Dozens of neo-Nazis are fleeing Telegram and moving to a relatively unknown secret chat app that has received funding from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

In a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue published on Friday morning, researchers found that in the wake of the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov and charges against leaders of the so-called Terrorgram Collective, dozens of extremist groups have moved to the app SimpleX Chat in recent weeks over fears that Telegram’s privacy policies expose them to being arrested. The Terrorgram Collective is a neo-Nazi propaganda network that calls for acolytes to target government officials, attack power stations, and murder people of color.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/neo-nazis-head-to-encrypted-simplex-chat-app-bail-on-telegram/

  • viking@infosec.pub
    172·
    23 days ago

    I doubt that’s the real reason. There are enough smart people on top who could set up and run a self-hosted solution.

    It’s easy to attribute nazis with a lack of intelligence due to their stupid and narrow minded beliefs, but we should never underestimate them.

    I’d wager that the average fascist is just as much a “follower” as the average antifa sympathizer.

    On top of that: Setting up and hosting a platform exposes the system to a single point of failure, whereas using existing third party infrastructure means that they have a “legit” operation as well, so the risk of a total shutdown is probably lower. Plus, there is a higher chance external security researchers/auditors will investigate the platform and point out vulnerabilities.

    • Urist@lemmy.mlEnglish
      4·
      23 days ago

      There is absolutely a corrolation between being stupid and being a neo-nazi. However, in this regard smart people are even more dangerous since they are not only capable of fooling themselves but others as well.

    • leisesprecher@feddit.org
      4·
      23 days ago

      None of your arguments are really an answer to anything.

      Every app, telegram, simplex, ICQ are single points of failure - by design - whereas services like xmpp/jabber or even the self hosted variants of signal, simplex or matrix don’t have these problems. But they don’t do that. At least nothing that I heard of.

      I think the reality is much more that most of the Nazis are inherently not constructive. They don’t create anything, they have no real vision, just hate for whatever group they think is worst right now.

      They are literal leeches, they take over what they can get. Telegram, Twitter, now SimpleX. Volk ohne Messenger, if you want. There is exactly one platform that was created by them, truth social, and that’s a grift by Trump and his team, not something growing from within the community.

    • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
      2·
      23 days ago

      Nazis and their like don’t use reason or logic. Many aren’t able to plan ahead. Their entire ideology requires shutting down big portions of one’s brain to become a frothing reactionary, impermeable to any information which could change their hateful views.

      They don’t create things, they mostly aren’t very tech savvy, and all look for a leader to tell them what to do (go look at their forums, they’re all busy accusing each other of being glowies, just itching for Trump or someone else to give them “the signal” for them to act).

      • viking@infosec.pub
        31·
        23 days ago

        Sounds more like you never dealt with them. I’m German, we still got plenty of ideologically challenged individuals in country, and they are not stupid.

        No idea what a glowie is, but those trump worshiping clowns you got in the US aren’t the people I’m worried about. Over here there is no discernible education gap between left and right wing.