21CTO

Oct 6, 2015 · Information Security

How Pavel Durov Built Telegram: A Security‑First Messaging Platform

The article chronicles Pavel Durov’s journey from creating Russia’s VK social network to founding Telegram, highlighting his libertarian philosophy, clashes with authorities, and the technical design choices—such as the open‑source MTProto protocol, privacy focus, zero‑ads policy, and high performance—that make Telegram a unique secure messaging service.