US Intelligence Agencies Tried To Bribe Our Developers To Weaken Encryption, Says Telegram Founder

In a series of tweets, Pavel Durov, the Russian founder of the popular secure messaging app Telegram has revealed that U.S. intelligence agencies tried twice to bribe his company's developers to weaken encryption in the app. The incident, Durov said, happened last year during the team's visit to the United States. "During our team's 1-week visit to the US last year we had two attempts to bribe our devs by US agencies + pressure on me from the FBI," he said. "And that was just 1 week. It would be naive to think you can run an independent/secure cryptoapp based in the US." Telegram is one of the most secure messaging apps available today, though researchers have pointed flaws in it as well.