Viber says access to some servers blocked, authority denies guilt

MOSCOW, May 18 (PRIME) – Some of Viber servers were blocked causing connection problems with some Russian users, it said on Friday, but the country’s communications watchdog said it has nothing to do with the difficulties.

“Some of our Russian users report issues with connection to Viber. It seems the situation stems in the decision of certain connection operators to block access to a number of servers, including those exploited by Viber,” the messenger said in a Twitter post.

Viber said it does not understand reasons behind the decision that is not directly linked to the messenger.

Big mobile operator VimpelCom attributed difficulties in reaching such companies as Amazon or Viber, among others, to the fact that they use the Internet resources to which access was restricted because of Telegram’s muting.

The watchdog started blocking the IP addresses used by Telegram to skirt the blocking imposed in April by a Moscow court for reluctance of the popular messenger to hand over decoding keys to the Federal Security Service, the move Telegram says is technologically and morally impossible.

The communications service’s Director Alexander Zharov said the authority’s activities have nothing to do with problems of access to Viber in Russia.

“The authority has not added Viber’s IP to the register of banned resources, which is easy to check by analyzing the register’s data for the previous day. Viber’s problems have nothing to do with actions of the communications service,” Zharov said.

On Thursday, the communications service said the register of banned information does not content IP addresses of messenger WhatsApp despite reports in mass media and in Telegram channels.

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