Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

263 160 7 days ago

DOGMATICA• 7 days ago

i'm far from an authority on content delivery or whatever, but the first thing I thought of was what a bizarre way to setup your infrastructure!

Ghoelian• 7 days ago

idk, they probably tried to get people on DC's as close to their location as possible. Using your phone number's country code might seem like a good way to do this at first, and they probably didn't give it much more thought before building the whole thing on this idea.

londons_explore• 7 days ago

This strikes me as a huge amount of custom code and technical debt. Every new software dev probably has to learn this.

Why not a sticky master election per user, and have no special data centers?

fullstop• 7 days ago

From what I have read, they only have ~30 employees. They're not exactly onboarding a lot of new people here.

codedokode• 7 days ago

It makes sense: European users are assigned to EU data center, and Chinese to the one closer to them. The "custom code" should not be complicated, just a map of country to DC.

You are suggesting to develop a compicated solution (spend money) when current simple one is working ok without any elections.

nurumaik• 7 days ago

Learn what? How to count to 5?

inigyou5• 7 days ago

If you've ever actually tried to implement server clustering you quickly find there's no magic cloud, except in specific cases like blockchains. A privately operated cluster system is mostly about directing requests to the correct server out of a finite set of servers.

hhh• 7 days ago

something smells suspicious about this kind of data routing

overallduka2• 7 days ago

The Lex Fridman podcast episode with Pavel Durov is worth listening to. Their servers are built to be very secure — of course, it would be different for others, and they use some clever tricks

dewey• 7 days ago

That has "military grade encryption" vibes.

Aachen4• 7 days ago

Very secure but not investing in rolling out this mtproto they went through so much trouble to invent, nor making it usable by implementing device sync or all the other features normal chats have. Why does it smell like fish all of a sudden?

vvpan4• 7 days ago

Except Pavel Durov has been caught lying before and in general is not a great source of information.

maqp9• 7 days ago

Very secure servers are openly documented (Kerckhoff's principle).

Snake oil purporting itself as secure is always very hush hush and comes with claims of security.

Besides, other messengers like Signal have already made the server open source, and they have native clients that end-to-end encrypt everything, so you don't even have to trust server.

Durov requiring you to trust the server shows he has no idea how to build secure systems. He and his team are amateurs in security engineering.

hashtag-til• 7 days ago

https://archive.is/VHlJH

strebz• 7 days ago

DC2 is the first connection point of all MTProto clients.

Any DC may refuse a request and force the client to switch DC.

Profile URL doesn't show where messages/chats/channels are stored, as telegram has two dedicated DCs mostly for media. The rest DCs allow media with bandwidth being throttled.

AntronX2• 7 days ago

DC in Miami, explains why Telegram app is snappy fast for me. I notice similar speed improvement with Meta and other big tech apps when I'm on the west coast. I guess latency matters when your app is making tons of requests.

Anon10963• 7 days ago

Most of big tech's major data centers are in Loudoun County, VA on the east coast not the west coast. It's centrally located to be great latency for the east coast and OK latency for west coast and Europe. Plus a friendly regulatory environment and lots of existing DCs (AWS us-east-1, Azure East US 1/2)

If you're feeling any better latency on the west coast it's more likely to be placebo than real.

tobinfekkes2• 7 days ago

On the contrary, Big tech famously has plenty of data centers on the west coast:

• Quincy, WA (Microsoft)

• The Dalles, Oregon (Google)

• Prineville, Oregon (Facebook, Apple)

• Hillsboro, Oregon (Cloudflare, others)

• Boardman, Oregon (AWS)

AntronX2• 7 days ago

When I was in Seattle I noticed youtube, facebook and maybe other apps load and run faster. I was on fiber internet at an apartment. Back in Miami I was on Comcast cable but recently got fiber here as well and there was not noticeable improvement. I guess next time I'm in Seattle I will do screen recording to compare.

hocuspocus• 7 days ago

I'm on DC5 since I lived in Korea when signing up, but I cannot say I've noticed many outages.

dgroshev3• 7 days ago

More mysteries of Telegram Data Centres: https://istories.media/en/stories/2025/06/10/telegram-fsb/

(and a follow-up: https://istories.media/en/news/2025/06/10/telegram-responds-... )

vvpan4• 7 days ago

It's a great an telling investigation. Dropped in to share it as well. Telegram deserves no trust from us.

overallduka2• 7 days ago

Good story, I yet believe the guy is trying to do the right thing. In the lex Friedman podcast he talks about banning extremist channels in both sides always, the story focus more on the Nalvani's block, but accordingly him he also bans other sides depending on the content. I do follow a number of Telegram channels about the Ukraine war, and the pro Ukraine channels are there together with pro Russian channels.

dgroshev3• 7 days ago

Of course he would say that. Even besides the fallaciousness of this argument (there is no equivalence between an aggressor and a victim), Pavel Durov is completely untrustworthy.

