Re:Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests
by diimdeep on Saturday August 22, 2020 @06:00AM
(#24243045)
Russian oligarch is very specific term[1], due to his age, Durov is missed time frame by 20 years to become one. Durov is Internet entrepreneur that is forced to become political expat, that's on the opposite spectrum from russian oligarch, like self made tech entrepreneur vs oil magnate trough inheritance.
It is possible that Telegram is being impartial and providing more honest statistics wrt. what the citizens want. But it's also the case the results are unverifiable data broadcasted from Telegram's server over TLS-equivalent connection. MITM attack of client-server encryption, as well as compromise of the server broadcasting the results allow the attacker to alter the voting results. People acting on those results will allow Telegram to bypass democratic processes. Not saying Belarus is a democracy, but if this sets a precedent it will turn Telegram into a tool of political power, and power, as always, will corrupt. Even if Durov's team is being fair and honest (which I find unlikely considering Durov is yet another Russian oligarch who made their money spying on VKontakte users), they're also useful fools creating yet another architecture with centralized control over user data.