How Is Russia Blocking Calls on WhatsApp/Telegram/Face Time/Snapchat/?

6 pointsposted a month ago
by urcite_ty_kokos
(reuters.com)

6 Comments

belter

a month ago

Its DPI mostly from this company: https://theins.ru/en/politics/265749

wkat4242

a month ago

It won't be the only solution that can do this by the way. Many airplane WiFi services block WhatsApp and telegram calls.

I think they just look at the traffic shape. Real-time traffic requires a lot of constant similar sized traffic per second, rather than texting or images which is much more bursty.

urcite_ty_kokos

a month ago

Hi, I was wondering how is it technically possible for Russia firewalls to block calls over these platforms, while keeping chat messages working? Thanks

My guess is that it is because of a different layer 7 protocol than HTTP is used for calls, and the code of the protocol leaks in the TLS/SSL header. Is this guess correct?

doc_doom

a month ago

Ngl same question for United Arab Emirates