Bandera telegraph VKontakte. A former employee of VKontakte revealed the scheme for creating Telegram. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

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With all my dislike for B.. Strugatsky, this is a brilliant description of Ukraine.
Bandera Telegraph didn’t even understand that, while trying to spit at Russia, it spit in Ukraine’s face...

Twenty years ago, the iconic Soviet and Russian science fiction writer Boris Strugatsky published a note in the Nevskoe Vremya newspaper entitled “Fascism is very simple. Epidemiological memo". We present its text in its entirety.

Plague in our house. We don't know how to treat it. Moreover, we often do not even know how to make a correct diagnosis. And those who have already become infected often do not notice that they are sick and contagious.

It seems to him that he knows everything about fascism. After all, everyone knows that fascism is black SS uniforms, barking speech, arms raised in the Roman salute, swastikas, black and red banners, marching columns, skeletal people behind barbed wire, greasy smoke from the chimneys of crematoria, a possessed Fuhrer with a bang, fat Goering, Himmler, glittering with pince-nez glass, and half a dozen more or less reliable figures from “Seventeen Moments of Spring”, from “The Exploit of a Scout”, from “The Fall of Berlin”...

Oh, we know very well what fascism is - German fascism, also known as Hitlerism. It doesn’t even occur to us that there is another fascism, just as nasty, just as terrible, but its own, home-grown.

And this is probably why we do not see it point-blank, when before our eyes it is growing in the body of the country, like a silent malignant tumor.

We, however, distinguish a swastika camouflaged as runic signs. We can hear hoarse cries calling for reprisals against foreigners. We sometimes notice nasty slogans and pictures on the walls of our houses. But we just can’t admit to ourselves that this is also fascism. We all think that fascism means black SS uniforms, barking foreign speech, greasy smoke from the chimneys of crematoria, war...

Now the Academy of Sciences, fulfilling the presidential decree, is feverishly formulating a scientific definition of fascism. We must assume that this will be an accurate, comprehensive definition for all occasions. And of course, devilishly difficult.

Meanwhile, fascism is simple. Moreover, fascism is very simple!

Fascism is a dictatorship of nationalists. Accordingly, a fascist is a person who professes (and preaches) the superiority of one nation over others and at the same time is an active advocate of the “iron hand”, “discipline-order”, “iron gloves” and other delights of totalitarianism.

That's all. There is nothing else at the heart of fascism. Dictatorship plus nationalism. Totalitarian rule of one nation. And everything else - secret police, camps, book fires, war - grows from this poisonous seed, like death from a cancer cell.

An iron dictatorship with all its deathly charms is possible, say, the Stroessner dictatorship in Paraguay or the Stalin dictatorship in the USSR, but since the total idea of this dictatorship is not a national (racial) idea, this is no longer fascism. A state based on a national idea, say Israel, is possible, but if there is no dictatorship (“iron hand,” suppression of democratic freedoms, omnipotence of the secret police), this is no longer fascism.

Expressions like “demo-fascist” or “fascist democrat” are completely meaningless and ignorant. This is the same absurdity as “icy boiling water” or “fragrant stench.”

A democrat, yes, can be a nationalist to some extent, but by definition he is an enemy of any and all dictatorship, and therefore he simply does not know how to be a fascist. Just as no fascist knows how to be a democrat, a supporter of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of rallies and demonstrations, he is always for one freedom - the freedom of the Iron Hand.

I can easily imagine a person who, having familiarized himself with all these definitions of mine, will say (with doubt): “So it turns out that five or six hundred years ago everyone in the world were fascists: princes, kings, lords, and vassals ..."

In a sense, such a remark hits the target, because it is true “exactly the opposite”: fascism is a feudalism delayed in development, having survived the age of steam, and the age of electricity, and the age of the atom, and is ready to survive the age of space flights and artificial intelligence .

Feudal relations seemed to have disappeared, but the feudal mentality turned out to be tenacious and powerful, it turned out to be stronger than steam and electricity, stronger than universal literacy and universal computerization.

Its vitality, of course, is due to the fact that feudalism has its roots in pre-feudal, still cave times, in the mentality of a flea-ridden herd of tailless monkeys: all the strangers living in the neighboring forest are disgusting and dangerous, and our leader is magnificently cruel, wise and victorious enemies. This primitive mentality, apparently, will not soon leave the human race. And therefore fascism is feudalism today. And tomorrow.

