Are free instant messengers anonymous?

After the entry into force of the new Federal Law dated 01.05.2019 No. 90- "On Amendments to the Federal Law" On Communications "and the Federal Law" On Information, Information Technologies and the Protection of Information ".







A new wave of indignation has appeared over a large number of Runet users, and especially IT specialists, but we must understand that the law has already been adopted and entered into legal force. What does this mean?







It is assumed that an independent infrastructure will be created for the smooth functioning of the Internet in Russia.







Indeed, most root DNS servers are located outside the territory of the Russian Federation (root DNS servers respond to requests from other DNS servers during translation of domain names into IP addresses and allow you to get a list of DNS servers for any top-level domain), and the Internet itself is built on the principles of ARPANET (created in 1969 by order of the American agency DARPA).







And with the global "militia" in our country, we must have the Internet resources operational if it is impossible to connect Russian telecom operators to foreign Internet root servers.







Quote from the wiki:







According to the authors of the bill, its implementation will ensure the security of the country, since the officially adopted US cybersecurity strategy provides for "the possibility of using cyberspace for offensive operations." The authors also provided an example of disconnecting Syria from the Internet in November 2012, which was called a special operation conducted by the NSA (the opinions on this issue differ).

But with the possibility of the correct implementation of the planned project, many factors arise due to previously adopted laws ("Spring Law", "Law on Bloggers" (canceled)), how exactly this will be done.

According to the bill that entered into force, the system for organizing traffic exchange within the state’s territory is completely changing, namely, the entire traffic path passes only through the exchange points entered in the special. registry defined by Roskomnadzor . Also, if earlier filtering was carried out by the providers themselves according to Roskomandzor’s blocking lists, now from now on it will be provided by a certain system, including SORM (System of Technical Means for Supporting the Operations and Search Activities Functions).







Moreover, according to the expert opinion of the Commission on Communications and Information and Telecommunication Technologies of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the work of the law will reduce the stability of the Internet. And in the conclusion of the expert council under the government of the Russian Federation, it says that "the bill on the Sovereign Internet, when implemented, will create risks of disruption of the Runet’s work and will excessively expand the powers of Roskomnadzor to directly manage the communications industry." It is worth noting that the law itself prescribes the creation of root servers in the Russian Federation to ensure the stability of the Internet in Russia, and not involve the work of Russian servers, including financial and state ones, directly through the global network.









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And that's why - ...



Every time I hear about free mass messengers, I scroll through my head how big offices of programmers, web designers, system administrators rejoice at a purchased batch of stickers, because only they are officially a means of earning a company. They work for the sake of an idea. It is worth remembering the fact that the same Whats`up had a paid subscription for its use since 2013, but lasted only until 2016. Apparently, a company worth tens of billions has accumulated to maintain its servers for a multimillion-dollar audience for years to come.







And if you recall Telegram, it's not just that they block it. But everyone should understand that underneath he carries, this is a kind of user database (his interests, hobbies, social circle). And no matter how many users shout that they have nothing to hide, they continue to hang curtains on windows and live behind a good iron door.







And even if we step back from this moment, the same question arises - at what expense is Telegram supported and developed? Why are the source codes closed, let people set up their own servers, let them create analogues of the Jabber network or the Diaspora * social network that cannot be blocked.







Now is the time of capitalism and no one will buy projects for tens of billions of dollars ( Facebook bought WhatsApp for $ 19 billion ). No one will contain many servers for free and work for food and idea.







Personal opinion



I believe that almost all social networks, free mailers, search engines and instant messengers - sell Big Data users to advertising networks, where each has its own dossier. This is just one of the assumptions, you can think of the rest yourself.







I think, among those reading, there will be those who noticed - it’s enough to talk about something with friends or relatives in the messenger (sometimes even live, when the phone is next to it) - and sometimes an advertisement can begin to crawl, right out of place. Personally, not so long ago I got to the fact that I was talking on a rather narrow topic on Whatsapp's voice call. After advertising, the topic got narrow. I didn’t google it and didn’t drive it anywhere, I didn’t even touch on related topics, it was a friend’s problem. Then everywhere contextual advertising, which offers help in solving this problem. Yes, this is a controversial statement, many experts at Big Data argue that these methods are not cost-effective for advertisers.







And the attention that Telegram received only worked as a plus for them.







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The solution is to create your own servers where you can put analogues of instant messengers (as a ready-made option - Jabber). Under jabber there are mobile clients that support OTR or PGP. You are the server administrator, you see what is happening on it and you will be sure that your data, what you are talking about will not merge into the network. You do this not for free, it will require some costs and resources, but your data will be under your protection.








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