Telegram Defender

Telegram Defender can be added to any channel or group. It will automatically scan links that get posted for malware, and will remove them if detected. It can also tell you more about the media source (look in settings for more information). Feel free to submit any ideas or code contributions!

Set up a secure server

The fastest way to set up Telegram Defender is through Digital Ocean.

Everything was built and tested on Ubuntu 18

Set up your bot with the Botfather

1. In Telegram, start a conversation with the @botfather.

More information can be found here.

2. Enter /newbot
3. Name your bot

If succesful, it will look something like this

Done! Congratulations on your new bot. You will find it at t.me/teledefconbot. You can now add a description, about section and profile picture for your bot, see /help for a list of commands. By the way, when you've finished creating your cool bot, ping our Bot Support if you want a better username for it. Just make sure the bot is fully operational before you do this.

Use this token to access the HTTP API:
98379:AAHaFDqDrnW6lgzXxLftk6cnU1733yaYhP9yyUQ (*note: this is a fake key)
Keep your token secure and store it safely, it can be used by anyone to control your bot.

For a description of the Bot API, see this page: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api

Create an Avira URL Safety Cloud scanner:

1. Go here: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/Avira-Avira-URL-Safety-Cloud/B079C6B7LL
2. You'll need to subscribe to this service via AWS.
3. Once that's complete, go here https://developer.protection-services.avira.com/apis
   • You should see: Avira URL Safety Cloud Entrypoint: https://nihh1mvy78.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/prod/url-query Save this URL for later.
   • Click show api key to get your api key. Save that for later too.

AllSides Media Bias Ratings

1. AllSides Media Bias rankings are not publicly available. These bias ratings are publicly available at AllSides.com. To request this data as CSV or JSON contact them.

   • In exchange for access to their data, we have include a module that allows them to know that a user came to their site via the Telegram Defender bot. It is not a cookie, will not track you, or disclose anything else. You may notice the following code at the end of linkes that take you to AllSides

     ?utm_source=Live+Partner+Network&utm_medium=Media+Bias+Ratings&utm_campaign=Telegram+Defender

   • More information can be found in their privacy policy which you can read by clicking here

   • TLDR; AllSides.com actually has a great Privacy Policy that respects your rights and appears to be fully compliant with best practices and regulations.

Bot Settings

There are two main JSON files that contain your settings and tokens to deploy the bot.

Settings.json

This contains some of the text responses for your bot. It must be in the same folders as bot.py

• "messages:" - array of possible messages
• "welcome:" Message that bot sends when someone joins chat
• "help:" Message that bot sends when someone sends '/help' command
• "start:" Message taht bot sends when someone sends '/start' command to start bot in private chat
• "malware_detected:" Message that bot sends when found malicious link
• "allsides_no_stats:" Message that bot sends when link was found, but website was not in the list or was not rated.
  • {url} - parameter where found url is listed
• "allsides_found:" - Message that bot sends when link was found and listed.
  • {side} - parameter that is changes depending on websites side,
  • {allsides_url} - allsides URL of listed website
• "something_wrong- " - If any unknown error appears bot will send this message to the chat.
• "images_base_dir" - base directory for images. If images listed in the same directory that bot.py is just leave blank.

Token.json

This file contains the API tokens for TelegramBotAPI and Avira URL Safety Cloud API. WARNING: NEVER SHARE YOUR TOKENS!

Deployment

Here are steps to get your own private Telegram Defender online

Configure your bot on Telegram

1. Create a new Channel.

   • Give it a name
   • Public vs Private
   • Admins
   • Add "TelegramDefender" bot

2. To set the user pic, start a chat with @Botfather

   • Enter /setuserpic
   • Select the name of your bot
   • Send the photo

Deploying your bot to a server

3. Create a new server that's running Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

   • run sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
   • run sudo apt-get update
   • run sudo apt-get install
   • run sudo apt-get install python3-setuptools
   • run sudo apt-get install python3-pip
   • run sudo apt-get install python3.8
   • run sudo apt install python3.8-venv python3.8-dev

4. Go to your root directory

   • git clone https://github.com/NightSkyStudios/telegram-defender.git

5. Set Python 3.8 as default

   • Go to your root folder with cd ~
   • Create a new directory with mkdir venvs
   • Open it with cd venvs
   • Run python3.8 -m venv tdenv
   • Run source tdenv/bin/activate

6. Install dependencies

   • enter cd ~/telegram-defender/bot
   • run pip3 install -r requirements.txt
     • you may see this warning, but it's okay to ignore it.

WARNING: You are using pip version 19.2.3, however version 19.3.1 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.

7. Update your tokens
   • enter nano ~/telegram-defender/bot/json/token.json to create a new file
   • Replace the API keys below with the ones you got earlier. The URL should be the same.
   • Press Ctrl + X to save and exit.

{
    "bot_token": "XXXXXXXX",
    "avira_token": "XXXXXXXX",
    "avira_url": "https://nihh1mvy78.execute-api.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/prod/url-query"
}

8. Now we need to update the service

   • run apt-get install systemd

   This will restart the bot if it goes down.

   • enter cd /etc/systemd/system
   • enter nano bot.service

9. Copy the following code and enter Ctrl + X to exit and save.

[Unit]
Description=TelegramDefender
After=syslog.target
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
User=root
WorkingDirectory=/root/telegram-defender/bot
ExecStart=/root/venvs/tdenv/bin/python /root/telegram-defender/bot/bot.py
RestartSec=10
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

10. Run this 4 command to deploy the bot.
    • run systemctl daemon-reload
    • run systemctl enable bot
    • run systemctl start bot
    • run systemctl status bot

If succesful, you should see something that looks like this:

● bot.service - TelegramDefender
        Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/bot.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
        Active: active (running) since Wed 2019-09-11 14:18:54 UTC; 3s ago
    Main PID: 8345 (python3)
        Tasks: 4 (limit: 1152)
        CGroup: /system.slice/bot.service
                └─8345 /usr/bin/python3 /root/telegram-defender/bot/bot.py

That's it! You're ready to go!

Add Telegram Defender to a Channel

Note that in a channel, it will not answer to /start or /help commands.

1. Add your bot to a channel.
2. Set it as admin
   • In a new group ➜ info ➜ administators ➜admin

Add Telegram Defender to a Group

In a group (or private chat), the bot will respond to anyone

1. Add your bot (or ours, @tdef_bot)
2. Edit gorup settings ➜ Administrators ➜ Add Admin ➜ Telegram Defender
3. Type /start or /help in the chat

Attributions

AllSides Media Bias Ratings by AllSides.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You may use this data for research or noncommercial purposes provided you include this attribution.