There is product stuff, like misleading claims about Telegram's encryption and comparisons to Signal. In reality, for the vast majority of chats they have plaintext, unlike Signal.

There are more subtle positioning claims. Durov made a huge deal of his "exile", but I saw Telegram's office in St Petersburg with my own two eyes a year after Durov "fled the country". It definitely wasn't shut. There were even local news of Pavel assaulting a guy in St Petersburg for trying to make a photo of him a couple years later.

And then there are just completely unnecessary lifestyle claims. He said multiple times how he doesn't take any "pills" or medications. It only takes a minute to find his old photos. Male pattern baldness doesn't stop progressing without DHT suppression, and last time I checked, finasteride comes in pills. I don't understand why would he make misleading statements about something so visible, but it doesn't make him any more trustworthy.

senderista• 7 days ago

Telegram channels are about the only way to get the reality on the ground on both sides.

KomoD3• 7 days ago

I remember reading about it, but I didn't know they had responded. Thanks.

_ink_• 7 days ago

They claim that they store user data on different servers in different jurisdictions so it becomes more difficult for authorities to gain access [1]. Maybe that's true and it has something to do with these DCs that seem to be unused.

[1] https://telegram.org/privacy

amima• 7 days ago

They do not claim that. They do claim that they store specifically encryption keys in several data centers in different jurisdictions. Here is the exact quote: "All data is stored heavily encrypted and the encryption keys in each case are stored in several other data centers in different jurisdictions". So only keys are distributed.

hkpack• 7 days ago

What does heavily encrypted even mean? Fully encrypted? Slightly encrypted? Encrypted enough to call it “heavily encrypted” but not enough to be protected from whoever is interested?

bflesch2• 7 days ago

It's more about the fact that five eyes intelligence services prefer to officially spy on each other's countries so they don't have to answer to their respective bureaucrats. They prefer plausible deniability.

Something like this:

   DC1 politically belongs to UK which "spies" on CA/US but physical servers are located in US so US ultimately retains control.

   DC2 politically belongs to France which "spies" on RUS/UKR/DE but physical servers are located in NL (e.g. in UK because one wouldn't be able to spot difference in ping). Maybe it's politically owned by UK/NZ or UK/AUS because France can't be publicly caught spying on Germany. But France wouldn't risk public arrest of Telegram CEO and the spectacle with russia if there is nothing to gain.

   DC4 politically belongs to USA which "spies" on UK/Israel but physical servers are in NL/UK

   DC5 politically belongs to UK/USA which "spies" on AUS/China/India but physical servers are in Singapore (e.g. former UK colony)

I love mentioning the UK in these kind of discussions because the pushback is biggest every time the Crown is mentioned, and ultimately US/CA/NZ/AUS are all colonies under the King.

Really cool to see realpolitik mapped out like this. It also highlights the problem of metadata with these kind of topics.

orbital-decay• 7 days ago

The reason it's in Singapore is that Telegram can't operate in China, and Singapore-washing is the closest thing to doing it. A ton of VPNs and other services targeting mainland users but not allowed in the mainland are hosted there, it's a huge hub for companies and networks.

bflesch2• 7 days ago

Beautiful analysis. It really looks like the country distribution [1] follows the geographical split between five eyes intelligence services, and maybe a small slice for France after they imprisoned the Telegram CEO [2] in order to take over data ownership from russia.

[1] https://dev.moe/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-14.png

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_indictment_of_Pavel...

dubbel• 7 days ago

The article is from May 2022, just fyi.

ameliaquining2• 7 days ago

I think it was reposted today because https://core.telegram.org/bots/serverless was just announced, which prompted some curiosity on HN about Telegram's architecture (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48918534). But yes, the title should be updated to indicate this.

glaslong• 7 days ago

The DC3 gap is interesting. I wonder whether they deprecated it because the other EU server had plenty of capacity, or still keep it but only for... "special" account data flow.

Also, it looks like it's easy enough to ID your DC on their API, though I haven't tried it yet (more of a Matrix Stan personally): https://core.telegram.org/method/help.getConfig

SpaceL10n3• 7 days ago

For a hot second there I was really excited to learn about historical telegram "data centers".

It's a capital T.

sophacles• 7 days ago

You may have already read it, but portions of this sprawling (and very very good) essay by Neal Stephenson get into the topic: Mother Earth Mother Board - https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

SpaceL10n3• 1 day ago

thank you, i have it in my reading list now.

Terr_• 7 days ago

As a tangential niche-tourism shoutout: https://www.telcomhistory.org/ConnectionsSeattle.html

Granted, most of it is a bit newer than the heyday of telegrams, but there's a little bit of overlap.

