Free Republic

In response to Anonymous’ recent hacking threats, the extremist militant group ISIS is encouraging its followers to start using a popular messaging app, where it’s providing “instructions” on how to avoid being hacked. An ISIS-affiliated account on the popular messaging app Telegram — which has more than 50 million users sending 1 billion messages a day, according to The Daily Beast — provided instructions to followers in both Arabic and English, which was then forwarded to other ISIS-affiliated channels on Telegram. The instructions told followers to not open any links unless they were sure of the source, and change IP...

Telegram Messenger has has shut down 78 ISIS-linked channels that the terror group was using to spread its propaganda message across the Internet. Using a recently-launched “Channels” feature that allows messages to be sent to unlimited users and followers, the Islamic State has used the platform to create the “Nashir” channel, meaning ‘purveyor’ in Arabic. ISIS has expanded its selection of channels, sharing their message in 12 languages.

For 163 years, lives across the vast Indian nation have been upended by the knock of the khaki-clad postal worker armed with a telegram. Families used them to announce births and deaths; the government used them to post job openings; young lovers sent them to tell their folks that they had eloped. No longer. On Monday, the state-run telecommunications company will send its final telegram, closing down a service that fast became a relic in an age of email, reliable landlines and ubiquitous cellphones. The fact that the telegram survived this long is a testament to how deeply woven it...

Once a staple of American communications, the telegram died quietly last week. After more than 155 years during which it delivered millions of telegrams around the world, bringing news of births, deaths, weddings, wars and more, Western Union delivered its last telegram messages last Friday, ending a means of communication that began before the U.S. Civil War. Colin Wheeler, a spokesman for Denver-based First Data Corp., which owns Western Union Financial Services Inc., confirmed yesterday that the company ended its telegram services quietly on Jan. 27 by laying off 30 workers who still operated the telegram business. From a peak...