Came home because of Element

Just today, about an hour ago (at 21:00 Moscow time), two young men, approximately 25 years old, knocked on my door, dressed in jackets, the quality was clearly better and more expensive than most passers-by on the streets of my Volga city with 300 k population.

As it turned out, it was detectives from the local Ministry of Internal Affairs who came knocking. Without providing at least some kind of printout, paper or decree, only showing their IDs, they began asking vague leading questions from afar, which ultimately boiled down to the question “Do you use instant messengers such as Signal, Element or Jabber?”

At the same time, they did not have any questions to TG, Viber and WhatsApp. I even mentioned the old Mail.ru Agent – also 0 reactions. They already “joked” about Miranda themselves. As I understand it, “over there” they have long and firmly connected at least somewhat protected messengers with the activity of those criminals who are engaged in the distribution of (you know what) substances.

Or they are trying to pretend to an outside observer that only a certain category of people (criminals) use a group of messengers like “Signal, Element and Jabber.” Or they themselves sincerely believe in it.

At the same time, they reminded us of the danger of reading “inaccurate information on the Internet,” after which people transfer money to the account of the wrong team of players on Minecraft servers (figuratively speaking).

I told them (hinting at potential opportunities for solving real crimes) that on a house nearby, for example, there had been a link spray-painted on the wall for several months now. They brushed it off, saying something like, “It’s like this everywhere now.”

That is, we had such an educational conversation on the threshold of my apartment at 9 o’clock in the evening. What a concern on the eve of the elections!

As far as I know, the laws of the Russian Federation as of March 6, 2024 do not prohibit the use of the three relatively secure messengers mentioned above, but I could be wrong, because I'm not a lawyer. It seems there was some kind of ban on business.

I am writing this as a cry for help and a warning to everyone who reads it.