Telegram was founded in 2013 by two Russian brothers, Nikolai and Pavel Durov. Channels are not fully encrypted, end-to-end. All communications on a Telegram channel can be seen by anyone on the channel and are also visible to Telegram. Telegram may be asked by a government to hand over the communications from a channel. Telegram has a history of standing up to Russian government requests for data, but how comfortable you are relying on that history to predict future behavior is up to you. Because Telegram has this data, it may also be stolen by hackers or leaked by an internal employee. Pavel Durov, a billionaire who embraces an all-black wardrobe and is often compared to the character Neo from "the Matrix," funds Telegram through his personal wealth and debt financing. And despite being one of the world's most popular tech companies, Telegram reportedly has only about 30 employees who defer to Durov for most major decisions about the platform. Sebi said data, emails and other documents are being retrieved from the seized devices and detailed investigation is in progress. "And that set off kind of a battle royale for control of the platform that Durov eventually lost," said Nathalie Maréchal of the Washington advocacy group Ranking Digital Rights.
from jp
