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Pavel Durov (lead image) aka Paul du Rove (“vagabond” in French) doesn’t put his money where his mouth is.
This is because more than half the assets and almost half the revenues of Durov’s Telegram group of companies are digital units which Telegram itself programmes, stores, trades, values, and revalues, so the potential for concealment, deception and fraud is unaccountably large. This is the reason Durov has failed to secure the US regulator’s permission to sell shares in his $30 billion valuation of Telegram in a US initial public offering (IPO). In short, the freedom and privacy Durov claims his Telegram social media platform represents is not at all what the financial reports reveal of his money-making.
The first fraud flag was waved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October 2019 after more than a year of Durov’s money-raising through digital tokens he called Grams which he offered to sell for $1.5 billion. At the time, cornerstone investors in Durov included the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and other oligarchs.
Durov — announced the SEC — “seeks to obtain the benefits of a public offering without complying with the long-established disclosure responsibilities designed to protect the investing public… the defendants have failed to provide investors with information regarding Grams and Telegram’s business operations, financial condition, risk factors, and management that the securities laws require.”
In the five years since then, Durov claims to have sold another billion-dollar bond in 2021; $210 million in fresh securities in 2023; and $330 million in paper which Durov floated in March of this year. “The increased demand for our bonds shows that global financial institutions value Telegram’s growth in audience and monetization”, he said (telegrammed) at the time.
These investments weren’t exactly money for value, or vice versa. Durov has admitted he has been buying about a quarter of the debt issues himself. “Valuations are based on market inputs that are not observable,” reported a blockchain industry analyst.
When the investors have turned out to be governments – like Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi emirate wealth fund — the real value Durov promised to exchange is likely to be as much political and military as financial. Similar terms of exchange are likely to have been agreed when, in addition to his Russian passport in the name of Durov, he took passports from the United Arab Emirates (name unknown), France (name Paul du Rove), and St Kitts and Nevis.
Four months ago, Durov signed financial reports for his Telegram group prepared and audited by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC). He thought the details would remain secret. Instead, following his arrest and indictment in France last week, they were leaked to the Financial Times in London. The newspaper claims it “got its hands on the privately held company’s financials” but without explanation it is withholding them from full release. Durov’s signature is dated April 26, 2024.
In public defence of his countryman, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week that Durov had been naïve about the “old system of globalization…P.V. Durov turned out to be too, too free, too slow or did not listen to Western advice about the so-called moderation of his brainchild.”
Naivety is not what Durov signed his name to in Telegram’s financial reports.
They reveal he is running a debt pyramid, replenishing the annual deficit between his expenditures and his income with new borrowings whose cost of servicing amounted in 2023 to 46% of his revenues. The leaked papers also disclose that his losses last year came to $259.3 million, although Durov managed to reduce that to $173.2 million by claiming offsetting digital assets had jumped in value. To support such valuation manipulations and his public claims of Telegram’s $30 billion market value, the small print of the auditor’s notes reveal that Durov uses his own digital money to boost the appearance of rising Telegram subscription numbers and demand for the company’s bonds — 15,000 subs and $64 million in bonds, to be precise.
As for protecting Telegram user privacy, Durov acknowledges that after subtracting $130 million in self-accounting “integrated wallet” value from his bottom-line revenue of $342.5 million, over the past year he sold “collectibles” for $17.8 million – almost 9%. This item is defined in the report as “usernames, virtual phone numbers…The related revenue is recognised at a point in time when the collectible is assigned to the user. The Group also enables the sale of collectibles between users and receives the fee for facilitating the sale.”
According to the public indictment of the French prosecutors, fraud is one of the charges against Durov, along with money laundering, concealment by cryptology, and “refusal to communicate, at the request of the authorized authorities, the information or documents necessary for the realization and exploitation of interceptions authorized by law.”
According to Russian and international sources, the recent history of each one of these charges involves Durov in dealings with the Azerbaijan government, with the Kanak rebellion in the French colony of New Caledonia, and in undertakings he gave to agents of the French foreign intelligence agency, the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), when they visited him recently in Dubai.
For a legal analysis of the Digital Services Act and regulations, the law applying to Telegram and to free speech in the social media in the European Union (EU), read this from Craig Murray. The analysis is made irrelevant by Murray’s acknowledgement that the indictment may be warranted if Durov “refused to remove or act over specific individual content specified by the French authorities, or unless he set up Telegram with the specific intent of facilitating organised crime”.
Specific content was what the DGSE told Durov it wanted him to provide when they last met. That they met has been confirmed by the official leaks in Libération’s report of September 1. The newspaper headline was “The man who was hiding too much”. That Durov reneged on his promise to the DGSE is what the Paris prosecutor’s statement of August 28 indicates.
Source: https://cloud.mail.ru/
Sources in Baku, Azerbaijan, and in Moscow believe the French agents were pressing Durov to reveal identities and a great many other details of the Kanak rebellion in New Caledonia who have been using Telegram, as well as their sources of outside financial and other support. Russian and Azeri sources believe there is a Telegram trail of support between New Caledonia and the Azerbaijan’s war against Armenia and its French government backers.
A Baku source adds that Durov is not as rich as he wants the world to think, and that he has been seeking, and getting, investments from sources close to the ruling Aliyev family in Baku, especially Leyla Aliyeva. When Durov was arrested at Le Bourget airport in Paris, he had just flown from Baku. “I doubt very much,” the source adds, “that Durov was there [Baku] for meeting a member of the family or even Leyla.” Leyla Aliyeva is the senior daughter of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.
A Russian source adds: “We can conclude he was not there to meet Leyla, and thus no person from the Aliyev family, and so no meeting with [President Vladimir] Putin was on the cards.” Putin was in Baku to meet President Ilham Aliyev between August 18 and 20. Durov was in Baku after Putin had left; Durov then flew from Baku to Paris on August 24.
