[octaveguin]

It's strange that whenever telegram comes up, there's an unfounded suspicion that it has some kind FSB/Russian government connection simply because it was developed by a Russian.

This is insane and like pretty bigoted - not a good look for HN.

Here's the guy that leads the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov

>In 2011, he was involved in a standoff with police in St. Petersburg when the government demanded the removal of opposition politicians' pages after the 2011 election to the Duma.

He's living abroad because he's either not allowed or does not feel safe entering Russia. VK was taken from him pretty much over his principals not to do what HN just assume telegram does. Telegram was developed outside of Russia to avoid being beholden to them.

The fact that Russia was actively blocking telegram should be proof enough. The reason they stopped is because when they did, they would accidentally blocked other services and it was kind of a disaster. They simply don't have the expertise to run their blocking campaign. It looked bad so they stopped.

Russians are more than one-dimensional Putin-driven fake news generating bad guys.

[Avamander]

> This is insane and like pretty bigoted - not a good look for HN.

No, you're just projecting. This mindset of untrustworthy until proven otherwise is universally applied to all chat apps, from any country, it happens under pretty much every discussion of Facebook's Whatsapp and Messenger and it happens in discussions about WeiBo (and similar).

[mdrachuk]

What if they now have some way of pressuring him into doing it?

Russian people are not one-dimensional. Russian government is.

[maqp]

>He's living abroad because he's either not allowed or does not feel safe entering Russia.

He has since entered Russia. Also, Durov's warrant was dropped just two months after he went exile. Stop inventing things.

>VK was taken from him pretty much over his principals not to do what HN just assume telegram does.

HN isn't concerned over what he does, it's what capabilities he leaves himself and anyone who hacks his systems. If Durov really cared about his principles, he'd have deployed app-wide E2EE from the get go. He had the money to hire the people to do that.

>Telegram was developed outside of Russia to avoid being beholden to them.

Didn't stop it from being developed by non experts, almost equally bad considering there's now the equivalent in the backdoor that allows the server to read everyone's group messages.

>The fact that Russia was actively blocking telegram should be proof enough

If that's proof of Telegram's security, then the fact the ban was lifted means Telegram is now 100% compromised. So yeah, you have to make a choice here.

>The reason they stopped is because when they did, they would accidentally blocked other services

This is the actual reason they continued, and Telegram's security is not proven by the ban. They've had the capability to hack the server since day one. And if you disagree, you're either ill informed, or fooling yourself. If it's the former, start here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_Bear

>Russians are more than one-dimensional Putin-driven fake news generating bad guys.

It's very probable Durov isn't actively trying to uphold the oligarchy from abroad by continuing his military training in propaganda and position in the Russian society by retreating to an oppressive country like UAE under the disguise of exile just when chat platforms start to overtake social media sites. I think that's very improbable.

But he's a useful fool for creating something that's trivial to hack, and that allows all intelligence establishments around the world to access Telegram's communication. We should've learned from Cambridge Analytica that ubiquitous E2EE by default is the only way to prevent future disasters. It's not like Durov can magically protect Telegram from all the state driven hacking organization and their insane budgets with no profit responsibility.