All posts tagged: Telegram

‘Muslim only’ flat rentals advertised in London

‘Muslim only’ flat rentals advertised in London

Published by Sam Flores

Landlords are illegally advertising for “Muslim only” tenants across London and the south-east, an investigation by The Telegraph has found. The listings, posted on Facebook, Gumtree and Telegram, a social media and messaging channel, feature phrases such as “only for Muslims”, “for 2 Muslim boys or 2 Muslim girls” and “Muslims preferred”. Others include direct appeals to Punjabi and Gujarati speakers or Kerala and Haryana people, while there are also job vacancies on the platforms that are advertised for men only. On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties, which also has a TikTok account, had dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy”, “one double room is available for Muslims” and “suitable for Punjabi boy”. Others advertised for “Hindus only” while there are also posts from those seeking to rent on religious lines, including one listing that states: “The house should be alcohol and smoke free.” Facebook took the page down after being alerted by The Telegraph. Gumtree listings also include requests for only Muslim and Hindu tenants. All the advertisements appear to breach the Equality …

Telegram Is Still Hosting a Sanctioned Billion Crypto Scammer Black Market

Telegram Is Still Hosting a Sanctioned $21 Billion Crypto Scammer Black Market

Published by skeptic

Xinbi Guarantee has also hosted a wide variety of other black market offerings, including harassment services that threaten or throw feces at a victim for a fee, and even sex workers as young as 14 who are likely trafficking victims. One listing Elliptic shared with WIRED, found just in recent weeks, offered a 16-year-old sex worker, including the girl’s body size measurements and available sex acts. As clearly as all of those examples contradict Telegram’s arguments for hosting Xinbi Guarantee, though, the UK government’s official sanctions against Xinbi are even more clearcut, says Elliptic’s Robinson. “It was already a weak argument, but the sanctioning of Xinbi makes the argument much weaker,” Robinson says. “There is now this official recognition that Xinbi is predominantly an illicit actor.” Telegram’s tolerance for Xinbi Guarantee is all the stranger because it did, in fact, ban the market at one point last year. After WIRED asked Telegram about Elliptic’s findings regarding Xinbi Guarantee and a then-even-larger market known as Huione Guarantee, Telegram summarily purged the accounts of both. Telegram spokesperson …

Men Are Buying Hacking Tools to Use Against Their Wives and Friends

Men Are Buying Hacking Tools to Use Against Their Wives and Friends

Published by skeptic

Thousands of men are members of Telegram groups and channels that advertise and sell hacking and surveillance services that can be used to harass friends, wives and girlfriends, and former partners, new research has uncovered. The findings, from a European nonprofit group, also say that the communities are involved in extensive trading, selling, and promotion of a huge variety of abusive content, including nonconsensual intimate images of women, so-called nudifying services, plus folders of images that sellers claim include child sexual abuse material and depictions of incest and rape. Over six weeks earlier this year, researchers at the algorithmic auditing group AI Forensics analyzed nearly 2.8 million messages sent across 16 Italian and Spanish Telegram communities that are regularly posting abusive content targeting women and girls. More than 24,000 members of the Telegram groups and channels took part in posting 82,723 images, videos, and audio files over the course of the study, the analysis says. Many posts target celebrities and influencers, but men in the groups also frequently victimize women they know. “We tend to …

A Billion Crypto Scam Market Faces a New Government Crackdown

A $20 Billion Crypto Scam Market Faces a New Government Crackdown

Published by skeptic

Chinese-language online black markets have become one of the biggest drivers of cybercrime in history, processing tens of billions of dollars of illicit finance every year. Helping the trade in stolen data, money-laundering services, and even at times electrified shackles, these underground marketplaces have fueled scam operations and human trafficking around the world. Now, officials in the United Kingdom have dealt one $20 billion cryptocurrency marketplace a potentially punishing blow. On Thursday, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, also known as the Foreign Office, revealed financial sanctions against the Xinbi Guarantee online marketplace, which will likely limit its operations. The online bazaar, which has operated using channels and accounts on the messaging platform Telegram, has previously been linked to billions in cryptocurrency transactions and proved hard to disrupt. The sanctions against Xinbi were issued as British officials also penalized multiple individuals allegedly linked to the operation of industrial-sized scam compounds in Cambodia, including the 20,000 person #8 Park compound. The British government also seized properties in London, including a £9 million penthouse, linked to …

Anthropic just shipped an OpenClaw killer called Claude Code Channels, letting you message it over Telegram and Discord

Anthropic just shipped an OpenClaw killer called Claude Code Channels, letting you message it over Telegram and Discord

Published by skeptic

The hit open source autonomous AI agent OpenClaw may have just gotten mogged by Anthropic. Today, Anthropic announced Claude Code Channels, a way to hook up its own powerful Claude Code AI agentic harness to a human user’s Discord or Telegram messaging applications, letting them message Claude Code directly whenever they want while on the go and instruct it to write code for them. Official documentation is here. This isn’t just a new UI; it is a fundamental shift in how developers interact with AI agents, moving from a synchronous “ask-and-wait” model to an asynchronous, autonomous partnership. Previously, Claude Code users were stuck interacting with the agentic harness on the Claude desktop application, terminal or supported developer environment, and Claude mobile app through a somewhat flaky (in my experience) interconnection setting called Remote Control. Now, Anthropic is offering some of the same core functionality as OpenClaw that drove its rapid adoption among software developers and vibe coders following its release in November 2025 by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger (who, ironically, originally called his project “Clawd” …