Just, for God’s sake, don’t confuse nationalism with patriotism! Patriotism is love for one's own people, and nationalism is hostility towards others. A patriot knows perfectly well that there are no bad and good peoples - there are only bad and good people. A nationalist always thinks in terms of “friends and foes”, “ours and not ours”, “thieves-frayers”; he labels entire nations as scoundrels, or fools, or bandits with extraordinary ease.

This is the most important feature of fascist ideology - the division of people into “ours and not ours.” Stalinist totalitarianism is based on a similar ideology, which is why they are so similar, these regimes are killer regimes, regimes are destroyers of culture, militaristic regimes. Only fascists divide people into races, and Stalinists into classes.

A very important sign of fascism is lying.

Of course, not everyone who lies is a fascist, but every fascist is definitely a liar. He is simply forced to lie.

Because dictatorship can sometimes still be somehow, at the very least, but still reasonably justified, while nationalism can only be justified through lies - some false “Protocols” or rantings that “the Jews made the Russian people drunk,” “ all Caucasians are born bandits” and the like. That's why the fascists lie. And they always lied. And no one said it more precisely than Ernest Hemingway: “Fascism is a lie told by bandits.”

So if you suddenly “realized” that only your people are worthy of all the benefits, and all other peoples around are second-class, congratulations: you have taken your first step into fascism. Then it dawns on you that your people will achieve lofty goals only when an iron order is established and the mouths of all these loudmouths and paper scribblers who talk about freedoms are shut up; when they will put everyone who crosses you against the wall (without trial or investigation), and they will mercilessly take the foreigners by the fingernail...

And as soon as you accepted all this, the process is completed: you are already a fascist. You are not wearing a black uniform with a swastika. You are not in the habit of shouting “Heil!” All your life you have been proud of our country’s victory over fascism and, perhaps, you yourself personally brought this victory closer. But you allowed yourself to join the ranks of the nationalists who fought for the dictatorship - and you are already a fascist. How simple! How terribly simple.

And don't say now that you're not at all evil person that you are against the suffering of innocent people (only enemies of order should be put against the wall, and only enemies of order should be behind barbed wire), that you yourself have children and grandchildren, that you are against war... All this no longer matters , since you have received the Buffalo Communion.

The road of history has long been well-trodden, the logic of history is merciless, and as soon as your Fuhrers come to power, a well-functioning conveyor belt will start working: elimination of dissidents - suppression of the inevitable protest - concentration camps, gallows - decline of the peaceful economy - militarization - war...

And if, having come to your senses, at some point you want to stop this terrible conveyor belt, you will be mercilessly destroyed, like the very last democratic internationalist.

Your banners will not be red and brown, but, for example, black and orange. At your meetings you will shout not “Heil”, but, say, “Glory!”

You will not have Sturmbannführers, but there will be some esaul brigadiers, but the essence of fascism - the dictatorship of the Nazis - will remain, which means that lies, blood, war will remain - now, possibly nuclear.

We live in dangerous times. Plague in our house. First of all, it affects the offended and humiliated, and there are so many of them now.

Is it possible to turn back history? Probably, it is possible - if millions want it. So let's not want this. After all, a lot depends on ourselves. Not everything, of course, but a lot.”

George R.R. Martin admitted that he regretted killing off characters. According to Martin, a writer, even if he works in the fantasy genre, must tell the truth, which is that people are mortal. "Especially if we're talking about war, which is a central theme in Game of Thrones," he said.

© Photo: Gleb Garanich / Reuters Since the morning of May 25, the whole world has been following the progress of the exchange of Ukrainian serviceman Nadezhda Savchenko for two Russians convicted in Ukraine. But whose victory is this really? Lenta.ru has collected the most striking statements Russian politicians and experts about how and why prisoners were exchanged for each other.

At a meeting with family members of journalists, the Russian President did not return in detail to the episode because of which VGTRK employees died. Instead, the Russian leader spoke about the importance of the process to reduce the degree of confrontation “in the already known conflict zone.”

Internet users criticized the winners of the amateur sculpture competition. According to the publication, after the police published a photograph of the figure that received the first prize on the Twitter account of their department, Internet users attacked the winners of the competition with criticism. In the comments, the British were accused of lack of taste and stereotypical thinking.

