Slashdot Mirror
What Isn't Telegram Saying About Its Connections To the Kremlin? (theoutline.com)
The supposedly secure messaging app Telegram has employees in St. Petersburg in the same building as Kremlin-influenced social network VK, news outlet the Outline reported on Friday citing multiple sources. William Turton, reporting for The Outline: Anton Rozenberg, a software developer and former employee of Telegram's parent company, is saying that there are Telegram employees working out of the historic Singer House in St. Petersburg, Russia's former imperial capital, a claim that has since been corroborated by others. That's significant because the Singer House is also home to VK, which is now owned by the oligarch and Putin ally Alisher Usmanov. (It's also the building where in 2012 Durov and coworkers infamously folded 5,000 ruble notes, worth about $150 each, into paper airplanes and threw them out the window, sparking violence in the street below.) The revelation casts doubt on Durov, who denies Telegram has an office in Russia, and continues to style himself as a rebel at odds with the complex Russian power structure that includes the government and oligarchy. It also raises questions about how safe Telegram is from Kremlin interference, given that VK is owned by a Kremlin sympathizer and that the Kremlin has an obvious interest in monitoring and controlling popular social networks. "As a security specialist, I have some questions about how their office isn't physically protected from the offices that surround it," Rozenberg told The Outline. "VK employees, for a long time, have had access to Telegram offices."
Hallo fellow internet commentators! I am here to assuring you that of course the Kremlin is having nothing to do with such nonsense. Why would a vengeful former world power that does this kind of thing all the time and is run by a KGB agent, do this kind of thing at *this* time, and I assure you I am no agent! I and my and my fallow detractors simply grow tired of such conspiracy theories, I ask them because they are sitting right next to me at the Internet Research Agency, a perfectly normal office building in St. Petersburg where 'journalists' such as myself and Mischa pass along the 'news' to your 'Democracy'.
The funny thing is that liberals used to make fun and mock us for warning of the Russian threat claiming we were afraid of a communist hiding under every bed. Now look at them.
What isn't msmash saying about Slashdot's downtime?
Earlier this week, Slashdot went into read only mode and was all sorts of broken. This went on for an extended period of time. Slashdot and its editors, including msmash, have remained mostly silent on the matter. What aren't they saying? Just how deeply was Russia involved? Which Slashdot editors colluded with the Kremlin? Why haven't they turned over the details about the ad buy?
I'll leave the idolization of Putin to people like you. The kremlin remains a geopolitical opponent to the West. I'm done even buying even the slightest bit into the idea that Putin is nothing more than an aggressive leader who, while showing some mastery at turning his nation's fundamental economic weakness into an advantage via cyberattacks, is someone who needs to be contained now more than ever.
The Russian people I have a great deal of admiration for. Putin earns my grudging admiration for his skill at taking advantage of Western weakness, but there's enough of his hand showing now to demonstrate that he's no friend of the West, and I think every measure should be taken to both severely punish Russia and mitigate its cyberpropoganda strategies.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.