people's correspondence. They usually charge a certain amount of money for this.

But be careful, as such applications hide malware in order to take over your personal data and send spam messages from your account. Agree, you also showed interest in Viber spies. This is what the attackers are hoping for.

In March last year, a big scandal erupted around statements by the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, Artem Sytnik, regarding the possibilities of wiretapping the popular instant messengers WhatsApp and Viber. Sytnik then said that domestic intelligence services were quite capable of doing this. WhatsApp founder Jan Koum immediately responded to this statement and categorically rejected the possibility of unauthorized access to the messenger. In his Twitter, the founder of the WhatsApp service hinted to the head of NABU Sytnyk that he uses E2EE cryptographic key technology (a similar technology is used in Telegram). Its essence is that control over correspondence is exercised directly by users, and neither interceptors nor even servers transmitting data can decrypt messages. That is, the message is encrypted locally on the sender’s device and can only be decrypted on the recipient’s device. But at the same time, insider information from NABU indicates that they managed to obtain data not only from correspondence, but also from calls from WhatsApp subscribers that they were interested in. In addition, this data may soon be published during court proceedings in a number of high-profile cases that were announced by NABU. How they managed to obtain this data remains unclear. But given the fact that NABU is still legally deprived of the ability to technically listen to telephone conversations of citizens, including through instant messengers, the logical chain leads to the SBU, which, in fact, ensures the implementation of the above measures.

At the same time, hacking the Viber messenger is no longer a “closed secret” and is widely known to readers through a number of high-profile articles. The situation was not even changed by the introduction of encryption in the specified messenger. Thus, materials obtained from Viber have long been used to persecute dissidents in our country.

In early August, this scandal received an unexpected continuation. Then information was leaked to the media from a source who wished to remain anonymous about the active attempts of the SBU to hack the Telegram messenger. In particular, the interlocutor gave us an example when intelligence services unsuccessfully tried several times to obtain his own correspondence from the above messenger through remote hacking. In particular, he is personally aware of a series of such attempts against other citizens of Ukraine in connection with the political situation in the country at the moment. This fact can also be explained by the fact that the Telegram developers initially have “strong ties” with the Russian Federation and, most likely, with the FSB, for which they have been reproached more than once by the media, while nothing connects them with the intelligence services of the United States and especially Ukraine for sure. This hypothesis is confirmed by a series of high-profile scandals involving the publication of correspondence between Russian opposition politicians and others. Thus, the Telegram messenger is, at least, subject to persistent influence from the Russian Federation, while WhatsApp and Viber, rather, on the contrary, are influenced by the West, namely, Western intelligence services, with which at this stage Ukrainian law enforcement agencies are quite officially cooperating, in including the SBU.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that in today’s dynamically developing world, it is almost impossible to obtain official, unquestionable answers to questions from the series “who exactly is able to control the currently popular means of Internet communication.”

Is it possible to listen to Viber during a conversation?

At the same time, there is a series of facts that one way or another indicate to us the veracity of the hypothesis put forward. In any case, all of the above was presented at the discretion of our readers with the aim of rethinking approaches to ensuring the safety of personal information.

WhatsApp and Viber began to be listened to and read by Russian intelligence services. According to a source from the POLITICS website, this is due to reaching agreements with the owners of instant messengers.

All the world's intelligence services (including Russian ones) strive to know everything about us. Nowadays, no one will be surprised by wiretapping of phones, but progress does not stand still, and the old ones are being replaced by new methods of communication - IP-telephony, chats and instant messengers, which, although slowly but steadily, are being taken under control by the security officers. Since November 2016, the FSB has received the technical ability to intercept information sent by users of such popular instant messengers as WhatsApp and Viber. Now, on the basis of their data centers, servers have appeared that are connected to the SORM system (a system of technical means to provide the functions of operational investigative activities). Moreover, these opportunities are not yet available to employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But they can greatly help FSB operatives in solving high-profile crimes, as well as in the fight against terrorism and corruption.

