What is Telegram?
Telegram is an open-source API messaging platform service launched in 2013.
The platform allows developers to create their own apps and use the free-to-use API to develop specialised tools, like bots, to integrate services.
The platform currently has over 700 million monthly active users.
It is one of the 10 most downloaded apps in the world.
It is known for supporting file shares of up to 2GB, stored on the cloud that can be accessed from different devices.
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Supported financially by Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai on the technological front.
Telegram makes money through its sponsored messages and premium subscriptions.
The platform protects private conversations from snooping third parties including officials, marketers, and advertisers, the platform’s website says.
The platform does not process any requests related to group chats and private conversations among participants.
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Telegram Bots
What is Telegram?
They only entertain requests related to sticker sets, channels, and bots as they are publicly available.
What are Telegram bots?
Bots are computer programs that act as agents of a user or another computer program.
Bots on Telegram are small applications that run entirely within the platform and can be designed to support any kind of task or service.
Bots on Telegram can host full Web Apps and can be designed to support everything from online stores to arcade games.
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Additionally, they can also be designed to make it easier for users to access information held within large databases they are connected to.
Users can enter commands, or simply enter the name or description of files they are looking for and the bot can search the connected database to present the information.
Bots are listed on the platform as special accounts that do not require a phone number to set up and are connected to the owner’s server which processes input and requests from users.
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They can be found using the search feature on the Telegram app.
Users can identify bots by looking at their username which usually has bot as the suffix.
They can also have @stickers @gif @wiki or @bing as their suffix.
Who can create bots on Telegram?
Any developer with some skills in computer programming or a third-party service provider can create a Telegram bot using the platform’s bot API.
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The API gives the tools and framework required to integrate code for the bot within the platform.
The platform assists the creation of bots through “Botfather” a virtual user designed to be the central development tool for Telegram bots.
Telegram requires bots created using its Bot API to be registered using an authentication token generated by the platform.
Bots on the platform can be created using a wide range of programming languages which include Java and Python.
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What is the use of bots on Telegram?
Bots are usually used in professional areas for smart communication and pulling information from defined databases.
Users can send commands to bots that they respond to with relevant information or perform tasks they are designed to do.
For example, if a user does not wish to open their email app to check their messages, they can use a bot to check their email within the Telegram app. Users can also authorise bots to respond to emails from the Telegram app.
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Are bots on Telegram safe?
While Telegram encourages developers to create bots that comply with its terms of service, not all bots may be secure and some can pose security risks.
Bots may collect user data, including personal information and chat history and users should read the terms of service and privacy policy to understand how individual bots handle user data.
Bots can also be created by threat actors to contain malicious content, such as links to phishing websites or malware.
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Threat actors can also distribute bots to scam users, promising rewards or discounts on purchases to lure users into sharing their personal data.
Some bots could have security vulnerabilities that can be used by threat actors to compromise the security of users.
Introducing a bot to a secure Telegram chat could also downgrade the level of encryption as they may not be using Telegram’s encryption protocol, which works by scrambling and making it illegible while in transit.
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