Urban legend – Since June 7, a dark tweet has been stirring the crypto community on social networks. The post accuses influential members of the community of fraudulent, even criminal behavior. For the moment no name has filtered. The tone of the letter is worthy of a Racinian tragedy. The serious facts described there cast even more doubt on this case. Telegram encrypted messaging, widely used by cryptography enthusiasts, would be subject to a major security flaw. If true, this flaw would make the application anything but secure. Posted anonymously, the tweet ignited Crypto Twitter. The account announces that it has recovered very compromising information and has published a calendar of upcoming revelations…
A crow on Twitter
Let’s remember the facts. The Twitter account Adyingnobody made a sensational statement on June 7. He attached a letter that can also be found in the comments of the post. This thread has spread like wildfire within the cryptosphere. He gave free rein to interpretations of the digital chicken coop run by the blue bird.
The anonymous explains that he found a Telegram security breach. He would thus have had access to private conversations without being part of them. He explains that he thus directly targeted influential members of the crypto community to exploit this flaw and therefore spy on them. Between October 2019 and May 2022, the author of the tweet would have accumulated more than 137 GB of discussions.
” Over the next few weeks, I will be posting 137.21 GB of chats and messages from Telegram groups, of which I was not a part. Why ? All thanks to a flaw discovered in October 2019 that allowed access to the group’s page with recent messages if the appropriate permissions were not configured. At the time of this writing, the Telegram team has been contacted about this. »
The Raven in question, @adyingnobody
Monstrous announcements on the crypto community
Linear analysis or compound commentary? We hesitated. This lyrical letter is imbued with a dramatic tone that leaves doubts as to its veracity for the moment. The evidence is still lacking. In these hacked messages, there would be evidence of many crimes. Something to shake the community if these accusations were to be proven.
The Raven details a schedule of revelations. The information will, a priori, be provided in dribs and drabs between June 15 and June 30. The final reveal would take place on July 7. The letter ends with an address Ethereum which would be supposed to register all its statements on the blockchain on each announced date.
A denial from Telegram: a crypto scam in the making
However, very quickly, Telegram spoke to our colleagues from The Block and on Twitter. The social network thus explains that the assertions disseminated would be false and would have “ all the hallmarks of a hoax “.
The Block also confirms having received an email with the same pseudonym and similar comments. However, they did not have any details when they asked for more information. What he invites however to do to publicize the thing:
“Those who know me will know very soon who I am, for the rest of the population it does not matter. Due to the overwhelming amount of postings, I formally invite reputable press within the community to contact me for sample archives of groups I have curated in the past. I go to you review because there is a conflict of interest. Many are personally involved, whether they are friends of these people in these records or financially connected in some way. »
A Telegram spokesperson was clear about this sensational announcement. He declares, always to our colleagues of The Block, that the objective of the process is to download malware to steal private keys, sensitive data. Examples of cryptocurrency wallets siphoned off, sensitive files stolen in this way are unfortunately too numerous. The artist Beeple has also recently had his Twitter account hacked with the aim of hacking the community of the artist.
As of this writing, no evidence has been provided. This affair remains above all an example of the distrust that must be had towards the information that hangs around and haunts Twitter. It can be tempting for the curious, but also for the big wallets to give in to the blackmail of the crow for example. It is therefore essential to find and then cross-check different reliable sources and not to click on anything. In the meantime, the horrors described in the Twitter thread remain hypothetical and remind us of the importance of security. So never forget the adage DYOR (Do Your Own Research), always do your own research.