Security officers told what messengers terrorists use in the Russian Federation

Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp and Skype are weapons of terrorists

Sources in the security forces told Izvestia what kind of messengers terrorists use to recruit Russians into their ranks. According to statistics, ISIS (banned in Russia) most often uses Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp and Skype. With the help of these messengers, thousands of Russians have already been recruited.

The interviewee revealed a specific mechanism for how recruiters work. At the first stage, they identify people most prone to information processing. Then they begin friendly, informal communication with them, and then they transfer communication to closed groups of instant messengers: “Strong encryption allows members of closed groups to communicate in almost absolute privacy mode,” he said.

The representative of the security forces named specific cases when terrorists were recruited via Skype (Rashid Yevloyev), via Viber (Shokirjon Ikramov), through WhatsApp (Varvara Karaulova). According to him, the terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg metro on April 3, 2017 was coordinated through WhatsApp and Telegram, and the activities of all sabotage and terrorist groups planning to commit terrorist attacks in Russia were sent by the ISIS emissaries via Telegram and the Zello Internet radio.
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Moreover, ISIS employs a security service whose specialists are knowledgeable in IT-technologies. They spread recommendations among activists to use secure communication channels in instant messengers, that is, end-to-end encryption: “In such systems, only the manufacturer itself can decipher the content of the conversation,” Izvestia writes.

Obviously, in such a situation, special services and security forces see the most logical way to deprive messengers of encryption and listen to conversations. This is the easiest way to track terrorist communications - operational work is minimized.

But the problem is that in many messengers it is technically difficult or impossible to make it. The end-to-end encryption scheme is specially designed so that an unauthorized person cannot receive information about the correspondence or call. What should security agencies do in this situation? The founder of the OMMG communication platform, Sergey Kravtsov, answers this question: “Messengers have become the main form of communication, replacing SMS and phone calls. Due to its free and private, this type of communication will develop. But only companies that cooperate with the state and try to fulfill its requirements will be able to work. The rest will be blocked. ”

Apparently, the epic with Telegram blocking is not finished yet. Would the founders of this messenger agree to cooperate with the state?