Other assessments were not so clear: many doubt whether this exchange was necessary. But most famous speakers are still confident that the result exceeds the costs.

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia:

Addressing the relatives of VGTRK journalists who died in Donbass: “I know that more than two months ago, more precisely on March 23, you met with [leader social movement“Ukrainian Choice”] Viktor Medvedchuk and then, based on the results of this meeting, they turned to me with a request to pardon Savchenko, who was convicted by a Russian court. I will not now return to the tragedy as a result of which you lost your loved ones. I just want to thank you for this position and express the hope that such decisions, dictated primarily by considerations of humanism, will lead to a reduction in confrontation in the known conflict zone and will help avoid such terrible and unnecessary losses for anyone.”

The Speaker of the Federation Council called on people not to glorify Nadezhda Savchenko, who was pardoned by the President of the Russian Federation. Valentina Matvienko believes that Savchenko cannot be made into a national heroine, as the Ukrainian authorities are trying to present today. “It’s a great pity for a country where representatives of radical nationalist organizations, the UPA, fascist collaborators, and people with blood on their hands are made into national heroes. And as for Savchenko, there is no reason to make her a national heroine, because the Russian court has proven that she is responsible for the deaths of Russian journalists. It would be very cynical to make her a martyr.

Ivan Melnikov, first vice speaker of the State Duma, first deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation:

“I have mixed feelings about this exchange. I am glad that our citizens were torn out of the Russophobic lair. But it’s a pity that we are releasing the Bandera militant without allowing us to feel justice for full program. However, today the Kiev regime is voluntarily bringing a political bomb to itself. Let them now try to curb the martyr’s aura of this actress, which they themselves created for her.”

The return of Savchenko and the “GRU fighters”“This is not an exchange. Russia and Ukraine have ratified the European Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons to Serve Their Sentences in Other Countries. Such a transfer took place - just like the transfer of Savchenko to Ukraine, the transfer of our two citizens at the request of Russia took place (...)

It’s a pity for a country where representatives of radical, nationalist organizations, the UPA, people with blood on their hands, collaborators of the fascists are made into national heroes. As for Savchenko, there is no reason to make her a national heroine, because the Russian court has proven that she is guilty, including in the deaths of Russian journalists.”

The Taliban have chosen a new leader. This is Khaibatulla Akhundzada, a man with a Tajik name and a biography of a theologian. This indicates a change in the role of the leader of this radical Afghan movement. The Taliban no longer want to see a strong military leader at their head. They need a person who is able to make compromises and eliminate internal contradictions. On May 25, the radical Taliban movement announced the election of a new leader. This is Haibatullah Akhundzada, a theologian and specialist in Islamic religious law. He replaced Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who led the Taliban for the past three years.

Igor Lebedev, member of the LDPR faction, vice speaker of the State Duma:

“The President of the Russian Federation took an absolutely right step (...)

The West is very categorical about this issue and constantly, when extending sanctions or introducing new ones, pays attention specifically to the situation with Savchenko (...) We hope that the decision to pardon will soften the situation, and I do not rule out that this may play a role in the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions - the issue of them is now being considered in Europe.”

Franz Klintsevich, first deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security:

“In this whole exchange story, I am only interested in its result - our compatriots Evgeny Erofeev and Alexander Alexandrov returned home. This means that the exchange is justified in all respects - moral, ethical, political, in any other (...)

For Russia, every citizen is truly priceless. At the same time, it would be foolish to deny that this exchange is a kind of transaction, and to a certain extent we had to sacrifice principles.”

"Financial Monster" and other premieres this week.
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At the Munich Security Conference, Kiev announced the holding of a “Normandy format” with the participation of foreign ministers to discuss the “peacekeeping plan” for Donbass, freshly prepared by Poroshenko’s assistant and former NATO Secretary General Rasmussen. This format did not take place, and Poroshenko was “thrown away” by Berlin and Paris. The position of our Sergei Lavrov is known: “it’s always useful to talk,” but there was no one to talk to.

The Rasmussen plan is actually an American plan, it was prepared by American advisers, and Rasmussen was a way of throwing it into the “Normandy format”. It turns out that Europe “dumped” not so much Kyiv and Poroshenko, but rather Washington and its special representative Kurt Volcker, throwing aside decency and refusing to even “talk.” Why?

