Telegram founder Pavel Durov suggested that the DDoS attack on the messenger, which took place on Wednesday and caused service outages, may be backed by the Chinese government.
The Telegram founder wrote on Twitter that the DDoS attack primarily used Chinese IP addresses. He also emphasized that traditionally, the largest DDoS attacks on Telegram coincide with protests in Hong Kong, and this case was no exception.
The Telegram messenger is actively used by residents of Hong Kong, as it allows them to evade detection while organizing and coordinating protests. An attack on Telegram may indicate that the Chinese government is trying to disrupt the service and limit its effectiveness as a tool for organizing large-scale protests.
IP addresses coming mostly from China. Historically, all state actor-sized DDoS (200-400 Gb/s of junk) we experienced coincided in time with protests in Hong Kong (coordinated on ). This case was not an exception.
December 23, 2017
According to network sources, applications like Telegram and Firechat, which allow for encrypted messaging, are currently extremely popular among App Store users in Hong Kong. This is not surprising, as many protesters try to hide their identities. In addition to using messengers that transmit data in encrypted form, protesters also try to conceal their faces to avoid identification by facial recognition systems.
It’s worth noting that a massive protest against amendments to the extradition law took place in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Dissatisfied citizens set up barricades and clashed with police near the Hong Kong legislative assembly complex. This led to the cancellation of the parliamentary session that was scheduled to discuss the amendments to the law.
Source: 3dnews.ru
