FOGINT: What Do the Most Recent Telegram Function Enhancements Portend for 2025?
January 2, 2025
This is a report from the FOGINT research team.
For a company without a permanent office with staff who show up everyday, Telegram has been busy in December 2024. One good example is Telegram’s chopping up the video stream from its Gateway Conference held in early November 2024. The individual talks with their unique Telegram / TON Foundation quirkiness are available on YouTube at this link. One can mostly parse some speakers’ content using the Google caption function.
Also, a “real” news service has collected several other Telegram and its ecosystem announcement in “Telegram Rolls Out Third-Party Account Verification, Filters.” For those unfamiliar with Telegram, the service offered a verification process. That service remains, and “has now launched a new project to let already-verified third-party authorities, such as food quality regulators or educational consortiums, verify an account.” The article also points out that Telegram has added “filters” to the baked in search and retrieval service. FOGINT wants to point out that the search service is not very good. Retrieval remains spotty. The only way to find certain content is to monitor specific public and private groups. The content from these groups can then be downloaded or sucked from the service with a well-crafted script tuned to observe Telegram’s quite specific blocks on bulk downloading. According to the cited article, Telegram has added:
- Emoji reactions
- Sending gifts (this is a money generating angle)
- Search filters for private chats, group chats, and channels.
The write up does not ask the question, “What is the direction these features suggest Telegram and its associated entities are heading in 2025?”
Here’s FOGINT’s take on the path Telegram is likely to follow:
- Freeing Pavel will be a top priority
- Amping up Telegram and the TON Foundation’s crypto activities. (Telegram is the platform for TON Foundation; the Foundation is the marketing and developer magnet for the TONcoin.)
- Provide functions and services like third party verification to show the French judiciary and others that Telegram does have “real” users and can provide investigators with some useful information maybe.
But the big priority after the “Free Pavel” action is crypto; specifically, making the Telegram platform the hub for crypto gaming and possibly some allied services like automating the movement of crypto from one coin and wallet to other wallets and coins. Tie ups with the Ku Group and other organizations providing crypto alternatives to traditional and regulated financial systems are on board and rolling out integrated services at this time.
Stephen E Arnold, January 2, 2025
Google, the Modern Samurai, Becomes a Ronin. Banzai!
January 2, 2025
Written by a dinobaby, not an over-achieving, unexplainable AI system.
I read “Google to Fight Japan’s Claims That It Harms Rivals in Search.” This paywalled Bloomberg story explains that Google is going to fight Japan’s allegations about hampering its competitors. Would Google do that?
A brave online advertising samurai reduces arguments to tiny flakes of paper. Arguments don’t stand a chance when a modern samurai fights injustice. Thanks, ChatGPT. Good enough.
The write up reports:
Alphabet Inc. is preparing to counter Japanese government allegations that it engages in anticompetitive practices such as forcing smartphone makers to give priority to Google Search in default screen placement.
Google’s position is a blend of smarm and lawyer lingo. As reported by Bloomberg:
“We have continued to work closely with the Japanese government to demonstrate how we are supporting the Android ecosystem and expanding user choice in Japan,” Google said in a statement without providing details of the allegations. “We will present our arguments in the hearing process,” it said, adding it was “disappointed” and the FTC didn’t give enough consideration of the company’s proposed solution. The company didn’t elaborate.
With Google explaining how the US government should respond to the shocking decision that Google was a monopoly, the company seems to bounce from one legal matter to the next.
What’s interesting is that Bloomberg characterized Google’s approach as a “fight.” I don’t know too much about Japanese culture. I have watched a Akira Kurosawa film and I recall John Belushi’s interpretation of a modern samurai warrior. Google definitely can send throngs of legal warriors into court. For PR purposes, I think adopting Mr. Kurosawa’s use of color for different groups of brave fighters would contribute some high impact imagery to YouTube videos.
