Secure alternativeīelarusian hacktivists launched P-Telegram in 2021. They created the app primarily to protect themselves during searches. Many Cyber Partisans have repeatedly been in situations where the police checked their phones, according to Shemetovets. The police officer checked the activist's phone but did not find any evidence there, because he used P-Telegram. One of the activists was detained while walking in a park, where the police were looking for people who had painted the trees in red and white, the colors of the Belarusian protests. Lukashenko ordered the so-called siloviki - pro-regime security forces - to detain “suspicious” people on the streets or in the subway and check their Telegram to identify those who support the protests. In an interview in 2020, he lamented that even if he shuts down the internet in the country, Telegram channels will continue to work from Poland, where many Belarusian activists fled during the protests. Lukashenko repeatedly expressed his irritation at the inability to block Telegram in Belarus. Telegram's popularity among activists has its drawbacks - the app has attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies in countries where free speech is suppressed, in particular Russia, China, Iran and Belarus. Since the app was founded in 2013 by Russian tech entrepreneur Pavel Durov and his brother, its growth has been remarkable, reaching 700 million monthly users in June this year. ![]() It has been adopted by protesters in Hong Kong and Iran, as well as by cybercriminals who use Telegram to advertise their services and publish data leaks. Telegram combines the features of a messenger and a social network like Twitter. The app has virtually no content moderation, allowing people to post footage that Facebook or Instagram would ban or flag as sensitive. It allows huge chat groups of up to 200,000 people, including encrypted secret chats. Telegram was the perfect app for the Belarusian protesters. A Nexta Live Telegram post about the case of three Belarusian men accused of sabotaging a rail line for Russian troops and supplies. The Belarusian authorities couldn't block the Telegram channel, so in October 2020 they declared Nexta an extremist organization to scare its subscribers, but to no avail. Nexta covered the protests in Belarus amid nationwide internet blackouts, publishing footage of police violence, real-time locations of pro-regime security forces, and protesters' pleas for help. Telegram news channel Nexta Live, for example, grew from several hundred thousand followers to more than 2 million in the days following the election. At that time, Telegram was one of the few sources of information that was not censored or banned by the state. Protestors used the app to organize and coordinate mass rallies, post updates, photos, and videos, and keep morale up. ![]() Telegram helped start a revolution in Belarus in the summer of 2020 when thousands of people flooded the streets to protest the results of the presidential election rigged by the country’s dictator Alexander Lukashenko. “Foreigners don't want to sponsor our cyberattacks because it's a gray area, but digital security always sparks interest,” Shemetovets told The Record. Until now, hacktivists spent money from their own pockets on the app, but they have taken steps to obtain grant funding from foreign organizations. However, it promises something that many social networks fail to provide – security for its users.Īnd as the app's popularity continues to grow, Cyber Partisans - known primarily for cyberattacks against the Belarusian government and high-profile data leaks - are planning to improve it further. The Belarusian app is indistinguishable from the original, as it is built on Telegram’s open-source code. P-Telegram is used by activists in Belarus and Iran, as well as Ukrainians living in Russia-occupied territories, according to Yuliana Shemetovets, Cyber Partisans' spokesperson. Partisan Telegram, or P-Telegram, automatically deletes pre-selected chats when someone enters the so-called SOS password. ![]() Pavlo’s secret? A secure version of Telegram, developed by a hacktivist group from Belarus called the Cyber Partisans. All secret chats and news channels had disappeared, and after a few minutes of questioning Pavlo was released. The officer entered it and… found nothing. The police officer asked for Pavlo’s password to Telegram, the most popular messenger app among Belarusian activists, which he gave him. When a 25-year-old activist from Minsk who goes by Pavlo was detained by Belarusian KGB security forces last summer, he knew they would search his phone, looking for evidence of his involvement in anti-government protests. This app will self-destruct: How Belarusian hackers created an alternative Telegram for activists
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