Free Republic

The encrypted messaging app Telegram has raised over $1 billion by selling bonds to foreign investors, its Russia-born founder Pavel Durov said Tuesday. Durov, 36, wrote on his Telegram channel that the bonds were sold to “some of the largest and most knowledgeable investors from all over the world”. He added that this will allow Telegram to grow “while sticking to its values and remaining independent”. Durov said the funds will fuel the app’s monetisation strategy that was outlined in December, according to which the platform will launch paid services this year.

The ongoing analysis of the hard drive of Hunter Biden’s laptop has revealed that there are multiple Department of Defense “encryption keys” on it. These keys allow access to DOD email accounts and databases. The exact number of these keys is still unknown. There may be dozens. The keys are known more formally as “root encryption certificates." Some of them appear to have unusually long expiration dates with many lasting twenty years or more. Such keys should not be present on a personal laptop of any kind, and there is no known reason that Hunter Biden would be in possession...

Beijing has rejected President Obama's criticism of its plan to make tech companies put backdoors in their software and share their encryption keys if they want to operate in China. On Monday, Mr Obama told the Reuters news agency he had "made it very clear" China had to change its policy if it wanted to do business with the US. But Beijing said it needed the powers to combat terrorism and tackle leaks. It also suggested the West was guilty of having double standards.

A top EU official wants internet and telecommunication companies to hand over encryption keys to police and spy agencies as part of a wider crackdown on terrorism. The EU’s counter-terrorism coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, in a document leaked by London-based civil liberties group Statewatch, says the European Commission should come up with rules that require the firms to help national governments snoop on possible suspects. “Since the Snowden revelations, internet and telecommunications companies have started to use often decentralized encryption, which increasingly makes lawful interception by the relevant national authorities technically difficult or even impossible,” notes de Kerchove in the...