A Russian source believes that the former Russian, now US-based internet entrepreneur, Yuri Milner, (right) who bought Durov and his partners out of VKontakte in 2014 for a total of $2.1 billion, has been hostile towards Durov’s Telegram IPO plans in the US. The source comments speculatively. “The Yuri Milner story is also clouded. Durov’s IPO never happened because Milner would have first-hand knowledge that this guy was toxic.”
In May, Durov invited Tucker Carlson to his living-room in Dubai for an hour-long interview. Russian sources interpret the text in reverse – to Carlson Durov misrepresented his efforts to launch an IPO in the US and his contacts with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Durov also made a telling slip of the tongue, one of the Russians notes. When Durov compared the “efficiency” of his management team at Telegram “like a Navy SEAL team” (Minute 39), he was trying to show how closely he was willing to cooperate with the Americans if they paid his price in share sales. “The naivety on display came from Carlson”, the source added.
“I think it makes sense to stay prudent… not travelling to weird places,” Durov told Carlson. “I travel to places where I have, ah, confidence that, you know, are consistent with what we do and our values. I don’t go to any of the big geopolitical powers, countries like China or Russia or the US…” (Min 45:20-45:53) Not once did Durov say he understands that the world is at war with Russia. The word war was not spoken in the 58 minutes of interview.
That in the propaganda war of the US and NATO allies against Russia, freedom of speech cannot be exercised on either side has been turned by Mikhail Zygar, a Russian oppositionist now in Berlin, into a defence of Durov’s money-making mythology.
According to Zygar, “a few years ago, [Durov] posted semi-nude photos of himself on Instagram, taken in the desert, evoking the unmistakable aesthetic of ‘Prince of Persia.’ Pavel saw himself as a mysterious prince, misunderstood and sought after by everyone. And soon, he said, thanks to his new crypto platform TON, he would become the richest person in the world…Durov always dressed in black: a black T-shirt, black jeans, and black sneakers. Even when he went for a walk, a car would follow him, carrying spare T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers—just in case his clothes got dirty and he needed to change. Over the past ten years, Pavel Durov has become a real idol for countless young Russians. A mystical hero who made himself, amassed a colossal fortune, built several tech businesses from scratch, and never bowed to government pressure—an ideal hero for many young Russians.”
“Durov never criticized Putin, but even the fact that he left Russia was a clear sign that he was against the regime…The arrest of Pavel Durov in France is a major moral blow for his followers. Russian propaganda is trying to turn this to its advantage. As usual, it broadcasts the message that everywhere is the same, and the rules in Europe are no different from those in Russia. There is no freedom of speech or fair trial anywhere—so if there’s no difference, why leave Russia? Here, at least, everything is familiar and our own. Over the past two years, this has become the most effective thesis of Russian propaganda within the country:”
“My number-1 priority in life is my freedom. Once you start buying things, first it will tie you down to a physical location…and the second reason is that I like to stay focused on what we do with Telegram…I’m an optimist… I do believe the world develops in cycles and that if things seem to go in one direction today doesn’t mean that tomorrow they will go in the same direction…things are starting to change, it seems…What X is trying to do, in line with what we are building, is innovation, you know, trying different things, trying to give power to the creators, trying to get the ecosystem economy going, those are all exciting things. And we need more companies like that.” Source: https://tuckercarlson.com
This week, in referring to Durov, Foreign Minister Lavrov repudiated everything Durov told Carlson’s American audience he stands for. “The globalization that the West has been actively promoting for many years has been adopted as a method of doing business between states in the field of economy, technology and finance. This model of globalization is now falling apart. The principles on which it was based, according to the beliefs of our Western colleagues – fair competition, inviolability of property, presumption of innocence, market forces – all this was thrown away by the West at one point in order to punish in this case the Russian Federation.”
THE DUROV GROUP
Left, Father, Professor Valery Durov, Latin and Roman literature academic at the St. Petersburg State University. Right, older brother, Dr Nikolai Durov, mathematics prodigy, currently in St Petersburg — source: https://www.bbc.com/ Listen to Durov lecturing in English on mathematics.
Pavel Durov’s partner, Yulia Vavilova: https://www.instagram.com/
Cribbing from Russian social media and gossip sites, the London tabloid press has been amplifying Vavilova’s photo advertising of herself, and adding unsubstantiated allegations of her involvement with western intelligence agencies, including Israel.
Durov’s arrest, and the interest the French authorities have declared in obtaining the encryption keys to the Telegram operations, have accelerated the debate in Russia over the operational security of the Telegram app when it is used informally by Russian troops, in the reports published by Russian war correspondents in the combat zone and the military bloggers, as well as in more formal, operational uses by military organizations.
“Fierce disputes about the importance of the [Telegram] service for the army in Russia have already been conducted,” reports the oppositionist platform Meduza in Riga, “most recently, in July, when the State Duma passed a law on the appointment of a guardhouse for military personnel using ‘civilian’ gadgets. Then, under the pressure of criticism from ‘military commanders’ and pro-military bloggers — they feared that the ban would deprive the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of high-quality communications — the rule was relaxed…In fact, Telegram is actively used by the military, especially at the tactical level and in the rear. In this capacity, the message platform won a competition from Whatsapp at the beginning of the full-scale war, mainly due to rumours about the lack of security of the latter: the opinion quickly spread at the front that the US intelligence service has access to all chats on the platform owned by American Meta, which in turn shares data with Ukraine.”
Nikolai Kononov, author of a book entitled Код Дурова (Durov’s Code), was asked last week how he explains that Telegram appears to have responded more willingly to Russian government requests than to those of foreign governments. “Because for Pavel Durov,” Kononov replied, “the Russian market is especially important, because the company is from this country of origin. Secondly, because, of course, he is manoeuvering all the time. Pavel Durov constantly plays cat and mouse. One step forward, two back: he does not give out information on such-and-so, but he goes out of his way to block the Navalny group by formal signs. In fact, the same cat-and-mouse games occur with other countries. Maybe there are less of them. We do not know this, because we are focused on the Russian agenda — for us the story with Navalny’s team is loud and clear. And, let’s say, it’s the same story with the blocking of Telegram in Iran because Iran is categorically against Telegram — they even released such a statement. For us, that world is a little different, a quite different reality, so we know less about it.”
