[baybal2]

FIY: While they claim being hounded back in Russia, and that they will be instantaneously jumped upon by 3 letter services if they were to run there, they were proven to have a huge office there as well as their main server infrastructure.

Another red flag, is that they were never blocked in Russia.

They look suspicious.

[eps]

Got a source for the first claim?

Second would've been a red flag if the Russian gvmnt would've been routinely blocking other chat systems.

[Grue3]

Russian government is routinely blocking other chat systems. LINE, CacaoTalk and WeChat are currently banned.

[Dolores12]

>LINE, CacaoTalk and WeChat are currently banned.

No they are NOT banned, I just tried Line & WeChat.

[Grue3]

Maybe you got lucky with your ISP, or the apps learned to work around the block. My home ISP definitely blocks Line website. There are plenty of news sites reporting on the blocks, such as [1]

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/08/technology/wechat-blocked-ru...

[Dolores12]

I have checked blocklist, indeed line.me is blocked[0]. I have tried to run application.

[0] https://reestr.rublacklist.net/rec/170456/

[baybal2]

>Got a source for the first claim?

Here:

https://medium.com/@anton.rozenberg/pavel-durov-sued-senior-...

[baybal2]

In the very end of the article, there are photos of the Telegraph LLC, the company behind Telegram, just a floor below the currently government owned VKontakte

[eps]

Re: servers - there are several paragraphs in the middle detailing Telegram's DC move to London. So your server farm claim is still unconfirmed.

Re: the office - from what I gather, they maintain a shell company in Russia that sits in the former Telegram office. The photo merely shows that they may have a large office space, which may have been inherited by this company from their VK split for all we know. I really can't tell from this post if they do any development in their Moscow office.

[baybal2]

Their office is in St. Petersburg, not Moscow. Googling for a few minutes will give you plenty of evidence that they do.

[Terr_]

The first claim? The "hounded by Russia" one? I'm not familiar with the story, but some quick searching reveals this:

https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/16/telegram-fined-by-russia...

The prime source seems to be founder Durov's social-media posts, retelling his communications to/from regulators.

[eps]

No, the OP's claim, not theirs.

Re: a huge office & a server farm.

[Dolores12]

As far as i remember, the only large system that were banned in Russia is Linkedin, because they didn't follow the law to keep data of Russian users on Russian soil.

And given the fact, that vk.com were taken away from Durov by Mr. Sechin (RosNeft CEO), close friend of Mr. Putin, i highly doubt he is in bed with 3 letter service.

[dude01]

Yeah, I agree. Other red flags: he's leaving Russia with 2,000 bitcoins; Julian Assange endorsing Telegram; Telegram popular in Iran (close Russian ally); end of article says that Putin's Kremlin staff uses it. (edit: formatting)