Germany threatens to ban Telegram

Amazing, stupid in the total lack of understanding of IT, and trivial to circumvent with a VPN, especially with android on which you can sideload apps.

Germany could force Apple to not deliver the app to Apple users based on geolocation, and they can’t sideload.

Presumably WhatsApp has given the German security service a back door into their “end to end” encryption.

Keep in mind that we have a new government in Germany that needs to demonstrate that they do something. As most governments, they over-index “on doing something” (or, more precisely, to announce that they do something) compared to making sure whatever they do actually makes sense.

In addition: They don’t even know so far if they can do something legally or technically to prevent Telegram from happening in Germany.

Along these lines – and it would be really funny if it wouldn’t be so sad – the German federal police just announced that they consider “flooding Telegram with complains” (sic!) to interfere with their operations if they can not ban them. Shows how helpless they are in front of these new thing called “internet”…

Airborne_Again wrote:

Now the German federal minister for the interior threatens to ban Telegram with the motivation that it is used by “extremists” to “spread hate” and make “attack plans”.

While Telegram has gotten a bit of a reputation due to this (people running away from Whatsapp because they don’t trust it) it is proposterous to ban it because of alleged misuse and a dangerous precedent if they really do. The next logical step will be to massively censort the internet as a whole. Fake news and conspiracies don’t only rely on apps like Telegram.

While whoever wishes to misuse Telegram will simply go onto other platforums or use VPN to get around the German ban, those who use it properly will have a problem.

Airborne_Again wrote:

Now the German federal minister for the interior threatens to ban Telegram with the motivation that it is used by “extremists” to “spread hate” and make “attack plans”.

If the German government actually goes through with this, it will be the first western-style democracy to do so.

Why not. It’s the sort of thing all “strong democracies” do. Like China, Russia, North Korea and so on

Apple won’t delist telegram, nor will Google, and it doesn’t have any effect technically, apart from the legal hurdles. Aside from the fact that a couple of German government agencies are using telegram as a platform. ‘Flooding telegram with complaints’ is kindergarten. What they might try to use is either the German telecommunications act, the network enforcement act, or the alleged European telecommunications act which won’t happen for a long time. Lots of showboating, not a lot of competence displayed. A disgrace.

Does that autorouter bot still work? I lost it with a phone and never got it back working… Only thing I ever used Telegram for really.

Edit: got it working again thanks to the excellent docs at Autorouter.

Is it the Zeitgeist that people shun other messengers like whatsapp and skype while using something developed in Russia where nobody really knows where the data go? And why the operators decide to turn a blind eye to hate groups?

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Does that autorouter bot still work?

Affirm.

We have a wx, aip etc telegram bot on the EuroGA airport database also. It uses a different code to try to avoid the way the Autorouter bot gets blocked by a request for an image, and if you have a bad connection you cannot get tafs/metars after that.

I believe Whatsapp is finally also allowing machine interfaces now.

And why the operators decide to turn a blind eye to hate groups?

Presumably a “hate group” will register on telegram as “The Virgin Mary Admiration Movement”

While Telegram has gotten a bit of a reputation

“Privacy” groups don’t like it because, it has been alleged, everything gets copied to the KGB. Well, everything else gets copied to [insert name of your Western security agency]. Who cares if the KGB can read my messages? If you have something the KGB wants, rest assured they will get it

Terrorists use it, reportedly, but it just makes traffic analysis easier. If you were a smart terrorist or other criminal, you would not use an off the shelf messaging app!

Apple won’t delist telegram, nor will Google

Would not matter if Google did because you can sideload an apk. But with Apple you never know, and rooting an Iphone is a big hassle (and you generally can’t use rooted devices for banking apps, run Jeppesen software, etc).

Like China, Russia, North Korea and so on

They can do it because they control the internet connections across their borders, and do surveillance on wireless bands to catch people using that. They still can’t easily catch people using direct satellite comms.