Asked about Durov’s last exit from Russia, “I think”, said Kononov (right), “that in the first years after 2014, when he left Russia, he traveled back simply because of family, property, and so on– his connections. Why he traveled [back to Russia] from the moment when the Russian authorities began to make claims against Telegram is a real question. I don’t have an answer to it. It is symptomatic that since the autumn of 2021, Durov has stopped traveling to Russia altogether. In my opinion, this is a sign that either he has super-developed instincts or, more likely, he received a sign from the authorities that a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine would begin, and he decided that he did not want to get himself dirty in this, so he finally broke with Russia.”
Speaking for the Alexei Navalny group in exile abroad, Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s ex-chief of staff, has announced his support for Durov’s brother Nikolai, who is also the target of a French arrest warrant. “Hands off Kolya [Nikolai] Durov, what are you doing at all. He is a genius, a real one, not a criminal”, the BBC Russian service has reported Volkopv as saying.
On his own Telegram outlet, Volkov wrote on August 25: “The history of Telegram is a history of complex compromises and, often, very opaque censorship decisions (the [Navalny] Smart Voting bot sends greetings!), it is ridiculous and incorrect to consider Telegram a ray of freedom and a light of the uncensored Internet; Durov has been engaged in realpolitik for many years with varying success. The censorship requirements of the European countries are complex, not always clear, and many of them can and should be argued with; too often, legislators’ attempts to regulate the Internet lag behind the technological reality and the changing world. At the same time, law enforcement agencies often abuse the opportunities to prosecute those who work in the ‘gray zone’, interpreting the law literally and formalistically.”
“Telegram really has become a platform that is actively used by all kinds of crime, and opaque, weak policies for filtering illegal content have greatly stimulated this. It is completely unclear why the crimes of third parties on the site (financial, communication, whatever) should entail criminal prosecution against the creator of the site; in fact, there are fines, courts, licensing restrictions for this – for example, if a bank’s policies are not strict enough and someone launders money through the bank, then he is fined, then his license is revoked, but the owners are not imprisoned…How I envy (actually not) everyone who knows how to reduce this multidimensional, complex picture to one simple thesis (no matter what!). It seems to me that the detention of Durov by the French authorities is politically and humanly wrong. Durov is not an ‘accomplice’ to crimes committed by Telegram users. He must be released. And I think he will be. I think that the French authorities and the leadership of Telegram will reach (or have already reached) some kind of agreement on changing content-filtering policies, and this is just fine. It’s bad that such cinematic moves like airport detention are used.”
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This is just a killer article. What a take-down.
Durov, just like Maria Butina [3], and many other Russians, has become a victim of his love for and his trust in the West [1].
[1] Pavel Durov’s Naivete Was His Achilles’ Heel by Andrew Korybko | Substack
https://korybko.substack.com/p/pavel-durovs-naivete-was-his-achilles
Excerpt from [1]: Durov’s naivete about the West’s perceived “virtuousness” vis-à-vis Russia directly resulted in his arrest since he’d have never set foot in the EU again had he sobered up from his ideological delusions and realized that he’d become this New Cold War bloc’s enemy due to their lack of control over Telegram.
Excerpt from [1]: Once his platform’s popularity began to explode in the West and turn against its elites’ interests, just like how it initially was used against those non-Western countries’ where it was instrumental in organizing Color Revolutions, he should have known that he’d be targeted with the full weight of the law. Once again, everything comes back to Durov’s naivete and his unrealistic worldview, which was decisively discredited by the West after that that New Cold War bloc just discredited itself as well with his arrest.
[2] Andrew Korybko’s Articles | Substack
https://korybko.substack.com/archive?sort=new
[3] Maria Butina – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina
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Here’s what another observer [4] had to say about all this:
Excerpt from [4]: Also, it occurs to me that the timing of this arrests also coincides neatly with Putin declaring that Telegram would be censored and bloggers forced to get posting licenses from the Kremlin if they had more than 10K subscribers. Could he have called up his once very close friend Macron and asked for a favor?
Excerpt from [4]: Durov, contrary to what ZAnon will tell you, does not have many friends in Russia. He had to flee the country after Igor Setchin and the FSB came after him. Prior to that, he had already had Vkontakte stolen from him by Setchin and his goons. As a result, Durov refused to help the Kremlin investigate the people involved in the protests against the Kremlin. Durov made a post showing Putin the middle finger following the Bolotnaya protests.
Excerpt from [4]: There is a famous photo of Telegram founder Pavel Durov giving Putin his middle finger. In 2011, Durov said that the Russian government had requested him to cancel the accounts of anti-government figures on his social media platform. Durov not only did not follow, but also publicly released this photo of “raising the middle finger to Putin” in the media, which received cheers from the West.
[4] Another Week of Doom and Gloom in the Slavlands | Rurik Skywalker / Rolo Slavskiy Substack | 2024-08
https://slavlandchronicles.substack.com/p/another-week-of-doom-and-gloom-in
[5] Articles Archive | Rurik Skywalker / Rolo Slavskiy Substack
https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/archive?sort=new
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500+ Anon001 comments archive @ The Unz Review | TUR
https://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=anon001
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Thank you John Helmer.
Durov and his ilk seduce so many intelligent people.
His ilk represent the sign of our times perfectly elucidated by Andresj Lobaczewski in his Political Ponerology and explicated in your case study of Confidence Man nonpareil, Pavel Durov.
Durov and his fellow fraudulent financial wizards are the latest iteration in Lobaczewski’s perfectly descriptive term, Spellbinders.
Billionaire status takes the Spellbinder’s seductiveness to an unprecedented level.
