In March 2020, South Korea's N room time brushed the network, instantly caused the global netizens to criticize, with the N room time together with the "out of the circle", as well as this social software 'Telegram', why Telegram can rise rapidly, and it is favored by illegal elements? Today we're going to talk about this social app.
Born in 2013 by pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov, the two founders of VKontakte, Russia's largest social networking site, Telegram gained a large number of teenage followers as soon as it was launched, with 300,000 to 400,000 daily downloads in 2014, with the highest daily downloads approaching 2 million; in February 2016, Monthly active users exceeded 100 million; in March 2018, Telegram said that its monthly active users had reached 200 million. Telegram thrives on adversity in many social apps, thanks to its unique and enticing features---- security.
Telegram uses end-to-end encryption, and all chat content (including attachments) is not transmitted through Telegram's servers, so it is not visible to third parties. In addition, it also provides a "burn after reading" timing settings, that is, after a certain period of time, private messages will automatically disappear, this encryption method to ensure that their chat information will never be intercepted or cracked by third parties, and because of this, this has also become a paradise for criminals.
Origin of Room N
In June 2018, a high school student named Godgod created a chat room in Telegram, which is the prototype of room N, godgod will publish some pornographic videos in the chat room, gradually the chat room attracted a large number of users, a year later godgod because of the college entrance examination, the chat room was handed over to WatchMan, the crime also began from this moment, in order to expand the N room chat room, the operator by sending fishing links, pretending to be police, Steal women's private personal information by publishing paid part-time jobs, and then coerce them to provide photos and videos of sexual exploitation for a long time, and the operator will also take girls to offline sexual assault and broadcast them live to online members. Soon after, the chat room changed owners again, and the third-person owner, 'Dr.', really took the crime to the extreme, and the 'Doctor' divided the "N room" into multiple levels, with different levels of sexual crime in the rooms with different degrees of sexual crime, different payment standards, and a maximum fee of 1.5 million won (about 8500 yuan) to enter; due to the special "product", the victims were even classified to meet different "themes". After room N surfaced, the South Korean police actively launched an investigation, and at this time, the number of users of room N had reached 260,000.
Why some criminals are so bold, why room N has not been discovered for many years, these are due to the particularity of Telegram's security and freedom, user anonymity, instant burning after reading, end-to-end encryption, files do not need to pass through the Telegram server, these functions make all criminal acts disappear without a trace, and telegram chat rooms have no upper limit on the number of people, no restrictions on joining, pictures and videos are spread arbitrarily in some chat rooms, and it is difficult to find the source.
In addition to the infamous Room N, Telegram also "escorted" criminal acts during the Hong Kong riots and terrorists, and now Telegram, in the gradual dark web, is full of pornography, gambling and drugs and various illegal and criminal acts, becoming a criminal paradise.
In the country where Telegram was born, Russia began to ban Telegram in 2018, and in June 2020, Russia announced the lifting of the ban under the condition that the number of Telegram users did not decrease but increased. Telegram founder Pavel Durov also said they already have ways to find and remove extremist and terrorist content, while continuing to protect user privacy.
Does Telegram, which claims to be free and secure, really bring freedom and security?