本月早些时候，俄罗斯当局解除了对电报短信应用程序的禁令，理由是该公司愿意帮助其反恐工作。然而，尽管官方禁令已经生效两年多了，但据报道，电报在该国的大部分时间里仍然可以使用。《*****》在一篇新特写中写道，Telegram的创始人帕维尔·杜洛夫（Pavel Durov）是如何“羞辱并胜过俄罗斯国家电信监管机构”，阻止该应用程序被成功禁止的。不出所料，这本书值得一读。

Telegram最初引起了俄罗斯当局的注意，因为据报道它已成为该国反对派组织首选的应用程序之一。当局希望获得电报用户的加密信息，但杜洛夫并不急于放弃。

Two years ago, Pavel Durov refused to grant Russian security services access to users’ encrypted messages on his popular Telegram messaging app, then a favorite of Russian opposition groups. The reply from authorities was either submit or become wiped off the country’s digital map.

Neither happened.

原因是电报绕过了监管机构的防火墙。它通过美国的云服务从亚马逊和谷歌等公司获取流量，将其隐藏起来。俄罗斯调查记者和安全服务专家安德烈·索尔达托夫（Andrei Soldatov）称，加上其不断变化的IP地址，这意味着，当俄罗斯*****机构Roskomnadzor试图封锁电报时，其他网站和服务也陷入了交火。但事实证明，这种策略在一些公司引起了争议：

“Telegram effectively made big platforms with lots of users — companies were hosted on them — hostages,” Soldatov said, adding that the digital disturbance raised the awareness of ordinary users who may not have even been on Telegram.

“Opini*** were divided over the ethics of these tactics,” Soldatov said. “While digital activists praised it — it made the Telegram issue a national and even international one — the Russian companies hosted on Amazon got blocked due to incompetence of Roskomnadzor. And they blamed Telegram, not the Russian authorities.”

据报道，这些策略在伊朗或中国等*****工作更为复杂的国家是行不通的，但它们足以让俄罗斯当局放弃禁止电报的企图。相反，在一个奇怪的转折点，**官员似乎接受了它。

Moscow’s attempts to ban Telegram had a very ironic twist — they were repeatedly undermined by government officials who continued using it. The app eventually morphed into another dissemination tool for state-sp***ored news and propaganda.

《*****》的文章很好地展示了一个相对较小的服务在决心保持在线时能够取得的成就，非常值得一读。