Telegram Has a Serious Doxxing Problem (wired.com) 64
An anonymous reader shares a report: Telegram's doxxing problem goes far beyond Myanmar. WIRED spoke to activists and experts in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe who said that the platform has ignored their warnings about an epidemic of politically motivated doxxing, allowing dangerous content to proliferate, leading to intimidation, violence, and deaths. Telegram, which now claims more than 700 million active users worldwide, has a publicly stated philosophy that private communications should be beyond the reach of governments. That has made it popular among people living under authoritarian regimes all over the world (and among conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, and "sovereign citizens" in democratic countries). But the service's structure -- part encrypted messaging app, part social media platform -- and its almost complete lack of active moderation has made it "the perfect tool" for the kind of doxxing campaigns occurring in Myanmar, according to digital rights activist Victoire Rio. This structure makes it easy for users to crowdsource attacks, posting a target for doxxing and encouraging their followers to dig up or share private information, which they can then broadcast more widely. Misinformation or doxxing content can move seamlessly from anonymous individual accounts to channels with thousands of users. Cross-posting is straightforward, so that channels can feed off one another, creating a kind of virality without algorithms that actively promote harmful content. "Structurally, it's suited to this use case," Rio says.
The first mass use of this tactic occurred during Hong Kong's massive 2019 democracy protests, when pro-Beijing Telegram channels identified demonstrators and sent their information to the authorities. Hundreds of protesters were sentenced to custodial sentences for their role in the demonstrations. But with the city split along "yellow" (pro-protests) and "blue" (pro-police) lines, channels were also set up to dox police officers and their families. In November 2020, a telecom company employee was jailed for two years after doxing police and government employees over Telegram. Since then, Telegram doxing appears to be spreading to new countries. In Iraq, militia groups and their supporters have become adept at using Telegram to source information about opponents, such as leaders of civil society groups, which they then broadcast on channels with tens of thousands of followers. Sometimes, bounties are offered for information, according to Hayder Hamzoz, founder of the Iraqi Network for Social Media, an organization that tracks social media use in the country. Often, these come with direct or implicit threats of violence. Targets have faced harassment and violence, and some have had to flee their homes, Hamzoz says.
The first mass use of this tactic occurred during Hong Kong's massive 2019 democracy protests, when pro-Beijing Telegram channels identified demonstrators and sent their information to the authorities. Hundreds of protesters were sentenced to custodial sentences for their role in the demonstrations. But with the city split along "yellow" (pro-protests) and "blue" (pro-police) lines, channels were also set up to dox police officers and their families. In November 2020, a telecom company employee was jailed for two years after doxing police and government employees over Telegram. Since then, Telegram doxing appears to be spreading to new countries. In Iraq, militia groups and their supporters have become adept at using Telegram to source information about opponents, such as leaders of civil society groups, which they then broadcast on channels with tens of thousands of followers. Sometimes, bounties are offered for information, according to Hayder Hamzoz, founder of the Iraqi Network for Social Media, an organization that tracks social media use in the country. Often, these come with direct or implicit threats of violence. Targets have faced harassment and violence, and some have had to flee their homes, Hamzoz says.
private moderation (Score:1)
Telegram has moderation, it is privately done by channels themselves, channels decide what they allow and what they remove, this is the way moderation should be done.
er mah gerd... (Score:2)
Western ethics are not a global standard, whoda thunk it?
If you do not want western ethical standards to be subverted, then western-based companies will need to find a way to enforce them, or just join the race to the bottom
fyi, it sucks at the bottom where people are disposable
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Dear Slashdot, I'm old and out of touch and yet I still read tech news. Please explain what this is Telegram is even though they've been around for 9 years and have 700 million users.
Re:So.... (Score:4, Informative)
Dear Slashdot, I'm old and out of touch and yet I still read tech news. Please explain what this is Telegram is even though they've been around for 9 years and have 700 million users.
Re:So.... (Score:4, Funny)
Fine...now I'll go look up what doxing is...
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Fine...now I'll go look up what doxing is...
It's slang for putting your Dachshund in a box.
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fine
telegram: messaging system, just like whatsapp, but can be encrypted, it is without tracking, is lighter and without "central" moderation, basically a better whatsapp... it was build by a russian company, but long ago it existed russia, exactly because russia wanted to monitor telegram and they didn't wanted to allow that
having a private chat is both good and bad... good because you can say whatever you want without your government or other "enemy" group can see or identify you... bad because police and
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Why would I know about this, if I've never used it, and none of my friends apparently do either (or at least, they never mentioned it in conversation).
And I as on a quick break and easier to post a quick ask and check back when I had another break.
I'm guessing that is 700M social media users, as I mentioned...I don't have social media accounts.
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It's an encrypted instant messaging app because Android is a shit show in that regard. It has absolutely nothing to do with social media. Since SMS is terrible for group chats and sending files most Android users install it.
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Ah...thank you, that helps explain it.
I'm on iPhone, and it works pretty darned good for group chats, so never thought about something 3rd party for doing that.
