I’d like to add my conspiracy theory and have some one completely shoot it down.
Telegram is a honeypot. They are supposed to be for privacy but their regular messaging isn’t end to end encrypted, you have to enable that per chat (I think per chat, I’ve almost never used the service).
The Russian government going after this guy is much like the fear mongering OpenAI and Anthropic put out about how powerful their models are or about having to see a doctor after taking Viagra and having a 4 hour erection. It’s marketing to make Telegram seem so private that the tech savvy Russian government has to stop this guy when in fact he’s giving the data to them.
Telegram is a honeypot. They are supposed to be for privacy but their regular messaging isn’t end to end encrypted, you have to enable that per chat (I think per chat, I’ve almost never used the service).
The Russian government going after this guy is much like the fear mongering OpenAI and Anthropic put out about how powerful their models are or about having to see a doctor after taking Viagra and having a 4 hour erection. It’s marketing to make Telegram seem so private that the tech savvy Russian government has to stop this guy when in fact he’s giving the data to them.