From my perspective, physician, father, retired senior Naval officer, the people appear intoxicated, maybe drugged on a large scale because again as you described, Durov is a rather low level, unconvincing psychopath….megalomania being his only remarkable trait
Again, Thank you John Helmer
Video Link
You have to wonder how a Russian guy with basic English can rise to such a status if he is doing ordinary things. Durov – with quad citizen – is praised by the Russian media as a hero who cares about “free speech” and “human rights” – both do not exist in Russia. Durov (like many of his peers) is a tool of the police state. How did he get there?
Thank you, Mister Helmer.
Guess we’re going to see more Ads on Telegram soon…
I’m not on X/TWTR, so I rely a bit on Telegram and Foreign News/Blogs to see what goes on beyond NATO pwn’d Territories…
I don’t mind about seeing a few more ads – since I usually see them at the Bottom of Channel Postings; and I did get exposed to several Channels that reliably provided News+Video Feeds from RUS and AltMedia.
Ron Paul, OANN, NewsMax, Jimmy Dore, Trump Jr – quite a few AltMedia have Channels there.
Surprisingly, the recently Sanctioned RT and Sputnik are Blocked on Telegram in Murica – citing Local Laws. 3rd Parties have attempted workarounds; but they usually get stopped.
Oy vey! Thank Hashem for the SEC and anonymous sources, the guardians of our democracy.
Why is this on TUR front page?
Boy Paul was too busy rowing (in the gym and in bed)…;
So Helmer is a mothpiece of some organization and it is stupid to do business with PWC.
This is good to know.
Thank you for this detailed article, which forces a reality check on the many naive people (especially on this site) who magnify dubious characters and turn them into heroes and role models. The fact that the Western powers, by pure opportunism, are making use of the obvious malfeasance of these crooks (Andrew Tate comes to mind) does not change the facts.
The character’s appearance alone (private jet, fake blond fake boobs prostitute, and his links with Dubai) were also red flags.
There is also this mania of all these wannabe tech moguls to copy the mentally ill Steve Jobs (the black outfits ). What a little prick.
Finally, the phone number traffic.
Of. Course.
That’s why I NEVER wanted this shit. ( And Instagram, FB, Snapchat, all this garbage)
All those Telegram-type apps are honey traps, and so are all social networks. Especially for computer-illiterate people who are incapable of protecting themselves.
Macron miscalculated and is on the exit ramp.
Durov grew up in Italy. I doubt he is naive at all.
Macron however has just undermined an election result he created. He fashioned a coalition to obstruct Le Pen and RN and will not honour the result in Parliament.
Barnier is not even an MP and his party came fourth. Macron faces new elections and France is ungovernable.
Macron needed a distraction and no doubt his ally Thierry Breton who was castigated by EU Commission for his threats to X during a US Election turned to Macron for help. Macron put Breton in place as price for vdL being re-appointed
Durov was a distraction. Keep the children busy while he destabilises France. Macron is importing huge amounts of LNG from Russia and faces disruption in nuclear power stations. Winter will not be kind to France
Perhaps Durov’s steroid use (clearly visible in his many shirtless photos) also influences his mentality. Those chemicals are said to have such effects.
In any case, a very interesting article. Never used Telegram, thinking of it, but IIRC, it requires a working telephone number.
As a member of an ethnicity being exterminated by various “indirect” means under Jewish direction, I would like to understand more about the Armenian situation and connection to this topic. On the surface, it looks like the Jews are helping Moslems commit acts of genocide against Christians who seem to appear more White than their Moslem counterparts. It also seems that UN Globalism is adding a layer of political complexity to this tragedy as desperate Armenians struggle to secure a future existence.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-10-06/israeli-arms-quietly-helped-azerbaijan-retake-nagorno-karabakh-to-dismay-of-armenians
https://apnews.com/article/armenia-icc-russia-3bd422845c2db17bd7636027290cc7ff
https://www.politico.eu/article/armenia-ends-military-alliance-with-russia-pm-nikol-pashinyan-confirms/
“Milner” is a Jewish name, according to some sources. What role does or did the Russian Jewish oligarchy play in the persecution of Armenian Christians in Nagorno-Karabakh?
Did Putin favor Azerbaijan prior to Armenia’s fallout with Russia? Did Putin (declared on TUR by A. Anglin to be “the Hammer of Christ”) champion the Christian Armenians, or not; and if not, why not?
The use of Telegram by the Azeris to help raise the anti-French rebellion in New Caledonia probably explains the rage of the French authorities. The West wants to exclusively use social media to promote colour revolutions against governments they wish to target, and here we have an anti-Western anti-colonialist revolution enabled by Telegram. Not sure how much the rest of this article is believable or relevant as the Western governments want to discredit Durov and Telegram.
None of this would matter if people realized they could like just send tcp packets to each other, like, omg, all this retarded stuff is like saying, “I know your current paper supplier supplies your office with printer paper, but I think you should use us instead because we offer you authentic non-printer-compatible Egyptian papyrus at 500% markup plus 3rd-party non-certificated scribes on retainer, except we also scan and store a copy of your private business communications so that we can sell them to your business rivals who don’t buy papyrus from us.” This is completely retarded and everyone who uses apps should feel bad for being dumb.
How did he? and how did those of Facebook, Twitter, Elon, Shield and the rest.l?
I would push that Professor Andresj Lobaczewski’s work on Ponorology should be required reading for any holder of public office,
After reading your analysis of Durov, I wish to ask you if you met the man and knew him well.
Durov may be a “Spellbinder” in your mind, however, he does provide a service found useful by many. If you understood Ponorology or lived in a society similar to the society which Lobaczewski lived in, you would have realized that evil, as embodied in the oligatchic mafia, is a whirlpool that pulls any who’s instinct is survival.
Ask your self this: if you were forced to chose between taking the gold or receiving the lead, would you refuse the gold, knowing what’s next?
Here is a question for Mr. John Helmer: what did the US Regulators do with Bankman-Fried until the very rich got mad?
Do we live in times where the Muslim boogeyman is not enough, to ease our addiction to projecting our evil on others? Will we need more boogeymen, after Russia, China, NK, Venezuela and Iran? What’s next?, the whole human race?
