Its authors pay attention that Durov “never gave a clear answer” what is happening on Telegram servers and who can guarantee the safety of data there.
“Important Stories” conducted an experiment. Using the Wireshark program, we recorded the traffic of the user in Russia at the time of correspondence with other people in Russia and abroad (all with their consent). So we learned the IP addresses of the servers that our messages came to. They belong to the little -known company GNM, ”the material says.
Journalists found out that Global Network Management (GNM) is located on the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, the company has an office and a team in the aggressor country of Russia, and the owner of GNM is a partner of Durov since working with VKontakte social network Vladimir Vedeneev, a native of Russian Togliatti.
Former Durov colleague Anton Rosenberg claims that “the one who controls the server can gain access to correspondence.”
“Confidentiality of hundreds of millions of telegram users […] It may be at risk due to the fact that Durov transmitted the arrangement of the entire infrastructure of the messenger of one company de facto located in Russia, ”important“ important stories ”write.
They found out that until 2020, the Telegram IP address, which controls GNM today, belonged to the company from St. Petersburg Globalnet. Until 2024, journalists write, Globalnet was the beneficiary of Globalnet, but then he rewrote the company to his relatives – they control 96% of the company. Another 4% belongs to Roman Venediktov, who has served for almost 10 years at the Main Center for Cosmic Funds of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
Globalnet, the investigators note, provides communication services to several Russian state-owned enterprises, including the Main Scientific Research Computing Center (Glavnivz) of the Office of the Presidential Affairs of the Russian Federation.
“Officially, Glavnivz is engaged in the technical support of summits, direct lines and meetings with the participation [нелегитимного президента РФ] Vladimir Putin, and unofficially, this is, in fact, a closed analytical center operating in the interests of the FSB, [Федеральной службы охраны] FSO, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Defense. Glavnivz is engaged in mass surveillance of Russians on the Internet and with the help of bots promotes the Kremlin propaganda in social networks, ”says Media.
The authors of the investigation emphasize that “in recent years, many evidence has accumulated that Russian special services have been received data on Telegram users without physical access to their devices and without hacking.”
Context
Telegram is an encrypted messenger that appeared in 2013. Its founder, Russian Pavel Durov, had previously launched the Russian VKontakte social network banned in Ukraine. February 27, 2022, after the full -scale invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine began, Durov said that may limit the use of Telegram In connection with “Ukrainian events”, but after a few minutes he changed his mind.
The Telegram platform poses a number of threats to the security of Ukraine, noted in the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine in February 2024. In March, the SBU reported that they saw the “clear cooperation of the Telegram administration with Roskomnadzor and the FSB”, while Telegram did not listen to the requests of Ukraine as he listens to the requests of Russia.
