Crawling Telegram channels/groups and collecting public data is not so difficult due to the open ecosystem of Telegram: Anyone can run their own modified tg-cli.

Telegram needs to think about this, a fix could be something like the websites' robots.txt: An option to disallow crawler robots on the channel or group. But this will only work when good-intentioned developers flag their accounts as crawlers.

Another solution could be allowing the community to have an option to flag or report crawlers.

Maybe this little crawlers and robots are not going to hurt us right now, but how can we sure that the NSA, other agencies or corporations will not try to collect public communications and users data in order to log everything?

#crawlers #privacy

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

We want to share with you this interesting text wrote by Jochem (a member of @geeksChat):

When you join a public group and post there: keep in mind that anyone can read this, even without joining the group. There is a minimal expectation of privacy in public groups, as they are essentially open to the outside world (this even includes scary entities like the NSA, because they also live on our planet).

The openness of Telegram's clients and API allows anyone to write a third-party tool to download and store chat history of any public and private groups they can access. While private groups are usually not accessible to anyone without an invite or invite link, public groups can be crawled easily without anyone noticing.

This does not mean the NSA is spying on Telegram users, and all anyone potentionally could see are: Your profile pictures; Your first and last name; The messages you and others posted in public groups. Private groups and chats are safe as always, as long as invite links are kept private. Secret chats can't be touched by crawlers.

#privacy #crawlers

France & Germany seek to force WhatsApp & Telegram to unlock encrypted messages

France and Germany this week called on the European Union to adopt a law that would require app companies to make encrypted messages available to law enforcement, as part of Europe's ongoing efforts to thwart terrorist attacks.

Sources: RT - Independent - The Verge

#privacy #encryption #telegram #security

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

✳️ WHATSAPP | PRIVACY ✳️


Facebook to start using WhatsApp data for targeted advertising

WhatsApp will also explore ways for businesses to send messages using its platform over the next several months, it said in a blog post.

Source: Reuters

#privacy #whatsapp #facebook

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

✳️ WHATSAPP | BUSINESS ✳️

businesses are coming to WhatsApp, take a look at this words from WhatsApp's blog:

But as we announced earlier this year, we want to explore ways for you to communicate with businesses that matter to you too, while still giving you an experience without third-party banner ads and spam. Whether it's hearing from your bank about a potentially fraudulent transaction, or getting notified by an airline about a delayed flight, many of us get this information elsewhere, including in text messages and phone calls. We want to test these features in the next several months.


#whatsapp #business

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

how Facebook tracks you across the web


Change these settings to stop Facebook tracking:
zdnet.com/article/to-stop-facebook-tracking-you-across-the-web-change-these-settings/

Time to move to Telegram 😎

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

Did you know how Telegram decide name's color on chats?

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

✳️ TELEGRAM | TIP ✳️

Color generation of Display Names

Telegram apps have a fixed set of colors. App is choosing the color based on the chatid and the userid. On Github you can see that e.g. our Android version has 8 fixed colors. So it could be that the name of the contact appears red in group chat A and in the group B in blue.

#tip #telegram #color #names

WhatsApp will add an official chat (with a verified check) to notify new changes to users.

Channels coming to WhatsApp? 😶

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

A DDoS attack on the Bot API is in progress. Hang on tight, we're fighting back.

And it's up again. All good! Be sure to ping bot support if you're still having issues.

Stay tuned for cool updates coming very soon!

✳️ TELEGRAM | TOOLS ✳️

Telegram Backup 💾

This is a small Java app that allows you to download all your history from Telegram's servers and keep a local copy of them.

Features

▶️ Messages are saved in a SQLite database; media (documents, photos, videos, stickers, geolocations, audios) are downloaded and saved as files.

▶️ A GUI is planned for later; at the moment this is a command line tool only.

▶️ Incremental backups - if you run the tool at a later time, it will only download new messages / media.

▶️ You will be able to use an HTML exporter to create static HTML files containing your chats. This feature is still in the works.


ℹ️ GitHub project
ℹ️ Current release
👤 Dev: @fabianonline


#telegram #tools #backup

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

Telegram Backup 💾

HTML exporter to create static HTML files containing your chats.

GitHub: github.com/fabianonline/telegram_backup

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

Telegram Backup 💾

Messages stats

GitHub: github.com/fabianonline/telegram_backup

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

Andrey Yakovenko, official Telegram artist, has released 15 new stickerpacks:

https://telegram.me/geekschannel/473

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

✳️ TELEGRAM | OFFICIAL STICKERS ✳️

Andrey Yakovenko, official Telegram artist and known to many for its excellent set of stickers, has released 15 new stickerpacks, hope you enjoy it!

telegram.me/addstickers/PhilTheOwl
telegram.me/addstickers/KamikazeCat
telegram.me/addstickers/Amanita
telegram.me/addstickers/GreenGo
telegram.me/addstickers/CrazyPony
telegram.me/addstickers/AliceFox
telegram.me/addstickers/KoalaChuck
telegram.me/addstickers/TheBestMovie2
telegram.me/addstickers/MsPaws
telegram.me/addstickers/LazybonesJoe
telegram.me/addstickers/TheHipsterCat
telegram.me/addstickers/ObeyReptilians
telegram.me/addstickers/DearWolf
telegram.me/addstickers/BananaDude
telegram.me/addstickers/Metcast

#telegram #stickers #yakovenko

ℹ️ @geeksChannel

✳️ TELEGRAM | REWARDS ✳️

Telegram has paid $450.000 to more than 50 artists who created sticker packs within half a year.

Telegram has announced first results of sticker pack authors bounty program. From March to August 2016, more than 50 artists received $450k, says creative director of Telegram Andrey Yakovenko on his VK page.

In conversation with vc.ru Yakovenko told that the size of the bounty fund was $80.000. The remaining $370.000 were used to pay for stickers themselves — $80 per sticker. The bounty size of each artist is determined individually: it depends mainly on the popularity of the sticker pack and starts from $700.

Payments for stickers occured each month within the last 6 months. «Each month we collect reports on the work done and transfer payments for the new stickers» — told Telegram representative.

Bounty was paid as a bonus to the montly payment in August. In the future the company wants to continue working using that scheme.

Yakovenko didn’t tell the exact number of artists who received bounty. He explained that the number is constantly changing. «Someone leaves for personal reasons, someone new comes. Some go off to save energy and ideas. We want everyone to draw one set per month» — he explained.

Telegram team selects the works based on the quality of stickers, the author’s ability to create their own characters, skills to depict emotions, and humor. In order to participate in bounty program one should send 3 stickers in color with one character (with the size of no less than 512x512 pixels) and 5 outline sketches with the same character showing different emotions to Yakovenko’s Telegram account (@Yakovenko).

The next bounty payment is planned for the New Year, the size of the bounty will depend on the fullness of the artists.

Yakovenko says that the number of artists is not that big so bounty fund allows to increase the number of authors.

🇷🇺 Source (in russian)

🚀 Telegram official packs: Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3

#telegram #stickers #reward #contest

ℹ️ @geeksChannel