Telegram Desktop Adds WEB Proxy to Hide MTProxy Traffic Inside HTTPS and WebSocket Connections
Telegram Desktop has received an initial implementation of a new WEB proxy that hides messenger connections inside ordinary HTTPS and WebSocket traffic. For network providers the user appears to be simply visiting a website, while MTProxy continues to function under the hood.
Changes were discovered in the client source code. Developers added more than 3,000 lines, a separate WEB-proxy transport, domain settings, and interface controls including “Open browser” and “Waiting for browser.”
The scheme operates as follows: Telegram Desktop launches an embedded web page and establishes a secure WebSocket connection to a domain that externally resembles an ordinary site. Several MTProxy connections are combined into one stream and transmitted through this channel. On the server side an intermediate node splits the stream back into separate connections and passes them to a conventional MTProxy instance. The relay does not need to decrypt the correspondence content and functions only as a transport sorter.
This approach is expected to complicate traffic blocking by providers that rely on DPI or simple domain blacklists, because the observable traffic matches typical web browsing patterns.
Related articles
TV Manufacturers Admit They Cannot Fully Disable User Data Collection
The Verge surveyed 11 major television and streaming device makers about their data collection practices, receiving responses from seven companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, LG, Roku, Samsung and TCL. Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology, used for targeted advertising and audience measurement, remains a central concern, with Samsung, LG and Amazon disabling it by default. Google enables diagnostic and advertising data collection under standard settings, while Apple stated that Apple TV 4K does not employ ACR. Amazon, Google, Samsung and Roku acknowledged that complete opt-out from data transmission is impossible, with devices caching information offline for later upload. Research from Northeastern University revealed that Vizio continued sending data even after users declined collection, labeling it as operational telemetry. LG was found to potentially store unencrypted voice command transcripts and determine location via nearby Wi-Fi networks when ACR is active.
Personal Data in Russian Franchise Networks: Who Qualifies as Data Operator Under 152-FZ
In typical franchise models, customer personal data is collected at franchisee points, stored in the franchisor’s central system, and used for network-wide loyalty programs and marketing. The key legal question is which party determines the purposes of processing and therefore bears operator status under Federal Law No. 152-FZ. The law defines an operator as the entity that independently or jointly sets processing purposes, data composition, and actions, regardless of contractual labels. Franchisees usually act as operators when concluding contracts with customers, while franchisors become processors unless they pursue independent goals such as running loyalty schemes or sending branded advertising. When a franchisor defines its own purposes, both parties may simultaneously qualify as operators for different processing objectives, requiring separate legal bases and documentation. Proper data-processing instructions must be embedded in the commercial concession agreement and must list specific data categories, actions, security measures, and breach-notification timelines to avoid administrative fines ranging from 150,000 to 500,000 RUB.
Dynamic Sites on Yandex Cloud Storage Enable Communication Under White-List Restrictions
A developer facing mobile internet white lists explored ways to exchange encrypted messages without relying on blocked infrastructure. Initial attempts with a national messenger bot failed due to poor API documentation and account hijacking. The team then modeled the problem as three neighboring plots where Alice and Bob route messages through Eve while a slow postman handles delivery. Yandex Disk was tested as a message store accessible via direct GET and POST requests, though it required accounts and suffered from 15-25 second latency. The final approach used Yandex Cloud object storage, whose domains remained whitelisted, allowing HTML files to load and function even when only government services and select platforms were reachable.
Rawline Aggregates VK, MAX, DNS and Other Tunnels into One Multi-Platform VPN Client
Rawline is a new multi-platform client that combines various VPN protocols and non-standard transports into a single application for Android, Windows, Linux and macOS. The project is built on Throne using sing-box and Xray network cores and supports both conventional protocols and unusual transports such as VK and MAX calls, WebRTC, DNS and S3. Users can import profiles via links or QR codes, test latency, chain connections and apply per-app or per-domain routing rules. The developer paid special attention to security issues, removing unnecessary local proxy endpoints, protecting internal connections with random passwords and adding traffic ownership verification that is enabled by default on Android 10 and newer. Additional fixes were implemented after discovering that some transport bridges could be hijacked by external applications sending the first UDP packet. Source code and builds are available on GitHub.