However, with some EU losses and the twist of Googzilla’s tail by the US legal system, the innocent-until-proven-guilty company is likely to become a Saturday Night Live skit. Maybe Joe Koy will slip the Belushi-type of samurai into a set about how Google helps everyone, 24×7, and embodies the quaint motto “Do no evil.”
Stephen E Arnold, January 2, 2024
Paywalls: New Angles for Bad Actors
January 2, 2025
Information literacy is more important now than ever, especially as people become more polarized in their views. This is due to multiple factors such as the news media chasing profits, bad actors purposefully spreading ignorance, and algorithms that feed people confirmation biased information. Thankfully there are people like Isabella Bruno, who leads the Smithsonian’s Learning and Community department, part of the Office of Digital Transformation. She’s dedicated to learning and on her Notion she brags…er…shares that she has access to journals and resources that are otherwise locked behind paywalls.
For her job, Bruno uses a lot of academic resources, but she knows that everyone doesn’t have the same access as her. She wrote the following resource to help her fellow learning enthusiasts and researchers: How Can I Access Research Resources When Not Attached To An Academic Institution?
Bruno shares a flow chart that explains how to locate resources. If the item is a book, she recommends using LibGen, Z-Library, and BookSC. She forgets to try the Internet Archive and inter-library loans. If the source is a book, she points towards OA.mg and trying PaperPanda. It is a Chrome extension that accesses papers. She also suggests Unpaywall, another Chrome extension, that searches for the desired paper.
When in further doubt, Bruno recommends Sci-Hub or the subreddit /r/Scholar, where users exchange papers. Her best advice is directly emailing the author, but
“Sometimes you might not get a response. This is because early-career researchers (who do most of the hard work) are the most likely to reply, but the corresponding author (i.e. the author with the email address on the paper) is most likely faculty and their inboxes will often be far too full to respond to these requests. The sad reality is that you’re probably not going to get a response if you’re emailing a senior academic. 100% agree. Also, unless the paper just dropped, there’s no guarantee that any of the authors are still at that institution. Academic job security is a fantasy and researchers change institutions often, so a lot of those emails are going off into the aether.”
Bruno needs to tell people to go to their local university or visit a public library! They know how to legally get around copyright.
Whitney Grace, January 2, 2025
A Better Database of SEC Filings?
January 2, 2025
DocDelta is a new database that says it is, “revolutionizing investment research by harnessing the power of AI to decode complex financial documents at scale.” In plain speak that means it’s an AI-powered platform that analyzes financial documents. The AI studies terabytes of SEC filings, earning calls, and market data to reveal insights.
DocDelta wants its users to have an edge that other investors are missing. The DocDelta team explain the advanced language combined with financial expertise tracks subtle changes and locates patterns. The platform includes 10-K & 10-Q analysis, real time alerts, and insider trading tracker. As part of its smart monitoring, automated tools, DocDelta has risk assessments, financial metrics, and language analysis.
This platform was designed specifically for investment professionals. It notifies investors when companies update their risk factors and disclose materials through *-K filings. It also analyzes annual and quarterly earnings and compares them against past quarters, identifies material changes in risk factors, financial metrics, and management discussions. There’s also a portfolio management tool and a research feature.
DocDelta sums itself up like this:
“Detect critical changes in SEC filings before the market reacts. Get instant alerts and AI-powered analysis of risk factors, management discussion, and financial metrics.”
This could be a new tool to help the SEC track bad actors and keep the stock market clean. Is that oxymoronic?
Whitney Grace, January 2, 2024
A New Year Alert: Americans Cannot Read
January 1, 2025
The United States is a large country with a self-contained nature. Because of its monolith status, the United States is very isolated. The rest of the world views the US as a stupid country and NBC News shares evidence to that statement: “Survey: Growing Number Of U.S. Adults Lack Literacy Skills.” The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported that the gap between high-skilled readers and kid-skilled immensely increased from 19% in 2017 to 28% in 2023.