There is zero right to hate speech
“Pavel saw himself as a mysterious prince, misunderstood and sought after by everyone.”
Ecclesiastes 1:2-8 KJV
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
The Russbots will be triggered!
Don’t be too smug, Helmer. They may well be coming for you next. “Sources” told me so
Bizarre that Tucker never asked Durov how Telegram makes its money. But if Durov personally ever needs to hide behind Telegram’s limited liability corporate status, Tucker drew out a slam-dunk case for piercing the corporate veil: Durov and Telegram are one.
That’s the whole point! It’s the same game. (You forgot Steve Jobs, btw. Order from on high (HQ) forced Xerox-Parc geeks to hand over the tech to Apple. They didn’t want to do it when they first dropped by the lab ..)
–
Simply the fact that he perches in UAE is enough. Honest and moral and ethical individuals would likely not suffer the air in Dubai for more than 1 day. It is the Switzerland of 21st century, and just like Switzerland, it is a “neutral” playground for the lords and masters to ‘do business’ while outside they ‘make war’ (and sadly you and yours get to die)
Push back against the Western Blob of Control and you are bankrupted, imprisoned, indicted or killed.
He is a victim of the Blob, that ever expanding steel spider web of laws, regulations, taxes and fees that has strangled Freedom forever. He showed a real handicap in his understanding of the World now. He believed he was free because he was an International Jet Setter with some cash and otherworldly IT prowess, flexing with Tucker, cultivating a persona of mystery.
The Blob is the greatest threat to humans since the Black Death.
Micro level: Thumb your nose of building codes. You will be bankrupted with fines and prison. Your house will be destroyed.
Macro level: Roam around the world on your private jet, believing you are a global citizen, naively believing that the Blob is not going to extract their pound of flesh.
Once you start dipping your toe in any type of large money schemes, you are signaling your willingness to “play ball”. Jump through all the hoops, pay all the fines, and most importantly- be loyal to the System. Truly, I am not “connected” enough to know what price is expected if you want to joint the private jet class:
Have sex with a child?
Participate in a blood ritual honoring Satan?
Pledge your wealth and soul to exterminating the White race?
Some other wicked machination that would shock our soul?
So I ask you: Do you agree objectively that Durov is highly intelligent? You must. Do you agree he values Freedom, in some sense? You must. He was able to create a product that billions of people use and value. None of us have done that. If they can ruin his life, what chance do we have?
We are all Durov. We are all Assange. We are all Derrick Chauvin. The only hope us peasants have at this point in time is for some country to have pity on us and nuke us back to subsistence farming. Don’t believe me?
Thumb your nose at the Blob. It will grind you to dust.
LOL
It’s called “Idiocracy”, and apparently it’s all the rage !
Excellent article.
That said, this shit is way, way above my pay grade and intellectual ability to understand all of the variables. I am, as one commenter mentioned, “computer illiterate”.
I love this website though.
Even though I feel like an idiot when I read some of the offerings and many of the comments from folks who are obviously very smart, I trust that Mr. Unz will always put it all out there for everyone to make their own decisions.
On topics like this, old geezers like me, wait for consensus from our betters here at Unz.com
Your seven words have lowered the IQ of this forum. If that’s the best you can do, it’s not enough. Please leave.
A completely word-perfect and hugely-important comment. Thank you for being highly-intelligent, and highly-perceptive, when so much of the world is heading in the opposite direction.
But I also now believe absolutely in armed resistance, which at some point will become open and unavoidable. We are – also – all Palestinians now.
We need more articles like this. Bravo!
‘There is zero right to hate speech’ — JewishNumberOne
‘Hate speech’ is a Jew-invented canard which got incorporated into various criminal codes, in order to oppress so-called antisemites (another absurd canard).
Free speech includes statements which Jews falsely, self-servingly label as hate speech.
Armenia turned its back on Putin and Russia, wrongly accusing them for the loss of Nagoro Karabah even though the Armenian government eventually recognised Azerbaijan’s claim. Then Armenia decided to leave CSTO and started cooperating with the French military and closing deals to import French weapons, and probably plans to join NATO at some point. This made Azerbaijan angry, as there are still unsettled questions of territory, and so they raised the indigenous people of New Caledonia against France, which is now arming their enemy, Armenia. Russia tried to be neutral in this dispute and ensure peace but now that Armenia has turned to the West, which is at war with Russia, Russia is getting closer to Azerbaijan. I was curious why the New Caledonian rebels were waving Azerbaijan’s flag but it seems now obvious that Azerbaijan gave them their support through Telegram, angering the French.
Identity services are a key piece of infrastructure that has been subsumed (by design imo) into higher services that require it. I remember when ICQ first came out and it quite bugged me that beyond the initial handshake with central service to establish connection, they (Israeli company of course) required all further packets to be mediated by the central server.
P2P and Zero Knowledge are key to the communication systems a free Humanity requires. Issues remain regarding ISPs (which historically going back to the telephone network have been partners with national level spooks world over) and their integrity. So DDoS of specific protocols, ports, deep packet sniffing, all that remain obstacles to free speech networks. To go around that — the use of the ‘protocol’ must be opaque or it can be trivially blocked — requires a degree of sophistication that is at least an order of magnitude more involved.
‘Interestingly enough’, VCs of SV never ever supported ZK or true P2P companies. There is, as a matter of practical fact, an ‘industrial policy directorate’ in the West that determines who and what gets funded and promoted (cue bare chested titans of tech) and starting in late 90s all approaches that would create the ‘utopia’ that the same SV crowd promoted in 80s and 90s was snuffed in the cradle.
Basically, until and unless there is network infrastructure that is free — you know, satellites and earth-bound transceivers — and unless your hardware stack is malware/backdoor free — you know, build your own boxes from literally ground up — there is really *no general public solution* to counter state or commercial interference, tracking, spying, or denying of network communications.
MESSAGE
In name of all the Jew commentators on this site:
(They contacted me via mail)
Please do not make jokes about GAY sex or sodomy.
This threat has been registered as a GAY tolerant threat.