SpaceL10n3• 1 day ago

thank you, i have it in my reading list now.

flexagoon• 7 days ago

Just like DC5 is often down to the discontent of Chinese users, DC2 is the one serving all Russian and Ukrainian users, so in the more technical Russian-speaking communities "dc2 down" is also a pretty common saying

bwunkhaus• 7 days ago

I've never listened about that but also im not a big telegram user... but that completely explains why mine is so slow.... I'm on latam and my account is on singapur..

Peanuts99• 7 days ago

The more I learn about telegram, the sketchier it seems.

wronex4• 7 days ago

Agreed. I don’t see the appeal compared to Signal. Although, Signal is also sketchy with an operating cost in the tens of millions of dollars per year. Where does the money come from?

isatty2• 7 days ago

- Telegram has exemplary fast, native clients on most platforms I’ve used it on

- Cat stickers

- Did I mention it has the best native clients out of all the messaging apps? It boggles the mind why other companies can’t get this done.

johnnyApplePRNG• 7 days ago

Apparently it's funded by your friendly neighbor.

I've used and promoted Signal for years and I've recently become suspicious of them and their funding as well after looking into starting my own encrypted communications app.

It's not cheap sending dozens or hundreds of megabytes of video files or whatever ... whenever the user feels like it, mind you ... with a monetization strategy that's literally simply hoping that donations will cover it?

That's insane.

snailmailman• 7 days ago

I’ve always been under the impression that Signal is for secure, private chats and group chats amongst friends and small groups. While telegram is often used more like discord or irc, with “secure” and “private” group chats that are extremely large and semi-public. “Invite only” but invites are handed out easily. Those chats are pretty obviously not as secure, as basically anybody can join them and decrypt the chat. On the surface its somewhat more secure than discord, where discord will be scanning all chat content.

jacobgold2• 7 days ago

Signal users who want to use it with their agents are running an unofficial extracted-and-patched `signal-cli` off GitHub. It's based on an archived official Signal repo and then patched for years by some random accounts. It looks incredibly untrustworthy.

Meanwhile Telegram has bot support and added features specifically for interacting w/agents. It's incredibly easy to write clients and work with it. No one should use it, and I never would, but you can see why it's winning.

Signal's lack of features (like an official Signal CLI) and bots (even attached to existing phone numbers and limited to the owner) is making people less secure than they could be. And unfortunately there are no great alternatives.

Theodores2• 7 days ago

Telegram is important if you get your news from sources outside of the 'Anglo American empire'. People all over the planet use Telegram to curate their own news feeds and cultivate their own communities. This is generally done with a view to promote understanding rather than to spread misinformation. Telegram is great if you want the perspective of 'the other side' or 'both sides' if you 'trust but verify'.

Some people can get the Telegram app and never get to find any of these communities to never understand what Telegram is really about. Usually though, channel owners repost from other channels and promote channels they like. If you follow one channel then it should not be hard to find other channels in the way. You can also see what other people are subscribed to, depending on their privacy settings.

Importantly, there is no algorithm on a home page, urging you to sign up for promoted content.

As for 'where does the money come from', there are ways to subscribe to get a few more bells and whistles, with many that cultivate a community choosing to do so, in order to manage their channel(s). Few normal users pay up, and the app isn't paywalled or 'pay to post'.

There is a whole parallel universe of drug dealers and women that sell their bodies, all of which is a search away. I doubt these people are paying for premium accounts either.

IMHO only a modest amount of money is needed, sure, bandwidth has to be paid for, however, the app is already written and it is very good. I have no idea why the likes of Meta need tens of thousands of 'engineers' for optimising doom scrolling 'with AI'.

With Telegram, you could have 1% of 1M users paying $10 a year, meaning revenue of $100k a year. That would be okay if it was Pavel and his bro in his mum's basement with one server to pay for.

Scale this up to a billion and now you are talking. Since the app scales, are more staff needed? A few devs, but not that many managers since the founders are technical and therefore don't need the useless hordes of non-technical managers. Yet the money is now 1% of a billion. Multiply that by $10 a year, every year, and Pavel ends up asking finding his Bugatti on the moon.

This sounds manageable to me, no need to run in debt, have shareholders or be beholden to vested interests.

At Meta et al., there is a need to feed the greed of the stock market, pay billions in debt, do billions in share buybacks, do the AI nonsense, keep the advertisers happy, keep America's Greatest Ally happy, sign a secret deal with Five Eyes and the list goes on.