The substantial difference doesn’t bode well for the US, but when it is compared to the countries the US faired well. The US’s scores stayed even according to the Survey of Adult Skills. This test surveyed over two dozen countries and many of them are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The survey measures the working-age population’s literacy, number, and problem-solving skills. Most of the countries, including European and Asian countries, had comparable results to the US.
The greatest surprises were that Japan saw a 4% increase from 5% to 9%, England remained the same at 17%, Singapore jumped from 26% to 30%, Germany saw a spike from 18% to 20%. The biggest changes were in South Korea and Lithuania. Both countries went from the teens to thirty percent or higher.
This doesn’t mean the US and other nations are idiots (arguably):
“Low scores don’t equal illiteracy, [NCES Commissioner Peggy Carr] said — the closest the survey comes to that is measuring those who could be called functionally illiterate, which is the inability to read or write at a level at which you’re able to handle basic living and workplace tasks.
Asked what could be causing the adult literacy decline in the U.S., Carr said, ’It is difficult to say.’”
The Internet and lack of reading is the cause, dingbat!
Whitney Grace, January 1, 2025
WhatsApp: Chasing More Money
January 1, 2025
Meta aims to make WhatsApp indispensable to businesses around the world. The app is currently responsible for just a fraction of the company’s revenue, but Zuckerberg seems to have high hopes for the messaging platform. Rest of World‘s thorough piece, “How WhatsApp Ate the World,” describes the plan. Writer Issie Lapowsky details the app’s evolution since Facebook (now Meta) bought it and examines where the company plans to take it from here. We learn:
“WhatsApp initially achieved that global dominance in large part by doing just one thing very well: enabling cheap, private, and reliable messaging on almost any phone, almost anywhere in the world. But in the decade since Meta acquired WhatsApp for an eye-watering $22 billion in 2014, the app has been transformed from a narrowly focused utilitarian tool into a sort of ‘everything app.’ In countries like India, Brazil, Mexico, and Indonesia, WhatsApp is now also a place for scheduling doctor’s appointments and conducting real estate deals — and buying Sabharwal’s ceramic ducks. In Brazil, the beauty juggernaut L’Oréal now makes an average of 25% of its online direct-to-consumer sales on WhatsApp. The shift has been driven, of course, by money. WhatsApp has never been much of a moneymaker. While Meta makes billions off mining people’s personal data to sell more ads, WhatsApp is an encrypted app, whose founders once very publicly swore off advertising altogether. Lately, however, WhatsApp has been aggressively luring big businesses to its suite of paid messaging products for businesses, and openly flirting with the possibility of introducing ads in the not-too-distant future.”
Because of course it is. Meta insists it respects WhatsApp’s original mission of privacy, pledging to keep its end-to-end encryption intact. The company has even added privacy tools that remind us of the old Telegram: disappearing messages, encrypting backups, and shielding IP addresses in calls. Is Meta attempting to move forward by stepping into the past? Even with these privacy promises, Lapowsky notes:
“And yet, with each new revenue-boosting feature, WhatsApp has added a little asterisk to its core privacy promises, according to Nathalie Maréchal, co-director of the privacy and data program at the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C. ‘It’s not necessarily that those asterisks are illegitimate. It’s that they’re complicated,’ she told Rest of World, ‘and many users are either not going to take the time, or aren’t going to prioritize, fully understanding it.'”
Ah, details. Another key part of Zuck’s vision is no surprise—generative AI. Meta’s chatbot is now a standard part of the app’s search bar, while a customer-service version and AI marketing tools are now available to businesses. Will all these changes turn WhatsApp into the moneymaker the tech mogul envisions?
Cynthia Murrell, January 1, 2025
The US and Math: Not So Hot
January 1, 2025
In recent decades, the US educational system has increasingly emphasized teaching to the test over niceties like critical thinking and deep understanding. How is that working out for us? Not well. Education news site Chalkbeat reports, "U.S. Math Scores Drop on Major International Test."
