11/24/2023 0 Comments Hunting gag gifts![]() ![]() I'm not pushing people to switch to Telegram here. Having it installed creates a door to get into your phone. ![]() That's why I deleted WhatsApp from my devices years ago. It doesn't matter if you are the richest person on earth – if you have WhatsApp installed on your phone, all your data from every app on your device is accessible, as Jeff Bezos found out in 2020. If one backdoor is discovered and has to be removed, another one is added (read the post " Why WhatsApp will never be secure" to understand why). Such issues are hardly incidental – they are planted backdoors. Which means it's almost certain that a new security flaw already exists there. Every year, we learn about some issue in WhatsApp that puts everything on their users' devices at risk. Prior to 2016, WhatsApp didn't have encryption at all. A WhatsApp security issue exactly like this one was discovered in 2018, then another in 2019 and yet another one in 2020 (tap each year's link to see the corresponding vulnerability). You are probably thinking "Yeah, but if I updated WhatsApp to the latest version, I am safe, right"? Not really. All a hacker had to do to control your phone was send you a malicious video or start a video call with you on WhatsApp. This was possible through a security issue disclosed by WhatsApp itself last week. Hackers could have full access (!) to everything on the phones of WhatsApp users. These web sites are already functional in any browser. In anticipation of the things to come, today we are adding support for dedicated links like username.t.me for every username on Telegram (in addition to t.me/username). I look forward to seeing how millions of great Telegram addresses will be revived and finally start serving our community. I don't doubt that those who hoarded Telegram usernames are disappointed, but this change will benefit the vast majority of our users. This way, those who acquire these catchy links will be motivated to put them to good use and bring value to our users with original content hosted at recognizable t.me addresses. As for the highest-valued short usernames, the most efficient and fair way to distribute them seems to be by the auction I mentioned in my previous post. We will gradually reintroduce 99% of these addresses into public use, this time with algorithmic and geolocation limitations so that more users, and not just a select few, can benefit. In mid-August, we withdrew all public Telegram addresses linked to channels that were empty or inactive for the last year. Fortunately, this situation has started to change. Users who wanted to acquire these reserved usernames often received no response or ended up being scammed. This created a graveyard of dead usernames that cluttered search results and prevented millions of Telegram users from selecting appropriate public addresses for their accounts, groups and channels. Until recently, 70% of all Telegram usernames had been reserved in inactive channels by cybersquatters from Iran. Let's see if we can add a little bit of Web 3.0 to Telegram in the coming weeks. Our team can write bullet-proof smart contracts for TON (since it was us who invented its smart-contract language), so we are inclined to try out TON as the underlying blockchain for our future marketplace. When it comes to scalability and speed, TON probably has the best technology to host such decentralized sales. ![]() Other elements of the Telegram ecosystem, including channels, stickers or emoji, could later also become part of this marketplace. This would create a new platform where username holders could transfer them to interested parties in protected deals – with ownership secured on the blockchain via NFT-like smart-contracts. In addition to millions of catchy t.me addresses like or all four-letter usernames could be made available for sale ( etc). ![]() If TON has been able to achieve these results, imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved usernames, group and channel links for auction. Wallet.ton was sold for 215,250 Toncoin (~$260000) while casino.ton was sold for ~$244000. I'm really impressed by the success of the auction TON recently conducted for their domain/wallet names. ![]()
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