Subscription version of Snapchat makes its debut

US tech firm Snap on Wednesday launched a subscription version of Snapchat as it looks to generate more money from the image-centric, ephemeral messaging app.

Snapchat+ is priced at $4 a month and will provide access to exclusive features, the California-based company said in a blog post. It said that these would include priority tech support and early access to experimental features.

The subscription version of the service is making its debut in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, Snap said.

Snap in February reported its first quarterly profit, but two months later warned that it saw the economic outlook as having darkened considerably.

The company said that more than 332 million people around the world use Snapchat daily.

"This subscription will allow us to deliver new Snapchat features to some of the most passionate members of our community," Snap said in the blog post.

Agence France-Presse

India seeks answers from WhatsApp after cyber espionage

India demanded answers from WhatsApp over a snooping scandal Thursday after coming under fire from critics who accused authorities of using malware installed on the Facebook-owned messaging service to spy on citizens.

WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in the United States against Israeli technology firm NSO Group, accusing it of using the hugely popular instant messaging platform to conduct cyberespionage on nearly 1,400 journalists, diplomats, dissidents and human right activists worldwide. 

The Israeli firm has denied journalists and activists were targeted and said that it only licenses its software to governments for "fighting crime and terror".

Nearly two dozen activists, lawyers and journalists were targeted in India -- WhatsApp's biggest market with some 400 million active users -- according to Indian media reports.

The Indian Express reported WhatsApp confirmed a number of Indian users had been targeted by the Pegasus spyware, which installed itself on their devices and relayed back data to the hackers. 

New Delhi has asked WhatsApp to "explain the kind of breach and what it is doing to safeguard the privacy of millions of Indian citizens," information and technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad wrote on Twitter, denying the government had used the malware to spy on its citizens. 

But opposition leaders accused the government of invading citizens' privacy.

"A government that spies on journalists/activists/Opposition leaders and treats its own citizens like criminals has lost the right to lead in our democracy," main opposition Congress party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said in a tweet.

Indian media reports said 20 activists, lawyers and journalists were informed by WhatsApp recently that their phones were compromised for two weeks in May. 

Rights activists and dissidents in India have accused the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government of intimidating them over their criticism of policies. 

Since Modi's ascent to the top post in 2014, it has banned hundreds of non government organisations and stopped funding of many more. 

Rupali Jadhav, an activist, and one of those contacted by WhatsApp said she suspected that she was targeted for her work on caste, class and gender rights.

"We are told India is a democracy. But if our right to privacy is violated, doesn't that raise questions?" she told an Indian online outlet. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Telegram plans to offer ‘Gram’ crypto coin

While Facebook’s big cryptocurrency plans have hit a wall with regulators, another big social network, Telegram, is charging ahead with its own crypto coin.

Telegram has told investors that it is planning to send out the first batches of its coin, the Gram, within the next two months, according to three investors who have spoken with Telegram recently.

Telegram is also planning to make Gram digital wallets available to the 200 million to 300 million global users of Telegram’s messaging application, said the investors, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had signed nondisclosure agreements.

Echoing Facebook’s hopes for its Libra token, which was unveiled this year, Telegram has said the Gram will become a new online currency and a way to move money anywhere in the world.

The scope of Telegram’s ambitions were evident in early 2018 when it raised $1.7 billion from big-name investors, including some of the largest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.

Unlike Facebook, which released public plans for its digital money long before the first token was ready, Telegram has largely proceeded in secrecy. That opaqueness could amplify questions that it will face from government authorities when it makes its tokens public.

Regulators have grown increasingly concerned that coins like Gram and Libra could, like bitcoin before them, be useful to drug dealers and money launderers.

US authorities have already moved to shut down smaller cryptocurrency projects, citing them for violations of securities law.

“Anyone trying to build this type of token system has to be careful on any number of levels with regulators,” said Richard Levin, who specializes in cryptocurrencies law at the law firm Polsinelli. “I suspect that regulators will take a very close look at this offering.”

A spokesman for Telegram did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Telegram has always operated with a degree of disregard for the opinions of government authorities.

The company was created by Pavel Durov, a self-described libertarian who fled Russia after clashing with the government and being forced to sell off his first successful social network, VKontakte. Durov now moves between offices in the Middle East and Europe.

The Telegram app makes it easy to send encrypted messages between phones. That has made it popular both with terrorists and with government dissidents and protesters, most recently in Hong Kong.