Russia’s Rumored Telegram Block Appears Underway As Outage Reports Surge

Russia’s Rumored Telegram Block Appears Underway As Outage Reports Surge

Published by Jenni Sidey

Reports are flooding in from across Russia that Telegram is suddenly going dark, fueling speculation that the Kremlin may already be testing a nationwide block ahead of a rumored planned crackdown next month. “Over the last 24 hours, Telegram has effectively stopped working through some providers if you are using Russian IP addresses,” tech sector observer Vladislav Voytenko told Kommersant FM on Monday. “As for using Telegram via mobile internet, you can basically forget about it,” he added. via Associated Presses Russia’s Main Radio Frequency Center, an arm of media watchdog Roskomnadzor, said a surge of complaints began appearing over the weekend, with at least one-third coming from Moscow, followed by St. Petersburg and other cities spread across the country’s vast 11 time zones. Regional media has tracked user reports on outage monitors such as Downdetector and Sboi.rf, which show complaints spiking sharply over the weekend as the app began failing across multiple regions. Some Russian users have described the platform is barely functioning “in any form”. They complain the app won’t open, messages won’t …

Russia launches terror probe into Telegram chief Pavel Durov – POLITICO

Russia launches terror probe into Telegram chief Pavel Durov – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov piled the pressure on, telling reporters Tuesday that authorities had recorded “a large number of violations” and Telegram’s “unwillingness … to cooperate.” The probe marks the latest chapter in Moscow’s decade-long battle with Durov. Russia attempted to block Telegram in 2018 after the company refused to hand over encryption keys — a ban that ultimately failed. Authorities have since intermittently throttled the service while also targeting other foreign platforms, including WhatsApp. Durov, who left Russia in 2014, has repeatedly framed the pressure as politically motivated. Earlier in February, he warned Moscow was trying to push users toward a state-controlled messaging app “built for surveillance and political censorship,” adding: “Telegram stands for freedom of speech and privacy, no matter the pressure.” The tech entrepreneur, however, has been in trouble outside Russia over the platform. In 2024, he was arrested in France and temporarily banned from leaving the country after being charged with several organized crime offenses. Prosecutors claimed he refused to cooperate with authorities’ attempts to combat illegal content, including child pornography, …

Russia investigates Telegram founder Durov in a bid to subjugate the messaging app

Russia investigates Telegram founder Durov in a bid to subjugate the messaging app

Published by Sam Flores

MOSCOW: Russia stepped up its bid to subjugate the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday (Feb 24), announcing in a state-run newspaper that it was investigating billionaire founder Pavel Durov as part of a criminal case involving accusations of terrorism. Russia is trying to block Telegram, which has more than 1 billion active users and is used very widely in both Russia and Ukraine – and steer tens of millions of Russians towards a state-backed alternative known as MAX. Telegram did not respond to a request for comment and Durov could not be reached, although the app has repeatedly denied Russia’s allegations that it is a haven for criminal activity and compromised by both Western and Ukrainian intelligence. Russia’s official state newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, published a 1,500-word article which it said was “based on materials from Russia’s Federal Security Service” that accused the app of being “a tool for hybrid threats”. “The actions of the head of Telegram, P. Durov, are being investigated as part of a criminal case on the grounds of a crime under …

Crypto-Funded Human Trafficking Is Exploding

Crypto-Funded Human Trafficking Is Exploding

Published by skeptic

Cryptocurrency’s frictionless, transnational, low-regulation transactions have long promised the ability to pay anyone in the world for anything. More than ever before, that anything includes human beings: victims of human trafficking forced into scam compounds and the sex trade on an industrial scale, bought and sold in crypto deals carried out with impunity, often in full public view. In new research published today, crypto-tracing firm Chainalysis found that crypto-funded transactions for human trafficking—largely forced laborers trapped in compounds across Southeast Asia and coerced into working as online scammers, as well as sex-trafficking prostitution rings—grew explosively in 2025. According to the firm’s analysis, based largely on tracing across blockchains the cryptocurrency those criminal operations use, researchers found that crypto transactions for human trafficking grew at least 85 percent year over year. The total amount of those transactions, Chainalysis says, is now at least in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually—though it declined to give an exact number for that sales total because it considered its measurements to be a conservative estimate that likely undercounts the …

Telegram messaging app faces new restrictions and fines in Russia, media report

Telegram messaging app faces new restrictions and fines in Russia, media report

Published by Sam Flores

MOSCOW, Feb 10 : The Telegram messaging app, an important platform for public and private communications in Russia, is facing new restrictions and fines for hosting content that the authorities object to, state and independent media reported on Tuesday. The RBC news outlet said the communications watchdog Roskomnadzor planned to limit access to Telegram from Tuesday, and measures to slow down access to it had already started. The watchdog did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reuters reporters in Russia said the app was still working, but appeared slow to download videos. Telegram did not immediately respond to a request for comment. State news agency RIA said Telegram was facing fines of up to 64 million roubles ($830,000) in eight upcoming court hearings in connection with alleged failures to remove information required by Russian law. The app, founded by Russian-born entrepreneur Pavel Durov, is used by newsmakers of all kinds – including the Kremlin, courts, media, celebrities and the exiled opposition – to distribute information instantly to a large audience. In recent months, …