Last year, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study assessed over 650,000 fourth and eighth graders in 64 countries. The test is performed every four years, and its emphasis is on foundational skills in those subjects. Crucial knowledge for our young people to have, not just for themselves but for the future of the country. That future is not looking so good. The write-up includes a chart of the rankings, with the U.S. now squarely in the middle. We learn:
"U.S. fourth graders saw their math scores drop steeply between 2019 and 2023 on a key international test even as more than a dozen other countries saw their scores improve. Scores dropped even more steeply for American eighth graders, a grade where only three countries saw increases. The declines in fourth grade mathematics in the U.S. were among the largest in the participating countries, though American students are still in the middle of the pack internationally. The extent of the decline seems to be driven by the lowest performing students losing more ground, a worrying trend that predates the pandemic."
So we can’t just blame this on the pandemic, when schools were shuttered and students "attended" classes remotely. A pity. The results are no surprise to many who have been sounding alarm bells for years. So why not just drop perpetual testing and return to more effective instruction? It couldn’t have anything to do with corporate interests, could it? Naw, even the jaded and powerful must know the education of our youth is too important to put behind profits.
Cynthia Murrell, January 1, 2024
Chinese AI Lab Deepseek Grinds Ahead…Allegedly
December 31, 2024
Is the world’s most innovative AI company a low-profile Chinese startup? ChinaTalk examines “Deepseek: The Quiet Giant Leading China’s AI Race.” The Chinese-tech news site shares an annotated translation of a rare interview with DeepSeek CEO Liang Wenfeng. The journalists note the firm’s latest R1 model just outperformed OpenAI’s o1. In their introduction to the July interview, they write:
“Before Deepseek, CEO Liang Wenfeng’s main venture was High-Flyer, a top 4 Chinese quantitative hedge fund last valued at $8 billion. Deepseek is fully funded by High-Flyer and has no plans to fundraise. It focuses on building foundational technology rather than commercial applications and has committed to open sourcing all of its models. It has also singlehandedly kicked off price wars in China by charging very affordable API rates. Despite this, Deepseek can afford to stay in the scaling game: with access to High-Flyer’s compute clusters, Dylan Patel’s best guess is they have upwards of ‘50k Hopper GPUs,’ orders of magnitude more compute power than the 10k A100s they cop to publicly. Deepseek’s strategy is grounded in their ambition to build AGI. Unlike previous spins on the theme, Deepseek’s mission statement does not mention safety, competition, or stakes for humanity, but only ‘unraveling the mystery of AGI with curiosity’. Accordingly, the lab has been laser-focused on research into potentially game-changing architectural and algorithmic innovations.”
For example, we learn:
“They proposed a novel MLA (multi-head latent attention) architecture that reduces memory usage to 5-13% of the commonly used MHA architecture. Additionally, their original DeepSeekMoESparse structure minimized computational costs, ultimately leading to reduced overall costs.”
Those in Silicon Valley are well aware of this “mysterious force from the East,” with several AI head honchos heaping praise on the firm. The interview is split into five parts. The first examines the large-model price war set off by Deepseek’s V2 release. Next, Wenfeng describes how an emphasis on innovation over imitation sets his firm apart but, in part three, notes that more money does not always lead to more innovation. Part four takes a look at the talent behind DeepSeek’s work, and in part five the CEO looks to the future. Interested readers should check out the full interview. Headquartered in Hangzhou, China, the young firm was founded in 2023.
Cynthia Murrell, December 31, 2024
Technical Debt: A Weight Many Carry Forward to 2025
December 31, 2024
Do you know what technical debt is? It’s also called deign debt and code debt. It refers to a development team prioritizing a project’s delivery over a functional product and the resulting consequences. Usually the project has to be redone. Data debt is a type of technical debt and it refers to the accumulated costs of poor data management that hinder decision-making and efficiency. Which debt is worse? The Newstack delves into that topic in: “Who’s the Bigger Villain? Data Debt vs. Technical Debt.”
