HW/FW security researcher & Demoscene elder.
I started having arguments online back on Fidonet and Usenet. I’m too tired to care now.
Many of Yandex’s employees resigned in protest, accusing the company of serving as a tool of Kremlin propaganda and actively concealing information about the war.
Yeah I am a cryptographer, reverse engineer and (whitehat) hacker. I’m also well versed in the russian influence operations having run rampant in the west for a bit more than a decade.
The Telegram-supporters are out in force right now specifically to make sure people keep using Telegram, believing it to be secure. Russia has already made used of their backdoors against Ukraine in the war.
Russia banning Signal now was a huge blunder, since that proves there’s nothing in Telegram they don’t have access to, having allowed it to keep operating.
“Access to the Signal messaging app is blocked in connection with violation of the requirements of Russian legislation which must be complied with to prevent the use of messaging apps for terrorist and extremist aims”
Russian authorities began to block access to Telegram, a widely used messaging app, in 2018. The action interrupted many third-party services, but had little effect on the availability of Telegram in Russia.
This is where Signal’s biggest problem shows. It’s centralized. Matrix is the better choice since it will be up to you if you decide to break the law if it’s banned, since there will still be plenty of servers you can reach.