FOGINT: The French Method for Communicating with Telegram Works
January 8, 2025
A post from the FOGINT team.
Direct action by French authorities has had a visible impact on Telegram. The FOGINT team noted a report in Arab News which provides some color to this observation. “Surge in Telegram User Data Passed to French Authorities.” The article reports:
Messaging service Telegram passed vastly more data on its users to French authorities in the second half of 2024 following founder Pavel Durov’s arrest in Paris, figures published by the platform showed.
The company said it handed over IP addresses or telephone numbers that Paris asked for in 210 cases in July-September and 673 in October-December.
Prior to the action by French authorities, Telegram had the reputation of ignoring legitimate requests from government authorities in the EU and elsewhere. The company explained that it stood for free speech. However, in April 2024, Telegram blocked Ukrainian government messages from Ukraine to Telegram users in Russia.
According to the article, Telegram explained:
He [Mr. Durov] and his supporters have claimed that most French and European authorities’ requests for user data were simply not being sent to the right department at the company and therefore received no response.
Several observations from the FOGINT team are warranted:
- Direct action by French authorities has been productive. Consequently Telegram has responded.
- Mr. Durov remains under observation by the French government with his legal proceedings moving at the speed of the French bureaucracy; that is, in a methodical manner.
- Mr. Durov’s releasing of user names associated with active investigations has pushed Telegram into a course change for 2025. The company is now emphasizing its crypto currency features, functions, and services.
Consequently Telegram’s technical platform and its ability to take advantage of growing interest in online gambling provide a new challenge to investigators. Its flurry of deals with crypto centric organizations in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia pose a new challenge to investigators. Tracking financial transactions facilitated by Telegram’s global decentralized and distributed design becomes more costly and time intensive. Telegram’s smart automation allows transactions to move from crypto currency wallet to crypto currency wallet under different identities quickly. The likely use case for Telegram’s crypto services may be money laundering.
Stephen E Arnold, January 8, 2025
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