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. The message was not authentic, with the real Zelenskiy soon denying the claim on his official Telegram channel, but the incident highlighted a major problem: disinformation quickly spreads unchecked on the encrypted app. Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Kyiv-based lawyer and head of the Center for Civil Liberties, called Durov’s position "very weak," and urged concrete improvements. Additionally, investors are often instructed to deposit monies into personal bank accounts of individuals who claim to represent a legitimate entity, and/or into an unrelated corporate account. To lend credence and to lure unsuspecting victims, perpetrators usually claim that their entity and/or the investment schemes are approved by financial authorities. But Telegram says people want to keep their chat history when they get a new phone, and they like having a data backup that will sync their chats across multiple devices. And that is why they let people choose whether they want their messages to be encrypted or not. When not turned on, though, chats are stored on Telegram's services, which are scattered throughout the world. But it has "disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments," Telegram states on its website.
from nl
