**Concerns Raised Over Telegram’s Ties to Russian Engineer**
The popular messaging app Telegram is facing scrutiny after an investigation revealed that its infrastructure, which handles thousands of IP addresses, is controlled by a Russian network engineer with ties to the country’s intelligence and defense agencies.
Vladimir Vedeneev, a 45-year-old Russian engineer, owns Global Network Management (GNM), which maintains Telegram’s servers. Documents show that Vedeneev had exclusive access to Telegram servers, signed contracts on its behalf, and even acted as its informal CFO under a power of attorney from founder Pavel Durov.
But what’s disturbing is that Vedeneev’s other companies have provided services to Russia‘s FSB (security agency) and the state-run Kurchatov nuclear institute. His company Electrontelecom continues to assign over 5,000 Telegram IPs and manages surveillance systems used by the FSB in St. Petersburg.
**Security Concerns**
Despite Telegram’s claims of security, its MTProto protocol allows anyone monitoring network traffic to identify a user’s device, IP address, and location – even if the message content is encrypted. This means that metadata exposure could put users, especially those seen as threats by the Russian state, at serious risk.
Experts like Michał Woźniak, a security expert, point out that this vulnerability could be exploited to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks. “In such an attack, the hackers aren’t even interested so much in the user’s correspondence,” he explained. “They get metadata to analyze… really, all possible information.”
**Physical Infrastructure and Access**
Documents show that Vedeneev’s company owns a router inside the Telegram server room in Miami, which allows potential access to user metadata. This poses a major privacy concern.
Woźniak notes that this control over infrastructure could be used to identify users’ devices and location, even if the message content is encrypted. “If someone has access to Telegram traffic and cooperates with Russian intelligence services,” he said, “this means that the device identifier becomes a really big problem – a tool for global surveillance of messenger users.”
**Durov Under Fire**
Telegram founder Pavel Durov, known for creating VKontakte (a Russian social media platform), is under judicial supervision in France over charges related to illegal content. A leak showed over 50 trips to Russia between 2015 and 2021, despite his claims of not having any infrastructure in Russia.
The investigation raises questions about the level of control Durov has over Telegram’s operations, given Vedeneev’s access to servers and contracts signed on behalf of the company.
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