It is obvious that Rasmussen’s plan is unacceptable to Moscow; perhaps Berlin and Paris simply did not want to waste time on it. But this is also a demonstration of dissatisfaction with Washington’s unilateral actions, because this plan was not previously discussed with Europe.

In Munich, Europe, one might say, refused to support the unilateral US policy in Bandera’s Ukraine. In addition, Berlin refused to block Nord Stream 2, which the Americans insisted on; Kurt Volker even called it a purely political project. It turns out that Berlin is politically moving closer to Moscow in defiance of Washington. Construction of SP-2 should begin in April; this month will be the moment of truth in relations between Germany, the USA and Russia.

Starting with the conclusion of the Minsk agreements, which were, in fact, a separate agreement between Berlin, Paris and Moscow, with the establishment of the Normandy format, Washington was present in Minsk indirectly, through Kyiv. Moscow tried to separate Europe from America based on disagreements over Ukraine and energy policy. And this plan of Moscow in Munich seems to have achieved its goal. Europe is changing its policy in Ukraine to spite America! As a result, Bandera’s Ukraine is turning into a platform for Russia’s struggle only with the United States and the adjacent England and Eastern European limitrophes.

This split in the West reduces the likelihood of Bandera’s military adventure in Donbass. American neocon democrats need an urgent war in Donbass to undermine their legitimacy presidential elections in Russia and attack President Trump with new criticism. Accordingly, Trump does not need this war now, which US Secretary of Defense James Mattis apparently explained to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to Poltorak in Washington and Poroshenko in Munich: Trump is its commander in chief.

Both Poroshenko in Munich and Chief of the General Staff Muzhenko in Kyiv, having paid due tribute to Russophobia, almost simultaneously say that they have no plans to fight with Russia. But Donbass, according to the law on “reintegration” already adopted by the Rada, is considered “occupied by Russia.” In this situation, Europe’s blocking of the “peacekeeping” seizure of Donbass according to the Volcker-Rasmussen plan drives Poroshenko in Donbass into a dead end, and for this the Azov Nazis and Right Sector activists may well organize another “revolution of dignity” for him.

In general, the USA foreign policy they always carry out under a false flag, that is, they always lie about their true goals - this is a common thing for them in colonial wars, today, instead of beads and mirrors, they present the “values of democracy” to the new Indians, before the Indians were smarter. However, today the USA had a “Trump” incident. President Donald Trump just tweeted, after Special Counsel Mueller’s latest report on “Russian interference,” he gave the following assessment of the situation in the country: “If Russia’s goal was to create discord and chaos in the United States, they have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.”

This American chaos is also spreading to Ukraine; apparently, the American station in Kyiv is receiving conflicting instructions from Washington. Some come from Trump through the State Department, others from the circles of neocon Democrats (Clinton - Biden), which are publicly expressed by the “US Atlantic Council”. In the latest articles by senior researcher Diana Francis, the Atlanticists openly threaten Petro Poroshenko with a new Maidan revolution, and the demands put forward are either impossible or murderous, such as the urgent implementation of reforms and the creation of an Anti-Corruption Court against himself.

Agent of the Atlantic Council in Kyiv, which is why he is so long time untouchable was the leader of Mikhomaidan Saakashvili, ex-governor of Odessa and “golden boy” Clinton. And so Poroshenko urgently and rudely, grabbing him by the hair, sends the professional colored revolutionary Miho to Europe through Poland, where he came from. A comedy, however, it can have a tragic ending.

Now the chief of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the ruler of the Nazi “Azov” Arsen Avakov will strive to subjugate Saakashvili’s “Movement of New Forces” and, in general, all Mihomaidanites. Poroshenko is creating the conditions for the unification of all neo-Nazi forces against him under the hand of Avakov, who is already relying on numerous “Azov” assault troops. “There are many of us, we are not afraid to use force to create Ukrainian order on the streets,” his “Azov” leader Biletsky openly declares.

The situation is a dead end for the Bandera regime, it is surrounded by red flags like an animal from all sides: Berlin and Paris refused the “Normandy format”, Poland is adopting an anti-Bandera law, Hungary and Romania are expressing “linguistic” claims, Russia is not conceding in the Donbass and what something is waiting, but the United States is far away and it is unclear what they want. The “Atlantic Council” may try to provoke Bandera’s neo-Nazis to a new Maidan against the “corrupt Poroshenko” and “for the war to a victorious end,” and the cornered beast may succumb to this provocation; it has nothing to lose.

