Some of colored telegrams, i.e. unofficial ones, are still active and work without any problems, and their flagship these days is Golden Telegram is still available in Android markets such as Cafe Bazaar And so far there have been many rumors about its identity and type of activity, from the rumor that it is a government to the statement of the Ministry of Communications about the warning of the use of illegal telegrams and the complaint of Abdul Samad Khorramabadi and even his poem against the Golden Telegram are just a few of these rumors. However, there have always been many doubts about the security of Golden Telegram, and not long ago, a three-person team of security experts scrutinized some of the features of this messenger and published interesting opinions about the security of the Golden Telegram platform.
The knowledge-based company “Rahkar Sarzemeh Smarten” in the science and technology park complex of Tehran University is the owner of Golden Telegram, whose products such as the T-News news search engine and the online reservation site of Hana Masafir Hotel are among their other products. Officials of the Golden Telegram group emphasize that their servers are not storage servers and are operational and processing models, and they do not store any copies of information inside Iran.
However, recent researches partially contradict these claims and another issue is that the country’s e-commerce law clearly states that those who work in the e-commerce field as messengers must keep their information for the past 6 months in a safe place.
Alireza Ebrahimi, a security and software expert, is one of the members of the Golden Telegram investigation team, who explains in detail about their research and other issues about the Golden Telegram in his conversation with Digiato. Ebrahimi considers the research and investigation of their own group to be a static analysis and believes that it is possible to violate the privacy of the Golden Telegram, but whether this issue has happened so far by the agents of this group or not cannot be given a 100% seal:
“It is possible that no data has been stored by them so far and the opposite is also possible, but our research was mostly on other insecure aspects of this program. However, according to the advertisements and the problems we observed, we can say almost definitively that the service of sending the list of contacts has been done by this program and has saved all the phone book numbers of its users.”
Data flow from Golden Telegram to Telegram servers
Ebrahimi says that there are 256 IPs that Golden Telegram sends a request to a fixed address every time and receives an encrypted message, and in that message there is the IP address of a proxy server in addition to username and password and another variable called TTL. has:
“TTL or Time To Leave shows how long this server is alive, and its value is usually fifteen minutes, and as a result, the Golden Telegram client sends a new request every quarter. The IP server acquires a new proxy and makes the previous proxy unavailable, and it will probably be recycled later.”
This information security expert believes that the Golden Telegram client is connected to the main Telegram through a proxy server channel, and the main Telegram data passes through it:
“When the data enters the user’s phone, it is opened there, and Golden Telegram has a separate HTTP server that can send this information to another place through this platform, which has nothing to do with the main Telegram servers. They don’t have it, and it is the Golden Telegram. If this section is removed from Golden Telegram, there will be no disruption in its work, and the existence of such a feature that violates the user’s privacy is illogical.”
Most colored telegrams, except the golden telegram, have been removed from Android markets. have been
According to Ebrahimi, Golden Telegram does not have a CDN inside Iran, but has a series of proxy servers and continues its activities with them, and in terms of security, the fact that there is no CDN for Golden Telegram is not a problem, because only public data is stored in the CDN. will be He explains the problems and flaws found in the Golden Telegram in the form of headlines like this and emphasizes that providing this information is not to defame the collection and is a notification to improve the security of millions of users as much as possible:
Ability to send the list of all groups and bots in which the user is a member to your servers
The possibility of sending a list of all the channels in which the user is a member and whether the user is the manager of that channel or not
Ability to receive and send the list of all the user’s contacts along with their username
Possibility of sending user’s location to Golden Telegram servers
The possibility of accessing the Telegram Authentication code, which can be used to gain full access to the desired user’s Telegram account.
Sending proxy server information stored on the client to Golden Telegram servers
Possibility of joining a user in a certain channel by force (without the user’s knowledge)
Possibility of reporting a specific channel by users secretly (without the user’s knowledge)
Possibility to go out and delete the channel by the channel manager (without the user’s knowledge)
The possibility of visiting a specific URL by users secretly (it can be used to carry out DDoS attacks or increase the number of visits to a site)
Although the officials of Golden Telegram introduced sticker sales as one of their main business plans in a conversation with Hamshahri newspaper, Ebrahimi believes that Golden Telegram’s income generation model is in different ways:
“For example, in the codes of this program, we saw a series of advertising URL links, and we also saw a series of electronic payment services inside the codes, which are probably in the future of this system program. We personally did not see anything from the sale of data and their exchange, but in any case, the cost of proxy servers, along with their many users, is a significant cost, and there are also strong programming experts in this group who definitely have special and high costs for the group, and we don’t know how. These expenses are covered.”
The research done on the Golden Telegram by Alireza Ebrahimi, Yashar Shahinzadeh and Hassan Karametpour and its full and detailed text is in this link It has been published.