No jokes or comments yet have been made about GAYS, vaseline or ass fucking. This is very exceptional on UNZ.COM and the Jews on this forum would really appreciate if we can keep it that way.
Please do not hurt their feelings.
So only positive speech and thumbs up please at least when the subject is but-fucking , vaseline and other seriously GAY stuff.
A BIG THANKS FROM THE JEWS ON THIS FORUM
Meamjojo, Jameson, Charles Martel, Jewish Number One, Aleatorius and others.
I use WeChat, but not for monetary transactions and because I have a few Chinese friends.
Interestingly, a disembodied Asian entity recently tried to seduce me into using Telegram or WhatsApp to communicate with her. So, after a few more ordinary texts and no movement of me to either other platform, Asian entity lost interest in me.
You said ‘telephone number’….
….and I say, “Bingo!”.
I tried to find dope on Yulia Vavilova and the top search results are Mossad. We need to get moose and squirrel on this one.
SBF is the interesting case study not because Sam is, was, and ever shall be a rather unattractive, yet briefly successful con-artist. I don’t know SBF either. Lobaczewski knew very few of his subjects. Physicians are privileged by law to intimate views of patients. Nevertheless those views represent a rather impoverished understanding of the same individual compared to their intimate partner.
And so on.
Both guys, SBF and Pavel Durov, are “of a type” and acquisitive as hell.
Acquisitive projective identification is their calling card, sine qua non, pathognomic for their condition and, of course, as you point out, what they allow us to see.
The people are in an enamored state and primed for the seduction almost constantly.
Just what, One Nobody, can do that and why can so very few resist?
The Gift of Discernment.
You see it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov#Early_life_and_education:~:text=Durov%27s%20father%20Valery%20Semenovich%20Durov%20is%20a%20Doctor%20of%20Philological%20Sciences%20and%20the%20author%20of%20academic%20papers.%20Since%201992%20he%20has%20been%20head%20of%20the%20Department%20of%20classical%20philology%20of%20the%20philological%20faculty%20of%20Saint%20Petersburg%20State%20University
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov#Early_life_and_education:~:text=During%20his%20university,develop%20the%20site
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov#Early_life_and_education:~:text=He%20is%20the%20younger%20brother%20of%20Nikolai%20Durov%2C%20who%20joined%20him%20in%20founding%20Telegram%20and%20served%20as%20lead%20developer%2C%20programmer%2C%20and%20architect%20of%20the%20project
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Durov#:~:text=Competing%20as%20%22Nikolai,Olympiad%20in%20Informatics
Yes. Pretty bizarre article on unz that defends the globohomo’s right to take one’s freedom or money whenever it wants.
Pricewaterhouse Coopers this! FTC that!
It totally is the case that Durov isn’t perfect, but he puts work and makes services that people can use for free. What globohomo does? Yeah.
Happy to see you used it, Ron.
Rather informative. Your inclusion of Rolo Slavsky, an apparent Mossad agent, diminishes your overall credibility. Your profile of Durov is probably correct. His “girlfriend” appears to be tasty bimbo of the “just another pretty face” sub-species. The very rich, who are usually very intelligent, very frequently choose to fertilize women similar to a model/cover girl appearance; one that quickly fades. I’ve found such women to be a bright flame that burns out quickly. There isn’t much to talk about (embarrassingly) after making ham sandwiches – with a pickle.
Very high intelligence is positively – greater than the general population ( ≤ 1 standard deviation- is correlated with neurotic and psychopathy higher than normal. These include narcissism, psychopathic and sociopathic traits, affective disorder, and the ability to sustain self-delusion at a higher rate and extreme). Anecdotally, a quick look at the founders and CEOs of the largest companies in America reveals a cohort of criminal psychopathy, extreme narcissism, and a constellation of mental disorders. Lacking empathy is an understatement.
https://www.quora.com/What-mental-disorders-correlate-with-high-intelligence
https://www(dot)reddit(dot)com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/47bxic/eli5_why_is_there_such_a_strong_correlation/
I think all those “tech billionaires” are just fronts for spook agencies, basically actors.
Zuck, Musk, Bezos, etc. Durov probably the same, just for different agencies.
trying to get the ecosystem economy going, those are all exciting things.
Such utter gaslighting bullshit! The only ecosystem that can occur is an ecosystem that includes Ecology.
Durov claims that an ecosystem can be created from Mammon!
This is identical to the other misappropriation of established definitions by the Red Sea Pedestrians such as Holocaust, Semite and Genocide.
I had similar questions. Doesn’t Helmer’s essay add trivia that muddies the waters on what is clearly major story pointing us at very crucial issues about the Internet… issues that are rarely addressed forthrightly in public discourse. Would Durov have been more worthy if he had been in a position to simply phone up daddy for a few more billions from time to time to get his Internet platform up and running?
It seems he has had to struggle and innovate on the financial front in order to develop an Internet resource that affords privacy to the messaging of all sides in important conflicts and that doesn’t go along with censorship to protect floozy propositions like…. Israel has a right to defend itself or that Anti-Zionism amounts to antisemitism.
In conducting research I was amazed to discover how important Telegram had been in providing the vehicle for Hamas to tell its side of the story to a global audience on October 7. Moreover Telegram has played a crucial role in the global dissemination of copious hacked Israeli files. The hacking, encrypted protection and downloading of these Israeli files, including from Israeli military contractors, hospitals, universities and more, has been underway at unprecedented levels since the US-Israeli genocide got in gear.
Usually this kind of news would be highlighted on Unz, not pushed to the side as it is in Helmers actuarial commentary.
Please see my new essay
https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/durov-is-an-internet-freedom-fighter
Durov is apparently facing some financial hardships and menacing legal harassment for not playing along with the intelligence establishment. Telegram faces extra challenges because it wasn’t initiated as CIA or US Armed Forces spyware. Those looking into the effort to criminalize Durov and Telegram will want to play close attention to the role of the Zionist heavy hitters in the unfolding spectacle.
