Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33360994

by filestorage • 4 years ago

86 85 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Today Pavel Durov just announced the launch of their dedicated platform to sell/buy premium Telegram usernames. Checking that list, I've searched my channel's username and it says is coming soon: https://fragment.com/?query=%40kissfm Going back to my channel to make sure this username belongs to me (my channel), I've noticed that the channel was transformed into a private channel, without username!

So telegram just literally stole my channel's username to sell it! Durov, what you were saying about privacy and security in Telegram? You just dropped its level yourself!

P.S. check if your usernames still yours!

IntelMiner• 4 years ago

I know several users who've had their names and channels stolen by this absolutely fucking asinine idea from Durov

It comes off the back of him trying to fuck over users with NFT's of all things, which received something like 30K "thumbs down" emojis (to about 800 "thumbs up") before having the counter removed

I don't know why Durov can't just do what Discord does and offer Premium. Premium garnered a less than stellar reception, but comes with actual features that users might want (increased GIF cache, bigger file download limits etc)

neongreen2• 4 years ago

Telegram has had Premium for a few months already: https://telegram.org/blog/700-million-and-premium

tvicpe2• 4 years ago

Same for me, one of my channels usernames: lasezatoare also is gone. The same story, channel now is private without a username!

VoidWhisperer• 4 years ago

I am interested to hear telegram's side of this - they generally have a decent track record, i wonder if this is the case of someone screwing up and not intentional malice

NayamAmarshe8• 4 years ago

He talked about this a month ago: https://t.me/durov/195

Until recently, 70% of all Telegram usernames had been reserved in inactive channels by cybersquatters from Iran. This created a graveyard of dead usernames that cluttered search results and prevented millions of Telegram users from selecting appropriate public addresses for their accounts, groups and channels.

t0w5a2• 4 years ago

one of my channels is already up for sale: https://fragment.com/?query=developingit

I think they've just screwed up everything telegram was based on, no freedom, no privacy, no security!

jrmg• 4 years ago

How many inactive channels did you have?

byyll• 4 years ago

How are public usernames related to privacy or security?

profstasiak• 4 years ago

if you are not paying, you are a product

brink3• 4 years ago

I am paying.

tvicpe2• 4 years ago

what's the guarantee that tomorrow my private channels will not become public instead and all my personal data will be exposed!?

wtf is happening with durov!?!?!

ls1510• 4 years ago

There are no such guarantees. People failed to choose a protocol that is trustworthy and fell for pseudo sometimes-on encryption. He is trying to make money while the market is going down.

neongreen2• 4 years ago

I wanted to object (as a happy Telegram user) that I want to preserve message history for all my devices, but then it occurred to me that iMessage is end-to-end-encrypted and also has pretty transparent message history sync.

So now I think that yeah, Telegram should adopt E2E by default.

Another thing that would be lost with the switch to E2E is server-based search, but honestly I can live with that.

stiltzkin5• 4 years ago

Nothing, they took away usernames which were holded by squatters.

filestorage5• 4 years ago

having a roadmap to integrate this channel with the site https://kissfm.md is a squatting for you!? Applause (sarcasm)!

NayamAmarshe8• 4 years ago

It happened to channels and groups that were inactive for a long time. Durov did mention this in a message a few months ago that username squatters were becoming a problem.

And I was mad at first but it was equally my fault for leaving my public group inactive for more than 10 months, which is probably why the username disappeared.

It's a real problem on other social media websites too. For example, a totally inactive account on GitHub claimed an org name and it has no repositories, no information, It's totally empty and I can do nothing about it. Not even report it so that GitHub can look into it and unfreeze the username.

EDIT: I just checked the dates and the channel was inactive from November 10, 2021 to August 26, 2022. So basically 9-10 months. Previously, I wrote 3 months but time flies I guess.

ls1510• 4 years ago

Durov did mention this in a message a few months ago that username squatters were becoming a problem.

This is gaslighting

NayamAmarshe8• 4 years ago

It's not gaslighting if they have analytics to back the claim.

https://t.me/durov/195

Until recently, 70% of all Telegram usernames had been reserved in inactive channels by cybersquatters from Iran. This created a graveyard of dead usernames that cluttered search results and prevented millions of Telegram users from selecting appropriate public addresses for their accounts, groups and channels.

stiltzkin5• 4 years ago

That's not gaslighting

420official• 4 years ago

I've successfully taken a username from a squatter by reaching out to github support. As long as the user doesn't have active private stuff they might be willing to help you get the username.

NayamAmarshe8• 4 years ago

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a try.

phphphphp• 4 years ago

That's not an option any more. GitHub used to offer this, but as of about 12 months ago, the policy changed and they will not release a name that is inactive regardless of how long it has been inactive.

wink• 4 years ago

I don't like calling them squatters if you don't know what they're doing and I'm pretty sure you can't actually tell if they're 100% inactive. For example at a time I had zero public activity on bitbucket but was using it for private repos and unlike github this wouldn't show. Then at some point someone kinda demanded I give up the name because I was obviously not using it. Same with Twitter. Just being logged in and reading has huge benefits since they broke the logged-out user experience.

Also archival purposes exist, especially for code repos.

HeyLaughingBoy• 4 years ago

Three months seems like a rather short time. Twitter gave me 5 years of never having sent a single tweet before telling me they were closing my account.