For the first time, a system of this type in our country began to be used back in 1996 for wiretapping mobile phones. Each telecom operator has equipment installed that allows security forces to gain access to the conversations of any client at any time in real time. From the point of view of the law, everything is “clean”. In addition to the fact that, in accordance with Article 23 of the Constitution, by a court decision it is permissible to limit the confidentiality of communications, the rights and freedoms of a citizen may be limited by federal law if this is necessary in order to protect the foundations of the constitutional system, morality, health, rights and legitimate interests of others persons, ensuring the country's defense and state security. In general, law enforcement officers have room to expand, justifying the need for wiretapping and the like. However, if an official court decision is required to directly listen to conversations, then court approval is not required to obtain other information (for example, about the facts of calls). In addition, an employee of the FSB or the Ministry of Internal Affairs must only obtain a warrant, but not present it to the telecom operator, who is prohibited from demanding this document in the absence of access to state secrets on his part.

Due to the growth of Internet users in 2000, the so-called SORM-2 appeared, with the help of which intelligence services can gain access to all Internet traffic passing through the provider. And despite the fact that such measures are justified mainly by the fight against extremism and terrorism, we often learn about the use of special means during the fight against the opposition. For example, this happened with Life’s “leaking” of Boris Nemtsov’s telephone conversations on the eve of regular mass rallies in 2011 (no one explained where the publication got these records from), or with the verification of donors to Alexei Navalny’s election campaign during the Moscow mayoral elections in 2013 year. Donations were made through the Yandex.Money payment system. Then the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation discovered that the IP addresses of more than 300 senders were located outside of Russia, which is prohibited by law. Let us immediately clarify that a foreign IP address does not mean that a foreign citizen is behind it. It also remained unclear how the Prosecutor General's Office obtained this data. According to Yandex representative Asya Melkumova, the prosecutor’s office did not contact them.

However, due to the huge amount of various data passing through the provider, and even in encrypted form, the functionality of SORM-2 seems ineffective - it was necessary to “shovel” a lot of information not related to the case of interest, while a narrower sample was needed.

Then we decided to go from the other side. On July 31, 2014, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree according to which social networks, forums and any communication sites accessible to all Internet users must connect equipment and software that allows intelligence services to automatically obtain information about the actions of users of these sites. The era of SORM-3 has begun.

However, the situation was different with instant messengers sending messages from smartphones, since they work “on top” of the infrastructure of telecom operators. If the transmitted information can still be intercepted, it is almost impossible to decrypt. Therefore, in this case there was only one way out - a hacker attack. As, for example, this happened with the Telegram correspondence between Georgy Alburov, an employee of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, and Oleg Kozlovsky, director of the NGO “Image of the Future”. At the end of April this year, oppositionists announced that their accounts had been hacked. Moreover, according to Alburov, the FSB was able to do this with the help of MTS.

By the way, foreign intelligence services do not hide the fact that they obtain information using the same methods. Let's remember the story of the FBI's attempt to obtain data from the iPhone of one of the terrorists who killed 14 people in California in December 2015. Apple then refused to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and they used the services of hackers. Moreover, some companies openly offer software for hacking both electronic media and information located on the Internet or transmitted via it. This is what Elcomsoft does (a Russian company, by the way), which, among other things, produces various “tools for forensics” necessary for retrieving data stored in phone memory, in “cloud” storage, selecting passwords for files, etc. And they are available not only for special services - anyone can buy them directly on the website.

However, all these methods were not 100% effective, so “fights” began between Russian legislators and law enforcement agencies, on the one hand, and the owners of instant messengers, on the other, to establish “cooperation.”

On September 1, 2015, amendments to the Law “On Personal Data” came into force, which require the localization of personal data on the territory of Russia. Any Russian or foreign company focused on working with Russian users must ensure the recording, systematization, accumulation, storage, clarification of personal data of Russians using databases located in our country. Global companies are faced with a difficult dilemma - to lose the Russian market or the reputation of a company that keeps the data of its users intact.

However, not everyone in this situation began to sprinkle ashes on their heads. Six months later, information appeared that Google and Apple had begun transferring the personal data of their Russian users to servers in Russia. Facebook, in turn, refused to do this. Nothing has been heard about the rest, but today all the “foreigners” continue to work in Russia, which means that a certain agreement that suits everyone has been reached.

However, this can mean not only that someone has “bowed in” and someone has not. And about the inevitable tendency that in the near future no one will be able to guarantee the confidentiality of information.

