Concerns Rise Over 'Balloon Effect' as Telegram Begins Cooperating With Investigations
Telegram's internal policy has changed to provide information related to criminal investigations, leading 'Signal' to gain attention as an alternative secure messenger application (app).
The arrest of Kim Nokwan (33), the ringleader of the 'Vigilante Group' who committed sexual crimes including producing sexual exploitation materials involving 234 victims, was made possible through Telegram's cooperation. This is the first case in South Korea where personal information was obtained from Telegram for an arrest.
Telegram, created in 2013 by brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, has evolved into a global platform based on thorough encryption and anonymity. Not only does it avoid censoring users, but its security features are strong, such as encrypted messages in secret chats that only the communicating parties can decrypt. High-ranking officials often used it as a work messenger. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is also known to be a frequent user of Telegram.
The problem is that due to its strong security features, Telegram has been exploited as a channel for crimes such as sexual offenses, drug trafficking, and the spread of false and manipulated information. The cyber sexual crime 'Nth Room case,' which sparked public outrage, also took place on Telegram. Furthermore, Telegram's stance on freedom of expression and anonymity led it to refuse cooperation with law enforcement agencies' requests for criminal investigations, creating an environment where criminals could gather more easily.
Recently, Telegram has changed its policy of non-cooperation with investigations. This shift occurred after Pavel Durov was arrested in France on charges including refusing to provide information to investigative authorities. Until now, Telegram had only cooperated with investigations in a few countries like the United States, but it has started to disclose information such as criminals' access IPs and phone numbers to other countries including South Korea.
As the possibility of Telegram actively cooperating with investigations increases, concerns are growing that criminals may move to other secure messenger apps where police and investigative cooperation is not properly established.
The secure messenger app currently seeing a rapid increase in users as an alternative to Telegram is Signal. Since voice calls and text messages are all encrypted, making it difficult to uncover call and message contents even through forensics, it is known to have better security than Telegram. It is reported that former Minister of National Defense Kim Yonghyun and former Intelligence Commander No Sangwon used Signal to communicate with related parties even before the December 3 martial law.
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