XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.misc, comp.misc   
   From: anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com   
      
   Julius Bernotas:   
      
   > IIRC Telegram's founder originally fled Russia and went to   
   > Israel.   
      
   Fled?! He simply emigrated, and remains a Russian citizen,   
   and it is in that quality that the Russisan government   
   interceded for him in France.   
      
   > The Russian authorities had difficulties tracking down   
   > people who were writing things that were against the   
   > official line of the regime on Telegram.   
      
   Yes, including criminals, spies, and terrorists.   
      
   > The Russian authorities even slowed down the speed of   
   > internet connections to Telegram's servers inside Russia   
   > on February 2022 and in the 6 following months. I wonder   
   > if the internet speed for connections to Telegram's   
   > servers is still artificially being slowed down.   
      
   I don't experiece any slowdowns now, but YouTube is   
   practically blocked here, alghough it can be accessed via   
   VPNs or special software like GoodbyeDPI .   
      
   > I'm trying to figure out whether I understand you   
   > correctly. Are you saying that Telegram is an official   
   > means of communication for the Russian military on the   
   > Ukrainian front?   
      
   No, it is not "official."  The joke was a sad sarcasm: too   
   near the truth.   
      
   > [...]   
   > And are you saying that Telegram is not a means of   
   > communication used by Russian military officials on the   
   > Ukrainian front?   
      
   It is.   
      
   > To transmit orders for example.   
      
   Maybe even for that, but certainly for horisontal   
   coordination where other means are unavailable.   
      
   Communications in the Russian army is a /bloody/ mess (as   
   many other things).  It is higly dependent on the help of   
   volunteers from all over Russia, who adopt various civil DMR   
   radios, order, upgrade, develop custom firmware, and   
   reprogram all the necessary hardware, from retranslators and   
   power generators to individual portable radios and   
   batteries, and adopt them for tanks, APCs, and develop   
   integration.  Even the basic wired communication is not   
   always avaiable, so that volunteers scavenge old military   
   field telephones and buy cable by the kilometer, because it   
   is an expendable.   
      
   The majority of high-quality (season- and terrain-tailored)   
   camouflage nets are also supplied by volunteers, via the   
   "People's net" project with workshops across the coutry   
   exising on small personal donations.  And all the while the   
   Russian propaganda has been bragging that the Russian army   
   is well suppplied, and attacking the volunteers for   
   "discrediding the military."   
      
   Did you know, for exapmple, that in the storm of Lisichansk,   
   communication was provided via a bunch of portable radios   
   (one per channel) and one retranslator-capable radio hanging   
   from a 12-meter Chinese kite, something like this:   
      
     https://avatars.dzeninfra.ru/get-zen_brief/7713650/pub_63760c4   
   1e944f5c890f23ef_63760c421e944f5c890f23f0/scale_2400   
      
   --   
   ()  ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail   
   /\  www.asciiribbon.org   -- against proprietary attachments   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)