[kijin]

According to the founder [1], Telegram was even removed from Play Store for a few hours at the request of a South Korean competitor.

For whatever reason, somebody in South Korea is seriously pissed off with Telegram.

[1] https://twitter.com/durov/status/619486763032182784

[zodiakzz]

LINE is a Japanese company IIRC.

[kijin]

It is a subsidiary of Naver, the largest (and politically well-connected) portal in Korea.

[cpncrunch]

They've been having DDoS attacks since September last year, so it seems unlikely that it's caused by a recent event. I'm surprised they haven't done anything about it before now.

[kijin]

The attack in September occurred just as a large number of Koreans suddenly moved to Telegram. The mass exodus was triggered by a surveillance scandal where a major Korean competitor was found to be handing over a large amount of user data to the government.

In recent days, there's been another exodus of Koreans from domestic IM services due to the revelation that the Korean army has been a customer of Hacking Team, the Italian spyware vendor who got hacked last week.

The two incidents might be related.

[nestorp]

Fucking assholes... Let the guys behind Telegram work, they're elevating the current level of messaging apps s big step further.

[tuananh]

he didn't back anything he said. as much as i like Telegram, at least show some proof when you put such strong statement.

[brobinson]

He just replied with more info on his claim: https://twitter.com/durov/status/620538556134653952