Mikhail Klemaryov shed some light on the capabilities used by the #Russia #SORM surveillance systems hyped by NYT recently, largely consistent with my analysis above:
For mobile and landline phone conversations, FSB has access to all metadata and call contents in real-time, archiving all of them “just in case” for at least six months with automatic transcription and ability to search by keywords. For persons of interest this retention time is likely much longer. For that reason, Klemaryov recommends not using regular mobile and landline calls in Russia at all.
For instant messengers, their capabilities are limited to correlation of call metadata between various Internet operators thanks to FSB real-time access to Internet connection metadata going through all Internet providers in Russia. For example, if you have a network stream seen by Alice’s mobile operator consistent with a Signal, WhatsApp or Telegram call that started exactly 09:21 and lasted exactly 39 seconds, you just need to find identical stream seen by Bob’s operator to be able to conclude that Alice talked to Bob. FSB doesn’t know the contents of these calls but only the fact they talked and when.
These capabilities are further limited as they require access to full metadata logs on both operators. If one caller is abroad, this won’t work. If one caller uses VPN, it won’t work. For that reason Klemaryov recommends using VPN for all Internet traffic in Russia, not only when bypassing blocked content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3wawFrozMQ
For #Telegram be sure to also read what npub1uyxyr55xy9auvwxym75a38rgr5jsc29x08hwh65n6pl9l8wuzunskmdmcm (npub1uyx…dmcm) wrote in this thread!
kravietz 🦇 /
npub1vz…rqdta
2023-07-04 08:31:05
in reply to nevent1q…agel
Author Public Key
npub1vz555w0w7pdy3l9skg202lkdnjqll4ct67l25f68x2h84e7u7r4qmrqdtaPublished at
2023-07-04 08:31:05Event JSON
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"content": "Mikhail Klemaryov shed some light on the capabilities used by the #Russia #SORM surveillance systems hyped by NYT recently, largely consistent with my analysis above:\n\nFor mobile and landline phone conversations, FSB has access to all metadata and call contents in real-time, archiving all of them “just in case” for at least six months with automatic transcription and ability to search by keywords. For persons of interest this retention time is likely much longer. For that reason, Klemaryov recommends not using regular mobile and landline calls in Russia at all.\nFor instant messengers, their capabilities are limited to correlation of call metadata between various Internet operators thanks to FSB real-time access to Internet connection metadata going through all Internet providers in Russia. For example, if you have a network stream seen by Alice’s mobile operator consistent with a Signal, WhatsApp or Telegram call that started exactly 09:21 and lasted exactly 39 seconds, you just need to find identical stream seen by Bob’s operator to be able to conclude that Alice talked to Bob. FSB doesn’t know the contents of these calls but only the fact they talked and when.\nThese capabilities are further limited as they require access to full metadata logs on both operators. If one caller is abroad, this won’t work. If one caller uses VPN, it won’t work. For that reason Klemaryov recommends using VPN for all Internet traffic in Russia, not only when bypassing blocked content.\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3wawFrozMQ\n\nFor #Telegram be sure to also read what nostr:npub1uyxyr55xy9auvwxym75a38rgr5jsc29x08hwh65n6pl9l8wuzunskmdmcm wrote in this thread!",
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