The FSB has for the first time admitted that it tracks Telegram users through internet traffic...

The FSB has for the first time admitted that it tracks Telegram users through internet traffic. But it said obtaining IP addresses and geolocation is "problematic"

The FSB has admitted that it uses internet traffic analysis to establish Telegram user activity. A security service officer said this during a court hearing in an administrative extremism case, according to a ruling found by Verstka.

The court was considering the appeal of a resident of the Jewish Autonomous Region who was fined 10,000 rubles under the article on incitement of hatred or enmity (Article 20.3.1 of the Administrative Code). The reason was a post in the Telegram channel "No Coercion in the JAR" containing statements about the religious movement "Chabad."

The woman argued that her guilt had not been proven: the channel had several administrators, and the case materials contained no data on the Telegram account login, IP addresses, or geolocation. A senior operative officer of the FSB directorate for the Jewish Autonomous Region, questioned in court, explained the mechanism for identifying Telegram users as follows:

"A messenger login can be obtained on the basis of a court sanction and tracked through a specialized technical подразделение, where the traffic was going, to which application, social networks, VKONTAKTE, Odnoklassniki, Telegram, WhatsApp. Everything can be obtained on the basis of internet traffic."

At the same time, the FSB officer noted that "data on geolocation and the IP addresses from which access to the account was carried out will be problematic to obtain, because the Telegram messenger is foreign."

Yevgeny Smirnov, a lawyer with Pervy Otdel, told Verstka that this was the first time he had encountered such wording from the security service, even though the practice of law enforcement using DPI is itself not new.

"We presume this is standard practice, but this is the first time I've seen them speak so openly about it," Smirnov said.

🟦Sources for The New York Times had previously reported that law enforcement can analyze Russians' internet traffic. Verstka was unable to find other court rulings or public statements in which FSB officers confirmed this information.

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