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. For Oleksandra Tsekhanovska, head of the Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group at the Kyiv-based Ukraine Crisis Media Center, the effects are both near- and far-reaching. But because group chats and the channel features are not end-to-end encrypted, Galperin said user privacy is potentially under threat. 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. 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.
from ye