At its heart, Telegram is little more than a messaging app like WhatsApp or Signal. But it also offers open channels that enable a single user, or a group of users, to communicate with large numbers in a method similar to a Twitter account. This has proven to be both a blessing and a curse for Telegram and its users, since these channels can be used for both good and ill. Right now, as Wired reports, the app is a key way for Ukrainians to receive updates from the government during the invasion. These entities are reportedly operating nine Telegram channels with more than five million subscribers to whom they were making recommendations on selected listed scrips. Such recommendations induced the investors to deal in the said scrips, thereby creating artificial volume and price rise. Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Durov wrote that Telegram was "increasingly becoming a source of unverified information," and he worried about the app being used to "incite ethnic hatred." The gold standard of encryption, known as end-to-end encryption, where only the sender and person who receives the message are able to see it, is available on Telegram only when the Secret Chat function is enabled. Voice and video calls are also completely encrypted. "This time we received the coordinates of enemy vehicles marked 'V' in Kyiv region," it added.
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