Telegram's Security Flaw: A Russian Network Engineer's Secret Ties to the Kremlin

A new investigation reveals a critical vulnerability in Telegram, the wildly popular messaging app. It finds that the maintenance of Telegram's networking equipment and assignment of its IP addresses are controlled by a virtually unknown Russian network engineer, Vladimir Vedeneev. Vedeneev's companies have close ties to Russian security services, having served clients including the FSB. While there's no evidence of direct government data sharing, it raises serious questions about Telegram's claims of security and privacy, especially given its default lack of end-to-end encryption. This discovery highlights how even seemingly secure messaging apps can be vulnerable to exploitation.