Problems with access to a number of Internet resources may be related to TSPU
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Runet users on the afternoon of February 27 reported problems with access to Telegram, and then other services, including WhatsApp and YouTube. The reason, according to experts and Kommersant sources, was the reconfiguration of TSPU equipment (technical means of countering threats) installed on operator networks. An indirect confirmation of this may be the emergence of temporary access for a number of subscribers to Internet resources blocked in Russia. This happens when the emergency mode of operation with the TSPU is turned on and when there are errors in the equipment settings. The fact that failures were also observed in other countries may be explained by the geographical distribution of data centers in which Telegram stores information.
Around 12:30 Moscow time on February 27, Telegram users in Russia and some other countries had problems accessing the messenger. Also, depending on the device and operator, crashes were observed in WhatsApp and YouTube on desktop computers and other resources from mobile devices. Roskomnadzor, in response to a request from Kommersant, only confirmed failures in the work of Telegram “in Russia and other countries.” For a Kommersant correspondent located in Spain, Telegram actually did not work at the time of the failure.
The Failure Detector website from Brand Analytics (like DownDetector, which left Russia, analyzes messages on social networks) noted user complaints about the work of all major operators, as well as VKontakte and Viber. According to data from the status page of the Yandex Cloud cloud service, from 12:10 to 16:00 there was network unavailability on part of the company’s server resources for corporate clients. VimpelCom, MegaFon, Tele2 and Rostelecom assured Kommersant that the problems were not related to the operators’ networks, which were working normally. MTS declined to comment.
A Kommersant source on the market cites the reason for the failure as the reconfiguration of filtering on TSPU equipment (installed on operator networks and used for off-registry blocking under the law “on the sovereign RuNet”).
Such cases have already happened. For example, in 2021, after Roskomnadzor ordered through the TSPU to slow down access to the now blocked Twitter, users had problems accessing the websites of companies and government authorities (see “Kommersant” dated March 11, 2021). The last major failure in RuNet happened January 30, but for a different reason – due to updates to the DNSSEC cryptographic key.
According to users of the NTC.party profile forum, some operators during the outage on February 27 began to disconnect when trying to contact addresses associated with YouTube. At the same time, the inaccessibility of a number of services from Russia, Kommersant was convinced, was solved by using even those VPNs that establish a connection within the Russian Federation.
After access to the sites was restored (this happened around 14:00), some Kommersant correspondents began to temporarily open sites blocked in the Russian Federation, in particular Facebook and Instagram (Meta’s activities in implementing them in the country were declared extremist and prohibited).
This means that “the original problem was at the TSPU level and to solve it they turned on the bypass mode (directing traffic directly, bypassing filtering.— “Kommersant”),” says Alexey Boyko, an analyst at the profile Telegram channel abloud62.
Another characteristic sign, according to him, is an uneven restoration of work: “There are still blockages on mobile networks, and there are temporarily no blockages on fixed access networks.”
Kommersant’s interlocutor on the market, however, doubts that telecom operators could enable bypass mode so quickly: “Telegram was unavailable for only about an hour.” According to him, the mode is actually turned on manually, for it you need to reconfigure the network: “I doubt that the operators could do this in such a short time and without pre-issued instructions from the responsible persons – the decision is not made at the level of the technical director.” Kommersant’s interlocutor believes that temporary access to blocked services became possible due to changes in the settings of the TSPU itself: “The system stores many different traffic patterns, an error could have occurred at the moment. Therefore, when testing the blocking of foreign instant messengers, access to some already blocked category appeared.”
A Kommersant source explains the problems outside Russia by the geographical distribution of Telegram data centers: “No one knows exactly in which countries the messenger has servers. It is possible that he stores some of the data in Russia. In this case, for users in Europe, whose data and traffic are distributed to these data centers, the service may not work if blocked by TSPU.” In this case, Kommersant’s interlocutor adds, it doesn’t matter what telecom operator the user has – he is “attached” to certain Telegram servers.
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