Andrey, a Russian entrepreneur living in Brazil who, fearing retaliation, asked that NPR not use his last name, said Telegram has become one of the few places Russians can access independent news about the war. Founder Pavel Durov says tech is meant to set you free On Telegram’s website, it says that Pavel Durov “supports Telegram financially and ideologically while Nikolai (Duvov)’s input is technological.” Currently, the Telegram team is based in Dubai, having moved around from Berlin, London and Singapore after departing Russia. Meanwhile, the company which owns Telegram is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Messages are not fully encrypted by default. That means the company could, in theory, access the content of the messages, or be forced to hand over the data at the request of a government. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had carried out a similar exercise in 2017 in a matter related to circulation of messages through WhatsApp.
from ru