Ukrainian forces successfully attacked Russian vehicles in the capital city of Kyiv thanks to a public tip made through the encrypted messaging app Telegram, Ukraine's top law-enforcement agency said on Tuesday. Telegram, which does little policing of its content, has also became a hub for Russian propaganda and misinformation. Many pro-Kremlin channels have become popular, alongside accounts of journalists and other independent observers. Telegram does offer end-to-end encrypted communications through Secret Chats, but this is not the default setting. Standard conversations use the MTProto method, enabling server-client encryption but with them stored on the server for ease-of-access. This makes using Telegram across multiple devices simple, but also means that the regular Telegram chats you’re having with folks are not as secure as you may believe. "He has kind of an old-school cyber-libertarian world view where technology is there to set you free," Maréchal said. Official government accounts have also spread fake fact checks. An official Twitter account for the Russia diplomatic mission in Geneva shared a fake debunking video claiming without evidence that "Western and Ukrainian media are creating thousands of fake news on Russia every day." The video, which has amassed almost 30,000 views, offered a "how-to" spot misinformation.
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