Major bugs in Telegram and other services
As of Tuesday afternoon, February 27, Telegram users were complaining extensively about the glitches. With data On the Telegram Info channel, the messenger stopped working at approximately 12:35 Moscow time. Moscow, St. People from St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar and Novosibirsk complained about access problems. Additionally, Telegram did not work for users in other countries (Belarus, USA and Germany).
Some users stated that while there were no problems when using Wi-Fi, the messaging application did not work over mobile Internet. For others, only some Telegram functions did not work – downloading media files, for example.
Problems with other services and applications were also reported: users were unable to access YouTube, Viber and WhatsApp. RBC reporters registeredThey are having difficulty accessing Zoom.
With data mobile operators “Megafon”, “Tele2″ and Beeline”, access problems arose on the services side. Megafon announced that they, in fact, recorded a decrease in traffic volumes on Telegram and other services.
ANO Digital Platforms General Manager Arseny Shcheltsin speaks to NSN suggestedHe said that the reason for the failures may be the testing of new Russian software:
“We will probably learn about testing some new Russian software a little later. “I don’t think this is a systematic and targeted work in terms of sabotage, but it is quite possible in terms of testing something.”
After data appeared on problems in the functioning of services, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications Anton Gorelkin Wrote He said on his Telegram channel that such incidents occur “for various reasons, from human factors to hacker attacks” and will happen again.
Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications Anton Tkachev later explainedThat service failures arose due to verification and reconfiguration of Roskomnadzor gateways.
“There are a number of sites and hostile platforms, including a number of VPN services operating illegally in Russia, which will ultimately limit our users’ access to these platforms. Accordingly, a series of restructurings are being carried out in Roskomnadzor’s systems, and as part of these restructurings, some systems may conditionally fail.”
It’s about elections
Access to Telegram was restored two hours later. transmitted RIA Novosti agency. As of 15:25 Moscow time, no data on problems was recorded in services for monitoring faults.
Some users after problems reportedInstagram, where social networks without a VPN are blocked in Russia (the owner of the Meta company is considered an extremist and is banned in Russia), Facebook (the owner of the Meta company is considered an extremist and is banned in Russia) and X.
Andrey Svintsov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, in a conversation with socialbites.ca explained Problems with access to services by Russian intelligence services ahead of the presidential elections. According to him, in the near future “security vulnerabilities will be eliminated” and access to resources banned in the country will be restricted again.
“Again, banned sites, banned resources, banned social networks will have limited access and everything will be in accordance with existing law. There is no need to be surprised here. This is the usual work of special services responsible for cybersecurity and performance, protecting the infrastructure of all our IT resources,” Svintsov emphasized.
The MP noted that the issue of unblocking some social networks was not discussed. Svintsov also added that there was no need to discuss the removal of the blockage.
“Most of our citizens have turned to domestic resources, and everyone is gradually forgetting what Western social networks are. “Slowly, blocked resources become obsolete and our citizens turn to other resources,” he said.
“Banned” on Steam
On February 27, Roskomnadzor (RKN) also limited the operation of the Steam Internet gaming platform in the country (an American distribution service for digital copies of computer games; launched by Valve in 2003; by the end of 2023 Steam was used monthly by over 130 million people worldwide, the most popular platform in its niche), reported Telegram channel Baza. The regulator added the steamcommunity.com website to the list of prohibited resources, so users from the Russian Federation may lose access to their profile, friends list, as well as the “Workshop” and “Marketplace”.
It was stated on the RKN website that the site was banned by the decision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on February 22. The reason why the banned sites were included in the list was not specified.
Later at Roskomnadzor stated socialbites.ca said that the regulator does not restrict access to steamcommunity.com. A request was sent to the site owners to remove content regarding methods of producing narcotic substances. After the requirement was met, the page was removed from the Unified Register of Prohibited Information due to the removal of illegal content.