What a shocker. Is this really newsworthy? Actually yes – because here, we’re seeing the opposite of clickbait – a subdued, to put it generously, headline in legacy US media, in an attempt to report about some of the things Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said during his interview with Tucker Carlson.
But behind this headline lies a pretty explosive, even if not surprising story – of how countries (in reality, more likely than one, but in this case, one is named) view the backbone of internet safety and integrity, namely – reliable, secure encryption.
Long story short – they view it as the enemy.
Durov, a Russian now in possession of multiple passports, based in Dubai, UAE, and often apparently butting heads with snooping efforts from governments (including Russian) revealed during the interview how the government in Washington one time tried to “break into Telegram,” as he put it.
But really, doing this successfully, given the nature of the encrypted app, would have meant not just breaking “into” – but, breaking Telegram.