I had similar questions. Doesn’t Helmer’s essay add trivia that muddies the waters on what is clearly major story pointing us at very crucial issues about the Internet… issues that are rarely addressed forthrightly in public discourse. Would Durov have been more worthy if he had been in a position to simply phone up daddy for a few more billions from time to time to get his Internet platform up and running?
It seems he has had to struggle and innovate on the financial front in order to develop an Internet resource that affords privacy to the messaging of all sides in important conflicts and that doesn’t go along with censorship to protect floozy propositions like…. Israel has a right to defend itself or that Anti-Zionism amounts to antisemitism.
In conducting research I was amazed to discover how important Telegram had been in providing the vehicle for Hamas to tell its side of the story to a global audience on October 7. Moreover Telegram has played a crucial role in the global dissemination of copious hacked Israeli files. The hacking, encrypted protection and downloading of this Israeli files including from Israeli military contractors, hospitals, universities and more has been underway at unprecedented levels since the US-Israeli genocide got in gear.
Usually this kind of news would be highlighted on Unz, not pushed to the side it is in Helmers actuarial commentary.
Please see my new essay
https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/durov-is-an-internet-freedom-fighter
Durov is apparently facing some financial hardships and menacing legal harassment for not playing along with the intelligence establishment. Telegram faces extra challenges because it wasn’t initiated as CIA or US Armed Forces spyware. Those looking into the effort to criminalize Durov and Telegram will want to play close attention to the role of the Zionist heavy hitters in the unfolding spectacle.
In case John Helmer’s blog link [1] is not included in author’s bio here at TUR.
[1] John Helmer Blog | Dances With Bears
https://johnhelmer.net
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600+ Anon001 comments archive @ The Unz Review | TUR
https://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=anon001
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Proof?
It does not seem so [1].
P.S. I do know that you are just trashing him, as you are Putin’s QAnon – similar to Martyanov, Saker, Simplicius, Duran (Cristoforou, Mercouris), Ritter, Escobar, et.al.
[1] Rurik Skywalker / Rolo Slavskiy | Articles Archive Substack
https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/archive?sort=new
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600+ Anon001 comments archive @ The Unz Review | TUR
https://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=anon001
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White Americanism = Cucking to Jews = American Christianity = HBD = Jewish Supremacism.
JewishNumberOne,
As a sovereign human being you are not only allowed to “hate” who ever you choose and at least currently in the USA you can say it loud to whoever you choose. Another persons “hurt feelings” are of no concern to the “hate speech” of someone else.
Just because you might not want to hear it, you have no right to interfere with my thoughts, ideas and the speech I choose.
But you are free to plug your ears and walk away.
Or if you have the ability to have a rational debate on why you don’t like/agree with my speech maybe I will choose to have that conversation.
We are both free to speak our minds.
Cheers
Yep.
You are probably aware of the topic:
https://msofka.github.io/projects/malware/#:~:text=One%20way%20to%20identify%20malware,utilized%20to%20identify%20malicious%20software.
Would you have some idea(s) as to how an individual, even a small group of average individuals, could set something like that? Detect that traffic leaving their little LAN through the ISP router? Hardware/software stack and procedure(s)?
Not a chat for this online pub, of course. A link or two would be much appreciated.
Slavski – an obvious pseudonym – is an individual or collective effort that is the vehicle for factions in Russian political that are against Putin’s political side, which is 87% of the population. Most of these are losers, inadequate men who lack the intellect and capability to be more than back benchers in life and politics. People like CIA operative Navalny, worthless and empthy rhetoric generators.
They remind me of the anti-Central Bandk Governeor opponents and ideologues who have constantly advocated antiquated Keynesian policies for Russia over the last 24 some odd years. Before Elvira Nabiullina, the finances of Russia were like flubber, with no coherency and driven by academic theory and silly people with acronyms after their names.
An anthology of articles by this slobsky are found on Unz: https://www.unz.com/author/rolo-slavski/
I am a very fast reader, and speeding through several articles leaves me with the strong foundation that this is a poseur without sources, concrete real time data, or practicality. He confines himself to rapid fire varying opinions with no support or reference. The entire Kamala like blender word salad and puree is just plain stupid, not informative, and just enough condescension to tickle the young and weak minded. In short, people like you. A third hand sourcer and relying on the second hand reports of people you don’t know and have little familiarity.
In a prosaic and rhetorical world, phonies like you are harder to spot than those dopes in the engineering world. My job consisted of getting rid of people like you, by developing the tools and perceptions to see through your shallow and generalized puffery. You are mediocre and hum drum, thin soup, and expired leftovers.
Don’t take my dismissal of you personally. You might be a perfectly nice little nabob. But you are nothing more than a transvestite librarian who generates many words, but says almost nothing.
Thank you for your reply. All of this is unsettling because it leads us closer to WW3.
“”It’s clear to us that Israel has an interest in keeping a military presence in Azerbaijan, using its territory to observe Iran,” Armenian diplomat Tigran Balayan said.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-weapons-quietly-helped-azerbaijan-retake-nagorno-karabakh-sources-data/
https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-russia-giving-ukraine-early-warning-systems-2024-3?op=1
So, Russia is getting closer to Azerbaijan, which appears to be partnered with Israel, because Azerbaijan considers Iran its main threat. Israel is arming Ukraine with high tech defense weapons, whose government is now Jewish and whose leader announced that Ukraine is part of “Greater Israel” and whose parents are living a secure life of luxury in Israel. Putin says that NATO and “the Saxons” are fighting a proxy war with Russia in the Ukraine.
Yet, the entire Ukraine situation seems to be the work of Deep State Jewish “Neocons,” who are the controllers of the Biden puppet regime (essentially admitted to by Putin in the Carlson interview) many of who have Ukrainian Jewish heritage (long standing Jewish grudges) and none of which appear to be Protestant or Heritage Americans.
