Telegram Down: Several Users Reported Outage On Twitter, Issue Fixed

Several users reported facing issues with Telegram, the instant messaging platform. The issue began on January 17 2022 and lasted for a couple of hours. However, Telegram acknowledged the issue and fixed it soon. The outage was limited to certain regions around the world, including India. Users reported the Telegram outage on Down Detector as well. Keep reading to know more about the Telegram down the issue and when was is resolved on January 17, 2022.

According to Down Detector, users started facing issues with the instant messaging platform Telegram from 07:50 PM IST on January 17, 2022. Half an hour later, the number of reports peaked at 4,464 and then they declined by 12 AM midnight on January 18, 2022. As mentioned on the Down Detector website, about 45% of reports were about the application not functioning properly while another 36% were about server connection related problems. About 19% of users faced issues with the website as well. While these issues were reported at the Indian portal, the global Down Detector portal reports only 446 reports at the peak of the issue.

Telegram filed for enforcement of fines in the amount of $148.000

The bailiffs opened new cases against Telegram on the enforcement of fines, for a total of $148.000, because it refused to remove content prohibited in the Russian Federation. According to the data bank of the Federal Bailiff Service (FSSP), based on the decision of the Tagansky Court of Moscow dated December 20 2021, three enforcement proceedings were initiated against the company to collect $67.000, $27.000 and $54.000 in fines. As reported, in mid-December 2021, Telegram fully paid off the debt in fines for the amount of $200.000.

Source:@tginfo

Telegram fixed Reproducible Builds on Android

Earlier we reported that few latest versions of Telegram for Android couldn't be verified to be compiled from the official source code, since Reproducible Builds were broken by developers' mistake. Version 8.4.3 fixes reproducibility: we were able to verify that installation packages for Telegram for Android from telegram.org and Google Play use the source code published in the official repository. This means the Telegram developers didn't add any hidden functionality that would be missing in source code.

source:tginfo

Telegram works on message translation through its own servers

The new API schema data on the Telegram website indicates that in future versions of the messenger, translations will be made through the Telegram servers. In the current version of the application, translation on iOS is done via Apple Translator, and on Android — by direct requests to Google Translate. The language of the message is detected on-device. According to Durov's Code , Google Translate in Telegram for Android is used in a quirky way, with a workaround to not pay the service fee, as a temporary measure, while the messenger team is working on translation through their servers.

What technology will be used is still unknown. Language detection will most likely continue to be on-device.

source: @tginfo

A Fake Telegram Installer Is Distributing Harmful Purple Fox Malware On Computers

A new way to hack computer systems has been found. According to a report published by an anti-malware platform called Minerva Labs, fake Telegram messenger applications are being circulated on the internet to distribute the Purple Fox malware. When downloaded, the malware escapes the anti-virus system installed on a computer and can execute a transfer of information without the consent or knowledge of the user.

As mentioned in the report by Minerva Labs "We have often observed threat actors using legitimate software for dropping malicious files. This time however is different. This threat actor was able to leave most parts of the attack under the radar by separating the attack into several small files, most of which had very low detection rates by AV engines, with the final stage leading to Purple Fox rootkit infection." The malicious Telegram installer is a compiled AutoIt script and is floating on the internet with the name "Telegram Desktop.exe" and hence, users are advised to beware.

Sponsored Posts in Third Party Clients

On the official website of the messenger an announcement has appeared regarding the display of sponsored messages in third-party Telegram applications.

Developers using the Telegram API must maintain and start displaying official sponsored posts correctly in their apps by January 1, 2022.

Using the Telegram API will continue to be free for all developers. The rules regarding monetization in third-party applications remain the same: developers are allowed to monetize their efforts through their own advertising or other legal means, provided that all monetization methods used in their applications are clearly mentioned in their app store descriptions.

If the rules are ignored, Telegram will disable applications that violate them.

Sponsored messages in third-party apps

Telegram continues to grow worldwide, in part thanks to third-party apps using the Telegram API. To cover the increasing costs that come with this growth, Telegram added sponsored messages – a paid privacy-friendly way to promote bots and channels.

Third-party developers using the Telegam API are required to support and properly display official sponsored messages in their apps by January 1, 2022. Unfortunately, Telegram cannot financially sustain third-party apps that do not display sponsored messages and they will have to be disconnected.

Telegram's API usage will continue to be free of charge for all developers. The rules regarding monetization in third-party apps remain the same: developers are allowed to monetize their coding efforts through advertising of their own or other legitimate means, provided that all the methods of monetization used in their apps are prominently mentioned in their app store descriptions.

Credit: @tginfo 

Telegram advertising platform will exclude state channels

Pavel Durov stated that the messenger will not place advertisements on the channels of officials and government organizations. "We are now excluding the channels of state officials and governmental organizations from the ad platform."

It was temporary, we are now excluding the channels of state officials and governmental organizations from the ad platform. - Durov

Telegram is launching Sponsored Messages

Telegram is launching Sponsored Messages – a tool that allows anyone to promote their channels and bots. Here is what you should know:

1. There will be no ads in chats on Telegram. If you use Telegram as the messenger that we launched in 2013 – you will never see a sponsored message. Sponsored messages can't appear in your chat list, private chats or groups.

2. User data will not be used to target ads. As with everything we do, our main priority is protecting the private data of our users. That's why unlike other apps we will not use your private data to display ads.

Sponsored messages on Telegram are shown only in large public one-to-many channels with 1000+ members – and are based solely on the topic of the public channels in which they are shown. This means that no user data is mined or analyzed to display them.

3. Sponsored messages will be unobtrusive. Official sponsored messages are limited to 160 characters of text – without media or external links. You may see a maximum of one sponsored message per channel – and only after you’ve finished reading any new posts.

4. We are fixing ads that are already here. Some admins of one-to-many channels on Telegram already post ads in the form of regular messages. We hope that Sponsored Messages will offer a more user-friendly and less chaotic way for people to promote their channels and bots.

Sponsored messages are currently in test mode and are not available to everyone. Once they are fully launched and allow Telegram to cover its basic costs (such as equipment and data centers that are used by channel admins to deliver their content to our hundreds of millions of users), we plan to start sharing ad revenue with the admins of the channels where Sponsored Messages are displayed – because it is fair.

5. With Telegram you're more ad-free than with WhatsApp. WhatsApp already shares user data with advertisers [1 ] [2 ] – even though they don’t show ads themselves. On Telegram, however, advertisers will never get your private data. Besides, if you use Telegram the way you use WhatsApp, you will never see a single ad. Sponsored messages can only appear in channels, which are a unique social networking feature Telegram added several years after launch. If WhatsApp introduces a similar feature, they are likely to also display ads there, like their parent company already does on Instagram and Facebook.

Online ads should no longer be synonymous with the abuse of user privacy. We'd like to redefine how a tech company should operate by setting an example of a self-sustainable platform that respects its users and content creators.