- Can you tell me about new technology Pavel Durova in simple words?

— So far, the technologies that they want to create within the TON platform are known only from advertising materials. But they are also in Russian: both an advertising video and a translation of the white paper for investors (in the context of cryptocurrencies, a white paper is a document published in the public domain, in which the creators of the project explain their goals and objectives, and also justify why they will be successful. — RT). Unfortunately, it is not so easy to even talk about what already existing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are. It will be easier for those who have already understood this.

Pavel Durov promises to create his own cryptocurrency, but with fast and convenient transfer capabilities. The price of speed will be incomplete decentralization. Processing will be carried out by dedicated nodes owned either by Telegram or large investors. (A node is a node in the blockchain. In fact, it is a separate computer that processes transactions. In decentralized cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, any person with a computer and special software installed on it can become a node. By becoming a node, that is, part of the network, a person helps process transactions, receiving a reward for this in the form of the same cryptocurrency. This is how the mining process occurs. RT.)

It will be impossible to mine, the system will include inflation (depreciation of “grams” in user wallets) at a level of about 2% per annum, emitted (“pre-printed”) funds will be distributed among the owners of large nodes to compensate for their costs.

But nothing is known yet about the possibility and ease of input and output of “grams,” that is, their purchase and sale for fiat (“real”) money, as well as the general legality of this in the future. A number of other auxiliary services have also been announced so that we can talk specifically about the platform, but they will be less interesting to ordinary users.

— Did you know about plans to create a cryptocurrency messenger when you worked at Telegram? Was this discussed?

— No, while I was working at Telegram, until April 2017, there were no plans related to ICO (Initial Coin Offering, initial placement of tokens - the project’s release of tokens, that is, cryptocurrency, which in the future could be used to pay for the services of this site. — RT), blockchain, cryptocurrencies. Nobody even discussed them. If I had found out about some plans in the process of work, I would not have published it, it is not ethical.

So I’m sure the idea came to Pavel Durov in the summer-autumn, when cryptocurrency rates rushed up and the ICO topic suddenly became popular.

- What do you think about this?

— It so happened that I accidentally found a video with an advertisement for TON and was the first to talk about the ICO plans. Basically, there I wrote the main thing that I thought and still think about the project. Since then, I’ve had time to talk to dozens of investors and study the original white paper, but nothing fundamentally has changed. It is necessary to separate the stage of the ICO and everything that will (or will not) happen later.

“Telegram depends on the EU and US authorities”

— How can such a system work in the Russian Federation if there is still no understanding at the legislative level of regulating these processes?

— Previously, Pavel Durov complied with the laws of the Russian Federation, then we saw a trial with the FSB in October, after which he began to look for lawyers to study the issues of the legal status of the messenger. In the summer, Durov flew to negotiate with the Indonesian authorities, and now Telegram is blocked in Iran due to the refusal to block one of the channels on their territory. If there is not something more behind all this, then Paul simply decides in each individual case that it is more profitable for him here and now, that is, he is not very worried about the laws.

Then everything will depend on what laws will be passed in Russia and how significant the popularity of the new cryptocurrency will be among users. This is roughly how things are now with existing cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin or Ether (Ethereum cryptocurrency, created by Vitalik Buterin, a native of Russia. — RT).

But unlike them, Telegram is easier to block - it is not decentralized and almost entirely depends on the App Store and Google Play. And, of course, even more from the EU and US authorities, since the main data centers are located there.

— Is there a possibility that transfers will still be made in the usual currency?

— To raise a lot of money for an ICO, you need to promise a lot. Pavel Durov needs to create a new cryptocurrency, and a fundamentally new one. So far no one has been able to achieve all the declared characteristics at the same time.

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Schaube/face to face

Unfortunately, the decentralization of cryptocurrencies does not go well with transaction confirmation speed and throughput, that is, the number of transactions that can be processed per unit of time.

If all this can be done and implemented, and at the same time fit within the legal framework, then Telegram will have services for transferring fiat money through conversion to “grams” and back, but third-party developers will also be able to create them.

— In your opinion, will Pavel Durov look for investors himself?

Pavel Durov is friends with a number of Russian oligarchs, but does not like investors, because in classical schemes, when investing money in a project, people expect some kind of control, at least supervision, they want transparency and reports, plans and budgets. But Telegram doesn’t have any of this.

