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According to data from Statista, in 2021 the instant messaging applications Telegram and Signal recorded more downloads than WhatsApp in Latin America.
Telegram, the cloud-based mobile messaging app, reported 400 million monthly active users worldwide.
Marlinspike noted that Telegram is the most popular messenger in urban Ukraine.
The warlike conflict that has been recorded since last February 24 between Russia and Ukraine, It has generated various actions against the government of Vladimir Putin by governments and companies in the world. as well the fight against fake news or disinformation through social networks, It has also been one of the battles being fought against these violent attacks, as an example the warning that spread that Russians are using the Telegram app to spy on Ukrainians.
According to data from Statista, In 2021, the instant messaging applications Telegram and Signal registered more downloads than WhatsApp in Latin America. According to data from Airnow Data, whose database monitors app installations in nine Latin American countries, Telegram’s mobile downloads on iOS and Android devices almost doubled those of WhatsApp. While Signal exceeded WhatsApp’s daily downloads for the first time on January 11, 2021, registering more than 373,000 downloads.
Likewise, the statistics platform details that in April 2020, Telegram, the cloud-based mobile messaging app, reported 400 million monthly active users worldwide.
This instant messaging registers that almost a third of the users of Telegram in Russia were residents of Moscow, as of 2021. St. Petersburg accounted for the second largest share of instant messaging app users in the country, topping 13 percent.
Moxie Marlinspike warns that Russia is using Telegram to spy on Ukrainians
Recently, Moxie Marlinspike, founder of the application that is a competitor of Telegram, Signal, warned through the social network Twitter that this messaging application pretends to be a secure application, “when in reality all communications and contacts are stored in a database that Russia can easily access.”
It’s amazing to me that after all this time, almost all media coverage of Telegram still refers to it as an “encrypted messenger.”
Telegram has a lot of compelling features, but in terms of privacy and data collection, there is no worse choice. Here’s how it actually works:
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— Moxie Marlinspike (@moxie) December 23, 2021
In another post Marlinspike noted that “Telegram is the most popular messenger in urban Ukraine. After a decade of misleading marketing and press, most people believe it is an encrypted app.”
Arguing that this application is, “by default, a database in the cloud with a plain text copy of every message everyone has ever sent/received.”
Also, he warned that Moscow could target Telegram employees in Russia to gain access to this database it has in Ukraine.
“If Russia doesn’t want to bother with hacking, they can take advantage of family security to gain access,” he said.
To this debate and warning, was added a comment from Elon Musk, billionaire founder of Tesla, who asked Marlinspike if he stops the Signal if he is sure.
“Signal is designed very differently. All communication is e2ee (end-to-end encrypted), so there is no cloud database with everyone’s entire plain text message history. Groups are encrypted by default, so the only people who know the details of the group are the people who are in it. Same with contacts, calls, social graphs, etc,” Marlinspike said.
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