This causes me to wonder or speculate about a couple of things:
1) Did Jewish “Neocons” (agents of Israel positioned in high Western positions) corrupt the Armenian government to turn to the Globalist powers they control, with the hidden agenda of setting another fuse in place to assure WW3? (They seem to want WW3 pretty badly. They insanely believe it will fulfill their grand genocidal prophecy. Playing both sides of every coin is one of their primary characteristics.)
2) It appears impossible for Putin to call out Russia’s true enemy. How or why is this?
Anyone who’s taking “selfies” on a phone, where it’s clearly obvious, and posting them for the world to see is to be avoided. That’s the kind of narcissism that’ll bite you on the ass.
When one competes with The Blob one may either capitulate and be “absorbed” by it or fight tooth and nail to destroy it. There’s no “living with” The Blob.
Is mental illness more common in the creative class?
Both terms rest on definitions.
Are psychopathy and narcissistic personality disorder associated with a higher degree of creativity than major depression, schizophrenia or anxiety disorders?
Yes! Just ask the psychopath or the narc and they’ll never blink.
Most defenders of Pavel in turn and unaware project their good traits into an unworthy, empty vessel named Durov.
Yes it works both ways and almost always to the psychopath’s or narc’s advantage.
After all, they are winners. Just ask them.
Isn’t 99th percentile or greater ‘acquisitive projective identification’ (defense mechanism against an uncomfortable thought) the perfect prescription for the title Chief Executive Officer, CEO, taking the lion’s share of credit for the company’s performance?
Pavel engages this defense mechanism in his routinized megalomania manifested as a confidence game.
Durov “lost” his boundaries. What could be a better example than this self-described Man of the World?
Resistance is futile: you WILL be absorbed.
Video Link
I hate people who mutilate and suck bloody baby dicks. Is that illegal now?
Rejoice!
Israel ill consider imposing a death sentence on some “hate speech” for B’Tselem activists who publicize Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank.
I am in fact surprised that B’tselem has survived this long in that hellhole of collective sociopathy.
2) It looks like that. Lots of speculations as to why…
Discredit Durov and Telegram for helping an anti-colonial liberation struggle…. on Unz! Say it isn’t so!
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/assistance-to-enemy-in-war-israeli-mk-requests-death-penalty-for-btselems-director/
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/assistance-to-enemy-in-war-israeli-mk-requests-death-penalty-for-btselems-director/
Thanks so much, Brother.
It means a lot.
The alliances in this coming WWIII are interlinked in complicated ways. In this WWIII allies in one theatre may become foes in another. For example, Iran is supplying weapons to Russia for the SMO in the Ukraine and is its ally against ISIS in Syria but if there is a big war between Azerbaijan (with Turkey) and Armenia, Iran could well back the Armenians, while the Russians would probably stay neutral. Muslims tend to be united against Israel, although few are actively fighting against it, yet they have rivalries among each other with potential war breweeng between Algeria and Morocco. In Libya, Turkey and Russia seem to be backing opposite sides. And who knows what is going on in the war in Sudan and who is backing whom there or why?
In reply to your questions.
(1) Yes.
(2) Russia (and China) will go against Israel only up to a point. Jews are probably quite dominant in Russia (most oligarchs seem to be Jews) so Putin doesn’t want to anger them or lose their backing. There are also many Russians in Israel, and perhaps Russians see Israel as an American outpost in the Middle East rather than being the controller of the US. So Putin is trying to hold back Iran from seeking revenge for Israeli attacks on It. I think Russians and Chinese still hope for some two state diplomatic solutions.
I have an older friend, neither speaks nor writes English, lately he’s been adventuring in Facebook with the use of automated translation. A former taxi driver, he stopped that because of too few fares under coronomania.
Also a self-trained artist, I wrote several letters to several very rich people for him to try to sell his good-at-times art.
None passed the office staff.
So, on Facebook, he found an account under the name Elon Musk Tesla 1, I don’t know what happened later, but he challenged Elon Musk Tesla 1 to prove that he is a real person, and two videos appeared. Except for fingers under the chin, and (as I see in retrospect, that may have been not natural motion), also the voice had digital distortion.
Haven’t seen my friend for a couple of weeks, but he says the reply from Elon Musk Tesla 1 was a request for cash. Do want to see the exchange.
Perhaps they have perfected the A.I. models, after all, Musk’s fortunes are largely built on government handouts, so an A.I. Musk model would naturally ask for money.
I never understood the appeal of Facebook, MySpace before it, or Twitter and probably never will. Does that statement sound like a schizoid position?
I use WeChat for the easy translation function essential to maintaining dialogue with my Chinese immigrant friends. Plus their video section is entertaining.
My Chinese friends are certain WeChat is the surveillance function of Xi’s government. I won’t argue their assertion.
I bet I could look like a billionaire with a few hero-worshipping fans if .Gov fronted me and forgave a few billion dollar loans, too.
I never developed the necessary skill to ask for things. Thus, the shakedown skills of ConMen like Musk never cease to amaze me in not a good way
Closings Telegram would be bingo for Russia.
Not bizarre if you consider writer is close to Kremlin and Russian state is not happy with Telegram.
It sounds to me like the SEC Jews are mad because Durov hasn’t given the Wall Street Jews a cut.
Every SEC Jew was, will be, or hopes to be a Wall Street Jew.
Keep drinking that coolaid.
This is not true. Jigs, fatties, queers, the ugly, and the dim are too sensitive to hear any discouraging words. Free speech is a luxury of the genetically lucky and cannot be allowed n any society that aspires to equality. Your position can be likened to allowing pitchers to hit in baseball. Archaic.
Not really being a baseball fan, but to me I really don’t understand why pitchers can’t take a crack at batting. But I’ll admit I could care less.
If you wouldn’t mind, define your terms. What do you mean by “equality”? If your talking about the concept of “equal outcomes” ie regression to the lowest common denominator, then yes I can agree with your point
But since I didn’t define or mean to imply equality in that way I still stand by my position.
I have no desire to be drug down to “their level”. Equality of outcomes is antithetical to the founding vision of America.
I look forward to your reply and definitely respect your opinions.
Cheers