If there’s a sacred line the crypto community insists shouldn’t be crossed, it’s Thou Shalt Never Cooperate with Government Prohibitions. Apple Inc., the world’s most valuable company, appears to have ventured into such territory, according to Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov. He claims the maker of iPhone, iPad, and other iconic hardware, is purposefully restricting Telegram’s program updates on Apple’s latest operating system rollout in an effort to appease Russian authorities.
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Apple Inc. Sides with Russia Against Telegram
“Apple has been preventing Telegram from updating its iOS apps globally ever since the Russian authorities ordered Apple to remove Telegram from the App Store,” Telegram’s Pavel Durov wrote on his quarter million member Durov’s Channel. “Russia banned Telegram on its territory in April because we refused to provide decryption keys for all our users’ communications to Russia’s security agencies. We believe we did the only possible thing, preserving the right of our users to privacy in a troubled country.”
As reported in these pages two month ago, “Supreme Court Judge Alla Nazarova […] rejected an appeal filed by Telegram, objecting to Russia’s Federal Security Services (FSB) obtaining the encryption keys to its platform. As a result, Telegram will be legally obligated to grant security forces access to the private messages and other data of its users, unless it can convince an appellate court to reverse the decision.”
Weeks after, a kangaroo Moscow court upheld that decision, ordering Telegram to comply. Then, as like now, Mr. Durov took to his personal channel, explaining defiantly, “The power that local governments have over IT corporations is based on money. At any given moment, a government can crash their stocks