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I see everyone's jumped all over you but explained in general. Slashdot is social media too. Telegram can be like social media with rooms, but it's also 1-1 and private groups. I chat with 2 people on Telegram. I wish more would use it or something like it. It has editing, delete, timed messages. I think it works great, but most people I know who chat in groups want to use text messaging which sucks but I have more important battles in my life.
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Telegram is a globally accessible freemium, cross-platform, cloud-based instant messaging (IM) service. The service also provides optional end-to-end encrypted chats and video calling [wikipedia.org]
so, between the global, freemium and encrypted features, it becomes an unmanageable mess (i.e. Libertarian Paradise)
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So..what's telegram?
Seriously? You can't simply Google that or check Wikipedia?
That's a better question.
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I admit I thought about whether Google would give you results for this or Morse Code stuff, but a quick test was all the former, which I suppose isn't that surprising given how popular everybody is saying it is.
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>>... what makes it so special for dox'ing, over say...Instagram, etc.
>That's a better question.
much better and the response is almost no difference... sure, instagram can end block the message after some time, if they want (sometimes they report people are "free" to do that) but during that time someone copy&paste it and send it to another place... in telegram the channel owner can remove a message, if they want... if they don't want, it stays there
some applications and site do better job than
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So..what's telegram?
It's a messaging platform; channels, video, etc. It's huge and growing fast because there aren't any gender confused coastal pink hairs ban hammering everything they don't like.
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So..what's telegram?
I'm guessing some sort of social media from the synopsis, but since I don't do SM, not sure what makes it so special for dox'ing, over say..instagram,etc.
I've seen fake messages from YouTube channels trying to get you to answer something at Telegram, but I've never visited it.
With all the crap going on...I just wonder why people keep dealing with and participating with social media?
It pretty much ALL like a harmful shitstorm to all its users right now, to an outsider.
You don't have to be a user of social media to be a victim of doxxing.
All you do is offend someone who figures out exactly who you are IRL.
Social media is how the doxxing info is shared to like-minded people.
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I shouldn't help on principal, but okay. Telegram is an encrypted chat app. As well as one to one and group chats, it has channels. Channels only allow the channel owner to post, but an unlimited number of people can read those posts. Famous and interesting people have channels, as do many homebrew IoT devices that use Telegram to communicate with their owner. I guess that counts as "social media" now.
Telegram is fairly open too, there are lots of unofficial clients and devices that use it. In many ways it
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It's a Russian messaging service set up as a honeypot for organized crime to prey on innocents, much like ICQ.
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And feel free yourself to learn the correct terminology....its "American".
That usanian thing is a tired old meme that never caught on and not applicable.
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So..what's telegram?
Something covered on Slashdot a lot. I mean only about 50 stories have mentioned them, ... since January.
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fine. replace anti-vaxxers by ISIS members planing terrorists attacks in your country
what is good for one, may be bad for others, it just a matter of a different perspective look over the problem
ANYTHING can both be use for good or bad... but the definition of good or bad also depends of each person and that causes conflicting opinions on the same matter depending of the way you look at it
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The one thing that Telegram does in fact ban is terrorist activity.
It's one of the very few things that it actually moderates as policy. That's why it's remained a great source for everything from war reporting on Ukraine war (you'll notice that a lot of twitter "original sources" have t.me watermarks on their videos, which means it's stolen from that telegram channel) to unpopular news sources to random conspiracy theories.
It's a handful of actually mostly free (as in censorship) and uncurated (as in preve
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Are "people" and "activity" synonyms in your head? If they are, seek help.
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Let me guess. Like Putin's regime, you think the current actions in Ukraine are not a war, but a special operation. Which means that war crimes in it are terrorism, rather than war crimes.
Because that's about the only way to make sense of your hilarious accusations.
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They didn't "block it". They blocked it in EU, where governments require it. I.e. they do comply with relevant laws and regulations of the land when it comes to access blocks.
It's the same reason why you should't get Google Play version of Telegram, but one from Telegram's own website. Google Play version removes some channels because of Play Store rules. Those channels are accessible with version from Telegram's website.
publicly stated philosophy (Score:3)
> a publicly stated philosophy that private communications should be beyond the reach of governments
Meanwhile they store everything unencrypted on their servers so you can recover all your messages and settings just by doing an SMS verification. And so can anybody with a warrant or exploit or SS7 spoof.
"Publicly stated" philosophy.
What an incredible intelligence honeypot that "could" be.
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You left out that you can do user to user encrypted communications that are not saved on there servers and are not accessible by SMS verification.
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Yes but
CAN DO
That is quote some weasel words.
The point of a application is that if it has defaults, the defaults will be used. If something is a option, that depends on what form of parity can fuck them from working once you start talking about network applications with chat logs.
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There are no weasel words. If you want additional privacy and security at cost of some usability, you can do that. Or if you're like most people and prefer usability over security and privacy, you can do that as well.
This is made perfectly clear in Telegram's instructions. It doesn't lie like Meta does with whatsapp, which spams you with "we can't access your messages", except when governments like Indian government ask it for access, and therefore can't censor, unless governments ask it to censor. There's
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Telegram has two types of messages. Cloud based, which are stored on their servers so all you devices can stay in sync, and secret which are end-to-end encrypted and only between two devices.