As a matter of fact, this is why ICO is perhaps the only way to raise money for a project, since it does not imply any responsibility other than the promise to issue tokens.

As far as I know, several familiar intermediaries help Pavel raise money for the ICO, each of whom looks for investors and convinces them to invest.

— Can you guess who the investor might be?

My guess is that several people could be such intermediaries, and the investors are most likely primarily large investment funds that can allocate a small percentage of funds to high-risk investments. However, intermediaries also come to large private investors, offering to deposit money through them.

On the other hand, since there is still no official information about ICO, but there is interest, many investors, medium and even large investment funds, write to me looking for contacts.

Among them there are both private investment funds and people involved in cryptocurrencies and have made money from this recently.

For example, Chinese investors, since they have large exchanges and miners in their country, and ICOs have been banned. But, as far as I heard, money is accepted only in the form of classical currencies, primarily in dollars.

— What platform did Durov take as a basis, Wechat?

— When creating Telegram, WhatsApp was taken as a basis; there was a strict requirement to work faster and more stable on poor connections. But WeChat is more of a general example of a platform where payments, games and other services are integrated.

And the basis for TON was rather Ethereum and other projects based on blockchain technology, such as distributed file systems.

Due to the specific nature of decentralization, the main ones are the protocol and the reference implementation, and all this is usually released in the form of open source code. Therefore, you can look at what others have done, repeat and use their solutions.

— First, we need to try to create everything that has already been promised within the ICO and white paper. So far there is nothing from this in Telegram, and the terms are stated at 4 years, during which time everything can change. I don't think there's any point in guessing what will happen next.

At least when we were working on VKontakte, Pavel Durov was always indignant at investors who asked for development plans for more than a year. If we were not talking about the construction of data centers, of course.

And he said that there is no point in planning anything for a longer period in such a dynamic industry as IT. Telegram also did not make far-reaching plans.

— Can Telegram become a competitor to Visa and Mastercard?

This is not so much about creating an analogue of traditional payment systems, how much about creating a new cryptocurrency. If the stated goal can be realized technically, the next task will be to convince all users of the messenger to start using it. Pavel Durov already tried to make his own currency, “VKontakte rubles”, in 2010, but then its popularity did not exceed 1%.

If this problem can be solved, the new currency will have to compete with other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

True, unlike them, Telegram is not decentralized and depends on the authorities, primarily the EU and the USA. And I think that none of the states would want to see a competitor to their central bank.

By the way, after the publication of the first information about the TON project, Telegram was blocked in Iran, and it is not yet known whether it will be unblocked. And this is the largest audience of the messenger. Visa and Mastercard, however, still don’t work there.

To capture a new market, you often need to do something small and inconspicuous at first. And by the time the bigger players pay attention, it will be too late. This is how the Internet defeated television, this is how we once created VKontakte, although there were already Internet giants like Yandex, Mail.ru, Rambler.

But here Pavel Durov will already attract huge attention with this ICO, although the product will appear only in a few years.

This is the downside of ICOs. Therefore, I suggest we wait and see what happens in the end. It will be interesting for sure.

— Does Telegram have the capacity to create user-friendly interfaces that are intuitive for millions of users?

To create interfaces, you don’t need power, but good designers, and the number of users is not important here. But in the case of a blockchain project, this is not at all the main thing; the main tasks will be the development of decentralized protocols, the development and construction of many large nodes (these are the features of the proof-of-stake consensus protocol) and ensuring the security of all this.

Published documents list most of the Telegram team (more precisely, my former colleagues at Telegraph LLC, we all worked there), the guys are great, but everyone is completely busy developing the messenger, and there is no longer enough time. For example, Pavel promised to solve the problem (limit of 1 million messages for each user . — RT) until the end of 2017.

To do this, Nikolay Durov had to rewrite text-index, but the deadline expired and the task was never completed.

Therefore, to develop TON, you will either have to reassign C/C++ developers (but there are only five of them, and they are already busy), or recruit a team under new project from scratch. But Pavel Durov has become more and more conservative in this matter over the years and hires almost exclusively those with whom he worked in VKontakte. This is easy to see even from the white paper: only one of the employees listed there did not work at VKontakte, although he was also selected based on the results of a competition to develop a photo editor for VK.

However, this human resource is almost completely exhausted, and I myself am waiting with great interest for information about who will actually do TON.