Those qualities have made it unpopular with governments in Iran and Russia, which have tried to shut it down.

In its sales pitch for the Gram, which was viewed by The New York Times, Telegram has said the new digital money will operate with a decentralized structure similar to bitcoin, which could make it easier to skirt government regulations.

Once Telegram releases the coins, it has said, the coins will be governed by a decentralized network of computers that will give Telegram no control over how and where the coins can move.

“A whole new economy saturated with goods and services sold for cryptocurrency will be born,” the company said in a document sent to potential investors in 2017.

The plans for Gram were met with significant skepticism in the cryptocurrency community. Many of the largest venture capital firms that have invested in cryptocurrencies passed on the chance to invest in it.

Security researchers also raised concerns about the coin because of security problems Telegram has had — issues that could have much more significant consequences if money is involved.

But that did not deter the prominent American venture capital firms Benchmark and Lightspeed Capital, along with many Russian investors, from contributing to the Gram fundraising round in 2018. Investors put up $1.7 billion in exchange for the promise of future Grams.

Telegram promised in legal documents that it would deliver Grams to investors by Oct. 31 or give back the money. The company is racing to get the coins out before that deadline.

Some people will immediately be able to sell their Grams on cryptocurrency exchanges, although the earliest investors agreed to a holding period, according to investor documents viewed by The Times.

Facebook’s Libra is meant to be backed up by traditional currencies held in bank accounts, in order to stabilize the value of the digital coin. The Gram, in contrast, will be backed by nothing and gain or lose its value, like bitcoin, by whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

Telegram has recently said that before the coins are sent out, a test version of the Gram network will be released within the next week or two, investors said.

The Grams are intended to make it possible to buy and sell other goods on Telegram.

The company also has big ambitions for its Telegram Open Network, which it hopes will host new kinds of digital applications. There could be new kinds of sites, for example, where users tip one another for good comments or make small bets on future events.

But before any of that happens, Telegram will have to deal with critics and skeptical regulators.

“I don’t see how on earth Telegram can possibly get something compliant with regulators in place by the end of October,” David Gerard, a cryptocurrency analyst and critic, recently wrote on his website.


2019 The New York Times Company

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Telegram traces cyber-attack during HK protests to China

BEIJING - Encrypted messaging service Telegram suffered a major cyber-attack that originated from China, the company's CEO said Thursday, linking it to the ongoing political unrest in Hong Kong.

Many protesters in the city have used Telegram to evade electronic surveillance and coordinate their demonstrations against a controversial Beijing-backed plan that would allow extraditions from the semi-autonomous territory to the mainland.

Demonstrations descended into violence Wednesday as police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters who tried to storm the city's parliament -- the worst political crisis Hong Kong has seen since its 1997 handover from Britain to China.

Telegram announced Wednesday that it was suffering a "powerful" Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, which involves a hacker overwhelming a target's servers by making a massive number of junk requests.

It warned that users in many regions may face connection issues.

Pavel Durov, Telegram's CEO, said the junk requests came 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 @telegram)," he tweeted.

"This case was not an exception."

Telegram later announced on Twitter that its service had stabilised. It also posted a series of tweets explaining the nature of the attack.

"Imagine that an army of lemmings just jumped the queue at McDonald's in front of you -– and each is ordering a whopper," it said, referring to the flagship product of Burger King.

"The server is busy telling the whopper lemmings they came to the wrong place -– but there are so many of them that the server can't even see you to try and take your order."

Evading surveillance

When asked about Durov's claim the attack originated from China, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he was not aware of the incident.

"What I can tell you here is that China has always opposed any form of cyber-attacks. China is also a victim of cyber-attacks," Geng said at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

China's cyberspace administration did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.

Telegram was launched in 2013, and allows users to exchange encrypted text messages, photos and videos, and also create "channels" for as many as 200,000 people. It also supports encrypted voice calls.

The firm announced last year that it had crossed 200 million monthly active users.

Encrypted messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp are preferred around the world by a wide variety of people trying to avoid surveillance by authorities -- from Islamic State jihadists and drug dealers to human rights activists and journalists.

Governments in recent years have devoted significant resources to try and breach or bypass the security features of these apps, according to tech firms and researchers. Some states have outright banned them.

Hong Kong is not behind China's Great Firewall, which heavily restricts internet access in the mainland -- where Telegram is blocked.

