In its response to Vot Tak, Telegram's press service described how its servers are maintained and rejected the investigation's claims. According to the messenger's representatives, all servers belong to Telegram itself and are serviced by its employees, and unauthorized access to them is impossible.
“All Telegram servers belong to Telegram and are serviced by Telegram employees. Unauthorized access is impossible. Telegram has no employees or servers in Russia. Throughout its history, Telegram has never handed over private messages to third parties, and its encryption has never been compromised,” the messenger's press service said.
The investigation by Important Stories, citing data from the European internet registry RIPE, said that more than 10,000 IP addresses of servers handling Telegram messages belong to Global Network Management (GNM), a company from the Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda. In 2018, GNM sued the owner of a data center in Miami; court materials indicated that Telegram's servers were listed as GNM's property.
What is known about GNM
GNM's owner was identified as Vladimir Vedeneyev, a native of Tolyatti. According to the investigation, he also served as CFO (chief financial officer) of Telegram, but the servers, it was claimed, were not maintained by the messenger's employees at all. In court, Vedeneyev explained that GNM installs client equipment—in this case, for the Telegram messenger—and provides subsequent technical support for that equipment.
Court materials from Florida indicated that Vedeneyev has physical access to Telegram's servers. The case itself concerned unauthorized access to servers: someone entered the server rooms and stole nearly 1,500 memory cards from Telegram's equipment.
Where the employees are located
Vedeneyev himself and some of his company's employees are physically located in or visit Russia. According to his statements in court, half of GNM's employees are in Russia, where the company has an office in St. Petersburg.
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