Technical debt should only be adopted for short-term goals, such as meeting a release date, but it shouldn’t be the SOP. Data debt’s downside is that it results in poor data and manual management. It also reduces data quality, slows decision making, and increases costs. The pair seem indistinguishable but the difference is that with technical debt you can quit and start over. That’s not an option with data debt and the ramifications are bad:
“Reckless and unintentional data debt emerged from cheaper storage costs and a data-hoarding culture, where organizations amassed large volumes of data without establishing proper structures or ensuring shared context and meaning. It was further fueled by resistance to a design-first approach, often dismissed as a potential bottleneck to speed. It may also have sneaked up through fragile multi-hop medallion architectures in data lakes, warehouses, and lakehouses.”
The article goes on to recommend adopting early data-modeling and how to restructure your current systems. You do that by drawing maps or charts of your data, then project where you want them to go. It’s called planning:
“To reduce your data debt, chart your existing data into a transparent, comprehensive data model that maps your current data structures. This can be approached iteratively, addressing needs as they arise — avoid trying to tackle everything at once.
Engage domain experts and data stakeholders in meaningful discussions to align on the data’s context, significance, and usage.
From there, iteratively evolve these models — both for data at rest and data in motion—so they accurately reflect and serve the needs of your organization and customers.
Doing so creates a strong foundation for data consistency, clarity, and scalability, unlocking the data’s full potential and enabling more thoughtful decision-making and future innovation.”
Isn’t this just good data, project, or organizational management? Charting is a basic tool taught in kindergarten. Why do people forget it so quickly?
Whitney Grace, December 31, 2024
Microservices Are Perfect, Are They Not?
December 31, 2024
“Microservices” is another synergetic jargon term that is looping the IT industry like the latest viral video. Microservices are replacing monolithic architecture and are supposed to resolve all architectural problems. Cerbos’s article says otherwise: “The Value Of Monitoring And Observability In Microservices, And Associated Challenges.” The article is part of a ten part series that focuses on how to effectively handle any challenges during a transfer from a monolithic architecture to microservices.
This particular article is chapter five and it stresses how observability and monitoring are important to know what is happening on every level of a microservices application. This is important because a microservices environment has multiple tasks concurrently running and it makes traditional tools obsolete. Observability means using tools to observe the system’s internal status, while monitoring tools collect and analyze traces, logs, and metrics. When the two are combined, it provides an overall consensus of a system’s health. The challenges of installing monitoring and observability tools in a microservices architecture are as follows:
1. “Interaction of data silos. Treating each microservice separately when implementing monitoring and observability solutions creates “data silos”. These silos are easy to understand in isolation, without fully understanding how they interact as one. This can lead to difficulty when debugging or understanding the root cause of problems.
2. Scalability. As your microservices architecture scales, the complexity of monitoring and observability grows with it. So monitoring everything with the same tools you were using for a single monolith quickly becomes unmanageable.
3. Lack of standard tools. One of the benefits of microservices is that different teams can choose the data storage system that makes the most sense for their microservice (as we covered in blog 2 of the series, “Data management and consistency”). But, if you don’t have a standard for monitoring and observability, tying siloed insights together to gain insights on the system as a whole is challenging.”
The foundations for observability are installing tools that track metrics, logging, and tracing. Metrics are quantitative measurements of a system that include: error rates, throughput, resource utilization, and response time. These provide a system’s overall performance. Logging means capturing and centralizing log messages made by services like applications. Tracing follows end-to-end requests between services. They provide valuable insights into potential bottlenecks and errors.
This article verifies what we already know with every new technology adoption: same problems, new packaging. There isn’t any solution that will solve all technology problems. New technology has its own issues that will resolve old problems but bring up new ones. There’s no such thing as a one stop shop.
Whitney Grace, December 31, 2024
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