— Will there be demand for the Gram cryptocurrency? And will Telegram collect the money declared for the ICO?

It seems to me that it is too early to talk about the demand for “grams”. As for the ICO, there is no declared hard cap (the maximum amount of funds that will be collected during the crowdfunding process. — RT). The price of tokens is growing exponentially, albeit with a very small base, so this is done more to create a psychological feeling of excitement.

They will sell as much as they buy.

But at the closed sale before the ICO, I think they will raise hundreds of millions. This is how the current ICO market works. Young investors invest money based on names and are not particularly interested in the product itself. They hope to make money by speculating on tokens after going public. I hope they at least look carefully at the freezing period; some sources even talk about 2.5 years. Ultimately, laws regulating ICOs may be passed during this time.

— Do you think it’s worth investing in cryptocurrency at all?

— Cryptocurrencies are now considered high-risk assets with high volatility and uncertain legal status, and the price of most of them is determined primarily by speculative and rush demand. In addition, they are not sold in exchange offices; when purchasing, there is a risk of being left without money.

So I advise you to first understand what cryptocurrencies are and not try to invest all your savings there in the hope of getting rich. Only what you are mentally prepared to lose.

In the end, you may forget or lose your wallet password - and then no one will be able to help you.

Those who still want to take risks, but are not ready to become a professional trader, should pay attention to the most popular cryptocurrencies. Everything else is worth or considered as lottery tickets, or dive deep into the question, study forums, follow the news and constantly monitor the price.

Former employee VKontakte and Telegraph LLC

Rosenberg decided to refute the words of Pavel Durov that Telegram was originally founded abroad and the St. Petersburg

LLC "Telegraph"

(Russia), Telegraph Inc. (Belize) and Telegram Messenger LLP (UK).

That is, in 2014, Pavel Durov still remembered that Telegraph LLC

it was always his. And he also remembered how to spell the word “Telegraph” correctly (now he manipulates facts and writes “Telegraf” everywhere. And he does it on the website telegra.ph, which is doubly funny.)

Anton Rosenberg.

The scheme for creating several companies was invented by Durov’s partner Axel Neff to optimize taxes. In a 2012 letter, he used the phrase "double Irish with a Dutch sandwich." This is a stable phrase in the USA for schemes where instead of one company three are created.

Photo: Anton Rosenberg’s blog on Medium

Rosenberg also found an interview with Durov from 2013, where he says on camera that Telegram is a Russian company.

That is, at the time of its launch in 2013, Telegram was a Russian project developed at Telegraph LLC.

on the sixth floor of the Singer House in St. Petersburg

(VKontakte office - approx.)

Anton Rosenberg.

Durov’s statements that Telegram was created after he left VKontakte, and that its employees live abroad and constantly travel, were not true, Rosenberg claims.

still

developed at Telegraph LLC

to the Singer House, Pavel Durov quietly returned to Russia in October 2014 and has been traveling regularly since then

back and forth

Anton Rosenberg.

Against the backdrop of the scandal with Rosenberg, Durov claimed that Telegraph LLC

he did not own it, and the company was engaged in analyzing spam for Telegram as an external contractor. Anton, who was fired on the basis of truancy reports, published one of these documents. It was signed by a certain system administrator, but Anton hid his name.

But, in general, I can remove the black rectangle. And then it turns out that the network was set up by my former colleague on VKontakte, who received a bonus of five million rubles back in 2012. For the development of Telegram (so claimed by UCP)

Anton Roseberg.

Anton says that this man was the first Telegram system administrator. This person may be Igor Dyakonov, writes VC. In its claims against Durov, the UCP Foundation claimed that it was he who received a bonus of this size.

The scandal with Rosenberg began with a post where he said that since childhood he had been friends with Nikolai Durov, the brother of the founder of VKontakte and Telegram Pavel Durov, who worked with him on both projects. The Durovs also involved Rosenberg in the creation of VKontakte and Telegram.

According to Anton, he quarreled with Nikolai Durov because old friend showed signs of attention to his girlfriend (now wife) Catherine. Amid the scandal, Rosenberg was fired from Telegraph LLC

and sued him, demanding compensation of 100 million rubles.

Then Anton decided to reveal the story of his dismissal and said that the Telegram messenger was created by VKontakte employees in St. Petersburg long before Pavel left the company.