Tag:

temporarily

Decrypt logo
NFT Gaming

Telegram Boss Pavel Durov Temporarily Permitted to Leave France: Report

by admin



In brief

  • Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France last year.
  • Authorities allege illegal material was being shared on the crypto-friendly app.
  • Durov will be allowed to travel to Dubai for just two weeks.

Embattled Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov may leave France to travel to Dubai, according to a Thursday report in the French daily Le Monde. 

Durov, who was arrested in France last year on allegations his crypto-friendly platform was complicit in allowing illegal material to be shared on the app, will be able to leave the country starting July 10. It is the second time he has received such permission since being detained. 

In April, French authorities allowed Durov to briefly travel to Dubai—but not to the United States. Telegram’s offices are headquartered in Dubai. Durov had to pay a €5 million ($5.7 million) bond and report to the authorities twice a week as part of the deal at the time. 



Telegram could not immediately be reached for comment. 

French police allege that criminals have been using the app and that Telegram was not doing enough to moderate content on it. 

They have also said that Durov was under investigation for using certain types of cryptography on the platform in the country without permission.

The app has changed some of its functions since Durov has been cooperating with the authorities following his arrest. Users who now try to share illegal content could have their IP addresses and phone numbers passed to authorities, the app announced last year. 

Russian-born Durov, who is worth $13.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, frequently talks about civil liberties and the importance of freedom. 

His arrest last year outraged many in the crypto community—and many out of it—with prominent figures like whistleblower Edward Snowden and Tesla boss Elon Musk criticizing the French law enforcement’s move. 

Messaging app Telegram is popular in the crypto world, and supports a number of “mini apps” that allow users to earn digital tokens. 

A top blockchain, The Open Network, was created by Telegram but then abandoned in 2020 due to regulatory issues. 

Development then continued externally via a community of independent programmers. Users can earn its native token, TON, the 21st biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, in the app. 

Edited by James Rubin

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
A cover for the book Era of Ruin, with artwork by Neil Roberts.
Product Reviews

Games Workshop hits the panic button, temporarily shuts down Warhammer site after scalpers descend upon it with ‘abominable intelligence’ and bots

by admin



Scalpers are a menace in a lot of hobbies, not just in the realm of gaming hardware and paraphernalia. Still, they’ve been especially bad here in recent years. Flipping phantom graphics cards, snapping up special editions, and ruining cute exhibits meant for children. Games Workshop, the company behind Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, are certainly no exception to this rule: If you want to release a thing, scalpers’ll probably ruin it.

The thing in question this time is the special edition of Siege of Terra: Era of Ruin, which is the latest instalment in the Horus Heresy (now the Siege of Terra) books. Games Workshop opened up pre-orders via a queue system on its website, designed to stop scalpers armed with armies of bots spoiling the whole thing.

Then scalpers armed with armies of bots spoiled the whole thing. On the same day, Games Workshop hit the panic button and took its entire website down to stem the tide (thanks, Wargamer). As an official post on the company’s Facebook reads:


Related articles

“You might have noticed that we’ve paused Warhammer.com for a short period—here’s why:

“Today we launched our pre-order for the much-anticipated special edition of Siege of Terra: Era of Ruin anthology. Unfortunately, scalpers attempted to use bots to bypass our normal safeguards.”

The bots, which the post later calls an “abominable intelligence if there ever was one”—comparing these bots to the Silica Animus which is, and I mean this lovingly, a dunk that only people whose bedrooms smell of mini paint will get—forced Games Workshop to pull the plug.

“We’re pausing the launch of Era of Ruin and have removed it from Warhammer.com for the time being. Don’t worry, it’s still coming—we’re just absolutely determined that real fans get it. All erroneous orders are being purged. This is our number one priority.”

(Image credit: The Warhammer Facebook page.)

Fans looking to get a leather-bound anthology can instead sign up for an emailing list to find out when “the re-launch happens”.

The Horus Heresy is one of Games Workshop’s most prolific series, with over 60(!) books comprising the entire saga. This one in particular’s an anthology, with tales from a whole regiment of prior authors featured in the Horus Heresy—and it’s slated to come out in July. Whether anyone’ll be able to get their hands on a special edition, though, only the Omnissiah knows.



Source link

0 comments
0 FacebookTwitterPinterestEmail
Close