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Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

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Re: Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

#31

Post by hkpack »

amima wrote: post #19
_ink_ wrote: post #14

They claim that they store user data on different servers in different jurisdictions so it becomes more difficult for authorities to gain access [1]. Maybe that's true and it has something to do with these DCs that seem to be unused. [1] - https://telegram.org/privacy

They do not claim that. They do claim that they store specifically encryption keys in several data centers in different jurisdictions. Here is the exact quote: "All data is stored heavily encrypted and the encryption keys in each case are stored in several other data centers in different jurisdictions". So only keys are distributed.

What does heavily encrypted even mean? Fully encrypted? Slightly encrypted? Encrypted enough to call it “heavily encrypted” but not enough to be protected from whoever is interested?

Re: Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

#32

Post by tobinfekkes »

Anon1096 wrote: post #29
tobinfekkes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, Big tech famously has plenty of data centers on the west coast: • Quincy, WA (Microsoft) • The Dalles, Oregon (Google) • Prineville, Oregon (Facebook, Apple) • Hillsboro, Oregon (Cloudflare, others) • Boardman, Oregon (AWS)

By traffic load east coast datacenters dwarfs these.

The parent comment wasn't regarding traffic loads; it was regarding latency.

Re: Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

#34

Post by dgroshev »

overallduka wrote: post #30
dgroshev wrote: post #13

More mysteries of Telegram Data Centres: https://istories.media/en/stories/2025/06/10/telegram-fsb/ (and a follow-up: https://istories.media/en/news/2025/06/10/telegram-responds-... )

Good story, I yet believe the guy is trying to do the right thing. In the lex Friedman podcast he talks about banning extremist channels in both sides always, the story focus more on the Nalvani's block, but accordingly him he also bans other sides depending on the content. I do follow a number of Telegram channels about the Ukraine war, and the pro Ukraine channels are there together with pro Russian channels.

Of course he would say that. Even besides the fallaciousness of this argument (there is no equivalence between an aggressor and a victim), Pavel Durov is completely untrustworthy.

There is product stuff, like misleading claims about Telegram's encryption and comparisons to Signal. In reality, for the vast majority of chats they have plaintext, unlike Signal.

There are more subtle positioning claims. Durov made a huge deal of his "exile", but I saw Telegram's office in St Petersburg with my own two eyes a year after Durov "fled the country". It definitely wasn't shut. There were even local news of Pavel assaulting a guy in St Petersburg for trying to make a photo of him a couple years later.

And then there are just completely unnecessary lifestyle claims. He said multiple times how he doesn't take any "pills" or medications. It only takes a minute to find his old photos. Male pattern baldness doesn't stop progressing without DHT suppression, and last time I checked, finasteride comes in pills. I don't understand why would he make misleading statements about something so visible, but it doesn't make him any more trustworthy.

Re: Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

#36

Post by Perz1val »

hkpack wrote: post #31
amima wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do not claim that. They do claim that they store specifically encryption keys in several data centers in different jurisdictions. Here is the exact quote: "All data is stored heavily encrypted and the encryption keys in each case are stored in several other data centers in different jurisdictions". So only keys are distributed.

What does heavily encrypted even mean? Fully encrypted? Slightly encrypted? Encrypted enough to call it “heavily encrypted” but not enough to be protected from whoever is interested?

Heavily means the key is large so it takes longer to crack, but also longer to encrypt/decrypt, so the service is more costly to run and slower. At least I've seen it used that way

Re: Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

#37

Post by sophacles »

SpaceL10n wrote: post #33

For a hot second there I was really excited to learn about historical telegram "data centers". It's a capital T.

You may have already read it, but portions of this sprawling (and very very good) essay by Neal Stephenson get into the topic: Mother Earth Mother Board - https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

Re: Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

#38

Post by dakolli »

hkpack wrote: post #31
amima wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do not claim that. They do claim that they store specifically encryption keys in several data centers in different jurisdictions. Here is the exact quote: "All data is stored heavily encrypted and the encryption keys in each case are stored in several other data centers in different jurisdictions". So only keys are distributed.

What does heavily encrypted even mean? Fully encrypted? Slightly encrypted? Encrypted enough to call it “heavily encrypted” but not enough to be protected from whoever is interested?

telegram is the safest encrypted messaging app. Period, full stop.

Re: Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

#39

Post by maqp »

Perz1val wrote: post #36
hkpack wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does heavily encrypted even mean? Fully encrypted? Slightly encrypted? Encrypted enough to call it “heavily encrypted” but not enough to be protected from whoever is interested?

Heavily means the key is large so it takes longer to crack, but also longer to encrypt/decrypt, so the service is more costly to run and slower. At least I've seen it used that way

There's nothing slow about AES.

In this context "heavily" means "we can't legally claim it's end-to-end encrypted because it's not".

Also it's not even post quantum, so it's not heavy. Telegram's Diffie-Hellman breaks instantly with a quantum computer large enough to run Shor against it.

Also, the keys sit on the servers' RAM, no matter what they lie. There is no global distributed RAM system, especially one that encrypts data in distributed fashion and works at the negligible latencies that Telegram boasts.

Re: Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

#40

Post by orbital-decay »

bflesch wrote: post #23
_ink_ wrote: post #14

They claim that they store user data on different servers in different jurisdictions so it becomes more difficult for authorities to gain access [1]. Maybe that's true and it has something to do with these DCs that seem to be unused. [1] - https://telegram.org/privacy

It's more about the fact that five eyes intelligence services prefer to officially spy on each other's countries so they don't have to answer to their respective bureaucrats. They prefer plausible deniability. Something like this: DC1 politically belongs to UK which "spies" on CA/US but physical servers are located in US so US ultimately retains control. DC2 politically belongs to France which "spies" on RUS/UKR/DE b…

The reason it's in Singapore is that Telegram can't operate in China, and Singapore-washing is the closest thing to doing it. A ton of VPNs and other services targeting mainland users but not allowed in the mainland are hosted there, it's a huge hub for companies and networks.
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