If you prefer the latter, there are a couple of open source Telegram clients that default to secret mode. The main issue then is people starting unencrypted chats with you. In that sense Signal is superior, but Signal has plenty of other issues...
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Signal is similar. I only have a few people that use Signal and only those conversations are encrypted. If I talk to people that don't have Signal, it just defaults to sms I believe.
Ideally all these different e2e services would be able to talk with each other. Then again, I don't exactly trust Apple or Meta to not give me up to the police. Not sure Signal even can give me up. Maybe the meta data, which is still damning but not as bad as clear text.
Best to use smoke signals instead.
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Telegram actually uses the Signal protocol I believe, for encrypted chats. It's just that neither of the two companies will allow federation so that users of one can talk to the other.
It's an area where we might finally be able to build an open source, decentralized network that scales and is popular.
How is that a bad thing? (Score:2)
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Well, theoretically yes. And in theory there is no difference between theory and reality. Unfortunately, in reality there is. Law enforcement is just the ultima ratio and is neither capable nor indented to make people behave. For things to actually work, there need to be several levels before law enforcement gets involved. Obviously the Telegram founders did either not care or were completely naive with regards as to how reality works.
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"Law enforcement is just the ultima ratio and is neither capable nor indented to make people behave."
Have you been following the work of the FBI lately?
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Like this:
FBI announced in June that it had created its own company, called ANOM, to sell devices with a pre-installed encrypted messaging app to criminals. The ANOM app was marketed as providing end-to-end encrypted messaging, comparable to the security protections offered by services like Signal, WhatsApp, and iMessage, but in fact the messages could be intercepted by law enforcement, which had designed the app for precisely that purpose [slate.com]
As far as I am concerned there are no secure comms
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As far as I am concerned there are no secure comms
Then you are a fool. It is true that there are no easy to use secure means of communication that do not require any understanding of the subject matter. But really, there is _nothing_ secure in the IT space on this planet that is both easy to use and does not require understanding. The state of the art in technology has not reached that point. As soon as you have some understanding of the subject matter, there are possibilities though. And while you cannot really know what current TLAs can do, there are eno
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Whatever lets you sleep at night, ignorance is bliss
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Oh. They cared. And then created an implementation where it was not possible for governments/law enforcement to 'get real'.
I'm not sure why people think that the fully privacy oriented design of certain parts of Telegram are a bug, and not a 100% intended feature.
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I'm not sure why people think that the fully privacy oriented design of certain parts of Telegram are a bug, and not a 100% intended feature.
Simple: Fully unregulated communities of human beings implode. The percentage of assholes is just too high and if they are not limited in some way they destroy everything.
Re: How is that a bad thing? (Score:1)
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Funniest part is that unlike naive anglos living in their "safety, security, freedom is slavery, freedom of speech is censorship, there are infinite genders" bubble, Telegram makers had a run with actual reality. Pavel Durov made his money with vkontakte, main Russian social network.
Which Russian government de facto confiscated once they understood that he wouldn't give them full access to weed out the politically undesirable, and Durov had to flee abroad to evade arrest for the evil of granting freedom of
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As such it's no shock that an open Marxist authoritarian such as yourself finds it objectionable. After all it was your political movement that lead to mass censorship policies of Anglo social networks that is in place today.
Are you on drugs? Because I am very much opposed to authoritarianism of any kind and I am in no way a Marxist. Well, you probably just make shit up at this point. Pathetic.
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And yet, to you reality is the one where top down government dictates to the people what they can and cannot say and think, before needing to involve systems of law enforcement.
I guess I missed one last point in my mockery. To your kind, "pre-emptive censorship of the undesirable speech by the government is anti-authoritarian".
Because in your world, that of adherents to critical theory, everything is relative, and black can be white if you just redifine it as such, just as staple of authoritarian governance
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You _are_ on drugs. Because you just fantasize things that I neither said nor implied. Well, no use to respond any further, you have no connection to reality and I am certainly not capable of fixing that.
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Article is about doxing, are you saying that all doxing is done by conservatives, or that you simply have a reading problem?
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He's saying he's a Russian who barely understands the issue well enough to put a competent political spin on it.
Freedom's a bitch, I guess (Score:3)
It always surprises me that people don't understand that freedom for ME means freedom for OTHERS. And that those "others" may not always agree with me.
The social contract means that we trade away freedoms in exchange for things like security.
If you willingly cast off a social contract and want a region of interaction completely free then you need to understand that region very well may be red in tooth and claw and that - like life - not all actors have the same levels of power.
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You're thinking "freedom" as in dictionary definition. As in Wikipedia article. You need to think of it in terms of Republican or Dictator where "freedom" is defined as "free of criticism from others".
And before I get modded down for mentioning republicans and dictators in the same sentence I invite you to read the front page of Slashdot. Good stories include the one about Putin controlling social media, and the Florida governor trying to control social media.