I have never met Pavel or the Meta guy, whatever his name is, but I suspect the former is getting more out of life than the latter.

thisislife22• 7 days ago

The appeal of Telegram over Signal or WhatsApp is that it is not an American or BigTech service. (And, ofcourse, it's really good). Signal is funded by 2 rich American entrepreneurs who made their fortune when their services were acquired by Twitter (TextSecure / RedPhone) and Meta (WhatsApp), respectively. Whether it is indeed altruism behind this, you'll have to judge for yourself ...

konart2• 7 days ago

Does Signal also have channels, groups etc?

victorbjorklund• 7 days ago

1) more users 2) bots

cropcirclbureau• 7 days ago

There's a lot of sketchy things about telegram but I'm confused, what exactly in this article seems sketchy to you?

LastTrain2• 7 days ago

A fee based service without site redundancy for one?

darksim9055• 7 days ago

wait ... when was it not sketchy? Did people not know the intentions behind it? Damn, wild. I get that there are some people that may use it as a communication medium for benign purposes, but it's filth all the way down.

kridsdale1• 7 days ago

We aren’t all perpetually online people interested in gossip.

wronex4• 7 days ago

Are people still using Telegram? What is the upside compared to Signal?

crazybonkersai• 7 days ago

Good ux, pleasant to use. A large community and lots of channels with all kind of content. Api is also great for spinning a bot for whatever purpose. I have for example a critical error bot for a production server running. If a critical error occurs, I get an immediate telegram message.

wronex4• 7 days ago

Sounds a lot like we might as well use Discord?

St0n3d• 7 days ago

If you’re ok with abandoning all security and privacy, then Telegram has some nice extra features that can come in handy.

Aachen4• 7 days ago

Calling/ringing works reliably. My gf usually calls via Telegram to notify me and then we call via Signal

Signal can't do live location sharing

    Code blocks (let alone syntax highlighting) was the first thing my friend ran into after switching last week

In general, formatting on Telegram is a lot more versatile with >quote blocks that show up formatted as quotes and inline links without needing to have a giant message because of the giant URL

Many more image features, like you can do yellow highlighting and not only ugly shades of olive, you can put a message above an image instead of below, you can mark an image as spoiler, you can send it uncompressed, much simpler UI for selecting multiple images, etc.

Jumping to a date was one of the first things I ran into

Web client lets you temporarily use someone else's computer without needing to install software

Making a Telegram bot takes 10 minutes if you just want a simple http callback and know roughly how it works. Signal has no support at all. Some third parties have made libraries but we keep having issues at work with our internal Signal bot to the point where I think we just gave up altogether now

Many people use Telegram to check if internet works because when opening the app it does a lightning quick check and it's very robust (I think it has no problem if DNS is down, for example) Looking at the title bar confirming that it works is much faster than trying to do a random web search

You can have memorable/pretty group URLs like telegram.me/OpenStreetMapOrg

Large files can be sent (also because of server-side storage not clogging up your phone, which is a double-edged sword of course)

Scheduled messages send at the right time when you're not online & the desktop app supports scheduled messages

As of like next week you can do moderation in groups in Signal. This has of course been a thing in Telegram since 10+ years. I don't know how we'd have run the OpenStreetMap group on Telegram without being able to delete spam messages

Chats take a lot less space. The Signal authors probably don't have many contacts that they use Signal with because you can view the message markers of 4 chats before having to scroll down. In Telegram, 9 fit in view. Similar on desktop but both numbers are bigger. Messages are also more space efficient in Telegram

Telegram so so so much faster than Signal's web, ahem, electron client

The only advantage of Signal that comes to mind is the intangible property of privacy (and maybe local back-ups, so data availability, but then Signal doesn't provide software to view your backup data so is it really a backup if you can't test it and they can lock you out of the app?). I'm nevertheless switching everything over to Signal but it's often very hard to explain to people why they should give all this up for encryption. My family doesn't use all the advanced features but some techy friends do

Aachen4• 7 days ago

Hah, literally seconds after the edit window ran out, I thought of an advantage of Signal's, edited it in, and HN rejected it due to post age. It is: Signal lets you add any emoji reaction you want without paying for premium

tail_exchange• 7 days ago

A good UX and a user base. I had it on my phone, but uninstalled after a while because not a single person I know uses it.

ilikeitdark13• 7 days ago

So data centers are kind of organised like street gangs.

vvpan4• 7 days ago

Somebody already posted it but I wanted to mention it again, investigations that Telegram has not been able to dispute have revealed that Telegram's infrastructure is managed by a person who is also managing infra for FSB. And this is happening unbeknownst to Telegram employees.

https://istories.media/en/stories/2025/06/10/telegram-fsb/

Grombobulous2• 7 days ago

This just makes me realize that three letter agencies of basically every country probably have an extremely easy time getting access to things by simply getting people hired as regular employees through mundane and routine means.

ameliaquining2• 6 days ago

One hopes that the usual defenses against insider risk provide some help here.

Mysteries of Telegram Data Centers (2022)

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