For example, for a long time Skype was considered one of the most secure VoIP services (IP telephony). There were no official cases of decryption and/or interception of Skype data confirmed by the developer until approximately 2008, when Austrian law enforcement authorities at a meeting with providers reported that they had carried out “legal interception of IP traffic.” A similar statement was made by a representative of the Australian internal affairs authorities. Also, thanks to an information leak, it became known that Digitask was developing a program to intercept online communications commissioned by one of the ministries of Bavaria. In addition, the Swiss authorities announced the availability of solutions for intercepting Skype. In Russia, there have been periodic proposals to ban Skype. This was justified by the security threat associated with encrypted conversations and the lack of connection to SORM. In 2010, SORM solutions were proposed that could detect and intercept Skype traffic (but not decrypt it). However, the task was made easier for everyone by Microsoft, which bought Skype in 2011. From now on, all transmitted messages began to be analyzed immediately on its servers. And in July 2012, information appeared that Microsoft itself could allow intelligence agencies to listen to conversations of Skype users, and would also provide access to personal correspondence, following the “new” policy of full assistance to law enforcement agencies. In 2013, it became known that Russian intelligence services could not only listen, but also determine the location of a Skype user.

Another VoIP for smartphones, Viber, in 2015, as required by law, transferred the data of Russian citizens, namely phone numbers and nicknames, to Russian territory.

Facebook Messenger and, more recently, the world's most popular messenger WhatsApp (which has more than 1 billion users), also owned by Mark Zuckerberg, use an end-to-end encryption feature, which, according to the developers, eliminates the possibility of correspondence reaching third parties. True, this is all true if the user himself activates this function, and the entire correspondence history will not be stored unencrypted in Google Drive or iCloud.

Electronic security analysts call Telegram one of the most secure messengers today, a project created by Pavel Durov, the founder of the VKontakte social network. In an interview with The New York Times, Pavel said that the initial idea for the app came to him back in 2011, when special forces came to his door. When the latter finally left, Durov immediately wrote to his brother Nikolai. It was then that he realized that he had no safe way to communicate with his brother. To prove the safety of his new brainchild, Durov at the end of 2013 took a risky PR move, offering anyone to hack his personal correspondence on Telegram for $200,000. No one ever got the money back then.

At the same time, despite statements about security, in Russia they understand who has the “keys” that open the correspondence. Therefore, in the spring of this year, a proposal was made to prohibit domestic officials and military personnel from conducting work correspondence from mailboxes on Gmail.com and in the popular instant messengers WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram.

Finally, apparently to close this topic, in the spring of 2016 a new bill arrived in Russia, known to everyone as the “Yarova package”, developed by deputies Irina Yarovaya and Senator Viktor Ozerov. Among other things, it also dealt with the obligation for “organizers of information dissemination on the Internet” to store all information passing through them for 1 year. And if a messenger, social network, email client, or simply a website supports data encryption, then their owners are obliged to help the FSB decipher any message that the security forces need. Otherwise, the fine is from 800 thousand to 1 million rubles. On July 7, 2016, with some amendments, the package was signed by President Vladimir Putin.

The amendments, which give the government the power to oblige telecom operators to store records of telephone conversations, SMS and Internet traffic of users for up to 6 months, will come into force on July 1, 2018. Moreover, as follows from the amendments, this information will have to be stored exclusively on the territory of Russia. However, on July 19, 2016, Federation Council member Anton Belyakov introduced a bill to postpone the entry into force of these amendments to 2023.

At the end of the summer, information appeared about another bill designed to deprive instant messenger users of anonymity. Work on it was carried out by the Media Communications Union (MCU), which unites telecom operators and media holdings. According to the ISS, Internet messengers (“instant messaging organizers”) must conclude agreements with telecom operators by 2017, according to which each messenger will have to send information about users to the operator, and he will check this with his data about subscribers, and in If something happens, report a discrepancy.

Finally, in order for the intelligence services to implement the legislative opportunities they have received this fall, the Con Certeza company, which develops systems of technical means to provide the functions of operational investigative measures (SORM) on the networks of telecom operators, began searching for a contractor to conduct a study on the possibility of intercepting and decrypting the traffic of popular instant messengers: WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Skype. And, apparently, for some messengers the required result was achieved.