NayamAmarshe8• 4 years ago

Yeah sorry, not 3 months. I checked the dates again, the last post was on November 10 and I lost the username in August, so 9-10 months and around the same time as Durov's announcement about 70% of telegram usernames being inactive.

ShockedUnicorn• 4 years ago

My issue is that any external links to my channel now no longer works. Luckily I can update some of the links, but I can't do that with tweets.

I'll just have to be better at uploading so this hopefully won't happen again.

NayamAmarshe8• 4 years ago

Yeah it's definitely an inconvenience. I hope Telegram team listens to the feedback.

zaik2• 4 years ago

Can we invest in getting our friends on the independent XMPP standard?

imwillofficial2• 4 years ago

That ship has sailed

zaik2• 4 years ago

Not if we don't want to.

olah_13• 4 years ago

one XMPP server gets big and usernames get squatted and dealt with at the discretion of the server admin.

Only solution is something like how Farcaster does it where you at least get to keep your public key the same and usernames are optional.

https://github.com/farcasterxyz/protocol#3-identity

Or go the urbit route and make the addresses totally user owned.

kube-system2• 4 years ago

Federate messaging servers and make addresses domain specific. Works fine for email.

diimdeep• 4 years ago

Until recently, 70% of all Telegram usernames had been reserved in inactive channels by cybersquatters from Iran. This created a graveyard of dead usernames that cluttered search results and prevented millions of Telegram users from selecting appropriate public addresses for their accounts, groups and channels.

https://t.me/durov/195

t0w5a2• 4 years ago

now they cannot select "appropriate public addresses for their accounts, groups and channels" as well because most of the names are listed for sale on auction!

uni_rule• 4 years ago

We noticed this problem and therefore have found a very profitable solution to sell everyone

brink3• 4 years ago

They have to pay for servers somehow. Selling long dead channel handles is better than privacy invasion.

chatterhead• 4 years ago

This is fucking crazy interesting. Can't wait for this drama to unfold.

snotrockets2• 4 years ago

Telegram is a social network delivered through a messaging front end, which is confusing when you expect it to behave like a messaging service. It isn't one any more than Facebook or Twitter are.

stiltzkin5• 4 years ago

Telegram now is more akin to Discord and Twitter with bots, channels and public groups. It's been some time Telegram has moved from personal chatting app as WhatsApp.

snotrockets2• 4 years ago

Exactly. And when talking in a public space that is privately owned, it should be expected that others would listen to your convos or that the owner can throw you out at will.

The problem is just that Telegram still advertises itself, and people expect it to be a messaging app.

nickphx• 4 years ago

Why do you feel entitled to a once trademarked brand name of a radio station on a third party system that is provided for free?

esperent• 4 years ago

It's not about entitlement, it's about trust.

stiltzkin5• 4 years ago

Can you prove your channel was active and not dead just for squatting?

concinds2• 4 years ago

For what it's worth, I couldn't find any links anywhere on the net (Google, Bing...) to "https://t.me/kissfm". I've searched for even small Telegram channels I follow, and they all show up in search results.

filestorage5• 4 years ago

I'm one of the https://kissfm.md developers and the channel @kissfm was supposed to be integrated with this site in the upcoming year.

filestorage5• 4 years ago

the channel was in pending state, waiting for a project to be ready, to integrate it with the site https://kissfm.md

puppable• 4 years ago

Interesting how many green accounts are in this thread describing the same problem with the exact same typing style. All of them made within the last two hours.

ls1510• 4 years ago

People using throwaways, because they don't want to connect their HN identity to their TG identity?

WilTimSon2• 4 years ago

Those people should at least bother to learn HN rules then, because some of these comments are... yeesh.

That said, how mad can you be about some username that you'd sign up for an extra account just to complain?

Lucent• 4 years ago

Almost certainly it's a cybersquatter upset his cache of squatted names is being seized and is attempting to manufacture dissent. Recommend the site owner look at IPs and see how many HN accounts he has as well and flush those, too.

filestorage5• 4 years ago

I'm one of the guy in charge of https://kissfm.md and the channel @kissfm was waiting to be integrated with this site. So tell me more about your certainty!

stereoradonc• 4 years ago

Only inactive usernames were taken away by them (and not the active ones). While it's good to have a memorable one, you'd run the risk of "spam attacks". I am not sure how the proposed blockchain (TON) will work (it's claimed to be immutable), but then this is their prerogative to earn money.

ekhaled• 4 years ago

Had two channels. One last activity 2018 another June 2021. I lost the 2021 channel.

euroam• 4 years ago

Saying that it happened to channels that were inactive is misinformation!

Telegram allows editing post, some of those"stolen usernames" were of channels that were active; i.e. posts were edited, and links were replaced, comments were enabled so channel masters can keep connected with their audience.

Those channels were also compensating for the absence of advanced bio, status, and as introduction methods where their links were posted on the profiles' "about me" section.

Those channels, as many of Telegram users who were affected say that they did nothing wrong, their channels, though have no new posts, were actually "active and alive", and that their only fault was that they were using some Telegram features that Telegram itself did not respect.

fucktelegram• 4 years ago

This is terrible, they stole the name of a channel that was active in 2021! It's not because it's inactive, it's just because it has a unique and business name!

Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

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