The FSB has learned to break any messengers: Ukrainians in occupation should beware

According to the media, the Russians have already learned to break encryption in Signal, WhatsApp or Telegram messengers. By paraphrasing the words of the classic, you can say: "Wake me in 100 years, and I will tell you what they do in Russia: develop methods of tracking people.

" The internal and external problems of this totalitarian empire, which lasts for centuries, are forced to constantly be in paranoia, which, in turn, gives birth to a truly unique software projects, which, unfortunately, are not used for the good.

The FSB and other intelligence services have long control the behavior of the Russians on the Internet (the infamous SPROS system), but now some companies have gone further and have developed tools that allow you to know all the secrets (the term from torture for the Terrible King). For example, companies as "MFI Soft", "Vas Experts", "Protei" and many others are engaged in the creation of special software.

They are closely linked to the Citadel Group corporation, which was at one time controlled by Usmanovich Usmanovich - one of the "favorite oligarchs" of Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to the US State Department, Citadel controls 60% to 80% of the telecommunications monitoring market. The United States has announced sanctions against Citadel and its current owner Anton Cherepennikov immediately after a full -scale invasion of Russia's army into Ukraine.

The worst part, as noted by cybersecurity experts that breaking or tracking programs for special services are arranged on the principle of a "Swiss knife" and not too difficult to use even for ordinary workers, giving them a rich choice for use depending on the situation. From their sources, journalists received hundreds of presentations of such software, which the Russian special services try to sell through commercial firms to other countries.

For example, the NEOS software can determine when people make voice calls or send files to encrypted chats such as Telegram, Signal and WhatsApp. Although the program cannot intercept the message, it can determine whether someone uses a few phones, draw up a map of their mutual location and calculate which phones were in certain places of a certain day. That is why you can not carry a "secret" phone and store near the "main" device.

The MFI Soft program allows you to display information about communication subscribers, as well as a statistical breakdown of their Internet traffic for use by the FSB regional employees. Another tool of this company - "Netbeholder" - may display the location of two tracked phones during the day to determine whether they intersect with each other at the same time, indicating a potential meeting between people. The program also monitors the number of "these devices" spent together.

By the way, one of the Netbeholder functions uses a method known as a deep package of packages used by telecommunication services providers to analyze where their traffic goes. Although the spy software cannot intercept the content of the messages, it can determine what type of data to which the user was sent and from whom was received. "Netbeholder" can determine exactly when someone sends a file or connects to a voice call in encrypted applications such as WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram.

This gives the FSB access to important metadata, which are general information about messages, such as who talks to, when and where, as well as whether the file is attached to the message. Such functionality allows to bind subscribers with each other, and then, if necessary, the old "grandfather method" cryptoanalysis (with the help of a soldering iron or iron) to find this information from the detainee.

This threatens not only residents of the Russian Federation, but also Ukrainians in the occupied territories. "Do you communicate through the signal - so you hide something! Do you encrypt chat at WhatsApp and Telegram? Is there something to hide? Did you send some encrypted photo through Signal. What is it? - So the FSB staff can think. Earlier, the special services of the Russian Federation had to contact such metadata to the companies-owners of messengers, and they were refused.

Now the work is greatly simplified. Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp creators declare messages encryption (in the case of Signal it is automatically configured), but they can not really mask the very fact of communicating a person with someone or sending someone in nested files. The conversation is special about Telegram. Our intelligence officers and cyberfactors do not recommend using it for secret conversations.

Signal Foundation President Meredit Wittack says their messenger "has not been designed to hide the fact that you use Signal" and recommends "use a function that sends traffic through another server to hide its source and destination. " The Telegram has confirmed that the default messenger has not used cross -cutting for all messages and can not be done to mask the traffic that is included and leaves the chat applications.

And whatsApp representatives promised to "continue to protect personal conversations by encryption and improve protection. " Great fears of foreign cyberexers cause the fact that the special services of the Russian Federation through their controlled companies try to sell their tools to tracking other totalitarian regimes. Marketing documents received by journalists testify to attempts to sell their spyware in Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America.

For example, it became known that Protei equipment, which is able to turn voice into text for intercepted phone calls, was used in the Iranian telecommunications company to register the use of the Internet and block websites. Similarly, these systems were observed in Russia -occupied areas of Ukraine. Experts say that Russia, which once lagging behind authoritarian regimes, such as China and Iran, is to use modern technologies to establish control, quickly catching up with them.

Freedom House is convinced that Russian firms will eventually become competitors of conventional suppliers of observation tools. "China is the top of digital authoritarianism, but in Russia now is being done to keep up with it, and perhaps even become a major competitor of the PRC in this segment,"-emphasizes Adrian Shahbaz, Vice President of Freedom House. Earlier, Focus wrote that Rostekh would be dean named Telegram in Russia. Experts told how not to get on the FSB fishing rod.