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Comment by olah_1 | Hacker News Reader

Let's pretend that Telegram servers and all your data is stored in Russia, regularly data-mined by the KGB, whatever.

The fact is that many Americans would prefer to have their data mined by the KGB than by the FBI.

Telegram was banned in Russia. The founder was forced out of his own billion dollar company in Russia because he wasn't "in" with the Kremlin.

I know, I’m just saying that this is the common meme statement about Russia.

Telegram wasn't banned in Russia, it was just a PR show.

In essence it was not a show, but it turned out to be. Roscomnadzor (same as FCC in US) was desperately trying to block Telegram by KGB (FSB) resolution, because Telegram did not obey to their orders to provide keys and it turned out into complete farce. During this endeavor as a side effect they blocked almost any service that was using AWS and/or other cloud services, a lot many companies in Russia had been suffering from IT ifrastructure disruption including government institutions, yet Telegrams was up and running. And the most fannies thing was that almost all middle rank officials continued to use Telegram for their daily work and leasure. In the end Roscomnadzor "silently" quit their attempts. It was so humorous to follow the event. That was the first time in the modern history of Russia when govt completely failed while acting against their citizens. After that, Durov turned into real "rock star" here. :)

And all of that doesn't contradict with the "PR Show" hypothesis (not to say - supports)

but thats literally not how the laws in the US works. The fact thats it going to a foreign country gives the FBI less restrictions when it comes to intercepting that communication.

It also gives them less ability to do it.

Which do you think is safer:

- The FBI can easily read all your messages, but they're not allowed to.

- The FBI is allowed to read all of your messages, but they can't.

idk signal where they would require a warrant to intercept the encrypted data and metadata vs telegram where they already intercepted data/ metadata that they can then use the metadata to get a FISA warrant to hack ur phone based on metadata. Signal is clearly better for Americans.

And suffer from identity theft and possibly malicious acts against their employees? I don't think it is preferable for many Americans.

The FBI doesn’t protect your data from breaches. On the contrary, they desperately want it and will do what it takes to get it.

It honestly seems less risky at this point. What is the KGB gonna do with my data? They've got no jurisdiction in the US, the best they might hope is to blackmail me. The FBI, on the other hand, does have jursidiction.

I can imagine at least the following: - impersonate you - mine some data they think important for them

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