The city's special status under its handover agreement allows freedoms unseen in mainland China, but many fear they are under threat as Beijing exerts increasing influence on Hong Kong.

The current protests were sparked by fears the proposed law would allow extraditions to China and leave people exposed to the mainland's politicized and opaque justice system.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Messaging service Telegram hit by DDoS cyber attack

Messaging service provider Telegram has been hit by a "powerful" distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack and users in the United States and other countries may experience connection issues, the company said in a tweet Wednesday.

Telegram did not immediately respond to a request for more details on the attack.

In DDoS attacks, hijacked or virus-infected computers are used to target websites. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Snapchat raises $1.81 billion in new funding round

Messaging app Snapchat Inc has raised $1.81 billion in an equity offering, indicating strong investor interest in the company despite concerns that it is struggling to attract advertisers.

Snapchat did not disclose its valuation in the latest round of funding in its filing on Thursday.

However, technology website TechCrunch reported on Monday, citing sources, that the company could be valued at about $20 billion.

Snapchat, which makes a free mobile app that allows users to send videos, photos and messages that vanish in seconds, has faced concerns that the company's estimated valuation is not justified because of its uneven revenue stream.

Investors in this round included General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, T. Rowe Price, Lone Pine and Fidelity, among others, TechCrunch reported on Thursday, citing sources.

Snapchat was not immediately available for comment.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Viber 'hidden chats' now available in Philippines

Messaging app Viber on Wednesday rolled out its new "hidden chats" feature for its 23 million users in the Philippines to boost security in one of the world's social media capitals.

The new option allows users to hide specific chats from the main screen and requires a four digit access PIN, Cyprus-based Viber said in a statement.

The "hidden chats" option is part of the latest version of Viber, which features complete end-to-end encryption across all devices.

The app update also includes increased security across the platform for both group messages and one-to-one communication.

Viber is one of the world’s leading messaging apps with more than 711 million unique users worldwide.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Bye text message in PH? Expert weighs in as messaging apps surge

For YugaTech director Abe Olandres, the sudden surge of messaging apps caught the telecommunication industry unaware.

In the latest Ericsson Mobility Report, the top three apps in the Philippines based on monthly active users are Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Viber. Messaging apps also topped the list for other countries in the region: WhatsApp for Singapore and Malaysia, LINE for Thailand, and BlackBerry Messenger for Indonesia.

Olandres says this boom is partly driven by OFWs and their families as this system offers an easier and cheaper channel of communication.

Viber Southeast Asia director Crystal Lee adds that stickers are an additional feature of these apps that isn’t carried by SMS. For the Philippines alone, they generated 30-40 special stickers. She says the stickers are used “when they don’t have the words to say it.”

This surge, however, may not yet be the death of text messaging as not every Filipino owns a smartphone and Internet is not reliable in many provinces.

“The telcos are able to somehow come up with new services or new bundles to compensate for the loss of revenue coming from calls and SMS,” says Olandres, as both Smart and Globe offer postpaid and prepaid promos with data allocation for messaging apps.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Viber launches free video calling for mobile

MANILA, Philippines – Free messaging app Viber is now allowing users to make video calls on both desktop and mobile in its latest version.

New features and enhancements come with Viber 5.0 for Android and iOS, and new versions of its desktop application for Windows, Windows 8 and OS X.

“We’re delighted to bring video calling to mobile,” said Viber chief executive Talmon Marco.

“Now that you can make video calls from your phone as well as on your PC and Mac, you can always talk in the way that’s most convenient for you, wherever you happen to be,” he added.

Viber’s video call service not only aims to connect friends and family, it is also envisioned as a necessary tool in schools, businesses, and office places for videoconferences.

Viber 5.0 also includes an upgrade in managing contacts by adding the Viber number or scanning a special QR code.

The new version also includes several OS specific enhancements on sticker packs and photo messages for iOS users; redesign and for Android users; new design, backgrounds gallery and bug fixes for Desktop v4.3; and new design, an updated snap mode with stickers, emoticons and notifications, bug fixes, the ability to see online contacts from the home screen and PNG support for photo messages for Win 8 v3.2.

Viber is available for free for iPhone, Android phones and tablets, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Blackberry 10, Windows, Windows 8, Mac, Linux, Symbian, Nokia S40 and Bada devices over 3G/4G or WiFi connections.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com