http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/technology/once-celebrated-in-russia-programmer-pavel-durov-chooses-exile.html?_r=1LONDON — When a SWAT team appeared at Pavel Durov’s door in St. Petersburg, he started thinking about his future in Russia.
He was home alone, and he peered at them through a monitor.
“They had guns and they looked very serious,” said Mr. Durov, once Russia’s biggest celebrity entrepreneur. “They seemed to want to break the door.”
Not long ago, Mr. Durov, 30, was seen as Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg. He founded a social network, VKontakte, which is more popular in Russia than Facebook, and made a splash by publicly offering Edward Snowden a job.
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“The best thing about Russia at that time was the Internet sphere was completely not regulated,” he said. “In some ways, it was more liberal than the United States.”
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Now the Internet is viewed with suspicion by Mr. Putin, who has called it a “C.I.A. project” and has taken steps to insulate Russia from the rest of the digital world. One leading Russian activist recently said the government was on a “campaign to shut down the Internet.”
“Since I’m obviously a believer in free markets,” Mr. Durov said, “it’s hard for me to understand the current direction of the country.”
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Demonstrations in 2011 over parliamentary elections resulted in a government showdown. During the SWAT standoff at his home that followed, he called his brother.
“I realized I don’t have a safe means of communications with him,” he said, adding, “That’s how Telegram started.”Telegram is competing in a crowded field of messaging apps that promise varying degrees of security. Telegram has its fans and detractors, but it was rated respectably in a recent evaluation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The Telegram company, based in Berlin, has a deliberately complex structure of scattered global shell companies intended to keep it a step ahead of subpoenas from any one government.
It's fascinating... only possible in Russia... not seen from any us oligarchs... why? why? why? Durov fsb (walking awy with 4B$) or real creator of a solution of communication?
