Re: Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Arrested in France

Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> writes:

Julius Bernotas:

IIRC Telegram's founder originally fled Russia and went to
Israel.

Fled?! He simply emigrated, and remains a Russian citizen,
and it is in that quality that the Russisan government
interceded for him in France.

The Russian authorities had difficulties tracking down
people who were writing things that were against the
official line of the regime on Telegram.

Yes, including criminals, spies, and terrorists.

The Russian authorities even slowed down the speed of
internet connections to Telegram's servers inside Russia
on February 2022 and in the 6 following months. I wonder
if the internet speed for connections to Telegram's
servers is still artificially being slowed down.

I don't experiece any slowdowns now, but YouTube is
practically blocked here, alghough it can be accessed via
VPNs or special software like GoodbyeDPI .

I'm trying to figure out whether I understand you
correctly. Are you saying that Telegram is an official
means of communication for the Russian military on the
Ukrainian front?

No, it is not "official."  The joke was a sad sarcasm: too
near the truth.

[...]
And are you saying that Telegram is not a means of
communication used by Russian military officials on the
Ukrainian front?

It is.

To transmit orders for example.

Maybe even for that, but certainly for horisontal
coordination where other means are unavailable.

Communications in the Russian army is a /bloody/ mess (as
many other things).  It is higly dependent on the help of
volunteers from all over Russia, who adopt various civil DMR
radios, order, upgrade, develop custom firmware, and
reprogram all the necessary hardware, from retranslators and
power generators to individual portable radios and
batteries, and adopt them for tanks, APCs, and develop
integration.  Even the basic wired communication is not
always avaiable, so that volunteers scavenge old military
field telephones and buy cable by the kilometer, because it
is an expendable.

The majority of high-quality (season- and terrain-tailored)
camouflage nets are also supplied by volunteers, via the
"People's net" project with workshops across the coutry
exising on small personal donations.  And all the while the
Russian propaganda has been bragging that the Russian army
is well suppplied, and attacking the volunteers for
"discrediding the military."

Did you know, for exapmple, that in the storm of Lisichansk,
communication was provided via a bunch of portable radios
(one per channel) and one retranslator-capable radio hanging
from a 12-meter Chinese kite, something like this:

 https://avatars.dzeninfra.ru/get-zen_brief/7713650/pub_63760c421e944f5c890f23ef_63760c421e944f5c890f23f0/scale_2400

Back in 2019, year of the anniversary of the Apollo
landing I remember watching the series Chasing the Moon [1]
by Robert Stone. The documentary also handles the space race between
the USA and the Soviet Union. It roughly says this:
Khrushchew is working as the secretary general. His main
goal is to ensure that the population of the Soviet Union is
fed and that the other basic needs of the population are met.
A space race with the USA that is going to cost a significant part
of the Soviet Union's budget is not coming at the right time.
That's the least you could say about it.

[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_Moon_(TV_series)