Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban • Hacker News Board

Re: Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban

#251

Post by simoncion » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 8:18 PM UTC

001spartan wrote: post #214

simoncion wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a cite for this? Signal (née TextSecure) runs on Android and iOS, with an in-development Chrome extension (or whatever) to run where Chrome runs.

The initial announcement of the partnership between WhatsApp and TextSecure ( https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp/ ) states that it was only for the Android WhatsApp client, and I'm unable to find an update saying that it has been added to the iOS client.

Oh. Thanks for digging that up.

This quote from the post really stands out to me:

"WhatsApp runs on an incredible number of mobile platforms, so full deployment will be an incremental process as we add TextSecure protocol support into each WhatsApp client platform. We have a ways to go until all mobile platforms are fully supported, but we are moving quickly towards a world where all WhatsApp users will get end-to-end encryption by default."

It seems... unlikely that the crypto integration would be left half-done. I guess I could find a Whatsapp user with an iDevice and another with an Android device and look at the software UI for clues. :D

Re: Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban

#252

Post by PauloManrique » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 8:35 PM UTC

ppadron wrote: post #242

PauloManrique wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the numbers about brazilian police are totally out of place and don't count the way our country is right now about violence. We got the highest homicide count on the planet, being a country that banned guns. That, for sure, makes police more agressive.

How can those numbers be 'out of place'? Just last month the state of São Paulo started to remove assassinations by the police from the official murder stats [1] to make it look like things are getting better. Also: "Between January and November in 2014, 816 people were murdered by military police officers in the state of São Paulo." - and it did not reduce crime [2] [1] http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2015/11…

Do you realize we got a civil war in Brazil, where 60k people die every year?

Re: Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban

#253

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 8:46 PM UTC

khgvljhkb wrote: post #147

marcosdumay wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever you think, our Law says that if the police has enough evidence to strongly suspect somebody, a court can restrict his right of privacy to gather extra proof. You may hold any opinion you want, but the above is in Brazilian Constitution, and not even contested by anybody.

I don't know brazilian law, but in my country (Sweden. I'm ashamed...) the Military office for Radio Communications (FRA) is recording all data crossing the border (which of course includes the data of all citizens, since the internet is borderless). They certainly do not have evidence that every citizen and every foreigner (total 7 billion people) is a pedophile, terrorist or even a jaywalker. I for one have lost an…

Well, as far the it's publicly known, Brazil does not monitor data that crosses its border, nor has implanted capacity to do so.

What I don't understand is why you bring that point to a discussion about WatsApp hiding information about an specific crime.

Re: Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban

#254

Post by whatever_dude » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 8:55 PM UTC

iraphael wrote: post #178

whatever_dude wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. WhatsApp could not deliver what the judge requested, even if they wanted to. Messages are encrypted end to end and not kept in their servers. The Judge requested something impossible. predictably, WhatsApp and Facebook did not comply. The Judge threw a hissy fit and decided to block the service, affecting everyone who uses it (95% of the Internet users in the country). A similar thing happened years ago wh…

Apparently, Whatsapp is only end-to-end encrypted on Android, where it uses TextSecure. On iOS, it still uses RC4.

You are probably correct. They adopted TextSecure on Android near the end of 2014, but I'm not sure of the state of iOS.

Re: Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban

#255

Post by fiatjaf » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 9:15 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #228

fiatjaf wrote: post #15

I would love if a huge part of the population remained in WhatsApp while another migrated to Telegram and another kept both apps. I want people who use instant messaging services to suffer.

Please post civilly and substantively or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Ok, I will. I'm sorry.

Re: Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban

#256

Post by dang » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 9:17 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #243

dang wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you did here is not cool. On HN, we start from the benefit of the doubt. A person can be both a programmer and a judge. pqdbr's comment was coherent and plausible. The null hypothesis is therefore that pqdbr is making a valuable contribution. It's fine and interesting to look through someone's comment history for background. It can also be ok to ask questions based on that, but this is always delicate and must b…

Totally respect moving it as it is a distraction at this point. That said, my comment wasn't particularly harsh and I think it's reasonable to be suspect of such lofty claims, especially with basically no proof to be found anywhere in a cursory search. One commenter did some serious research to find Portuguese language proof and that is why this was even an issue. Had the commenter been full of BS, which is the overw…

You're misinterpreting the upvotes on a comment like that. They simply mean what GIFs of popcorn mean.

Outrage and drama drive more upvotes than intellectual curiosity does. That's why upvotes, though vital, are not the final arbiter here. HN is a constitutional democracy, and what you did was unconstitutional. Please don't do it again.

Re: Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban

#257

Post by etiam » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 9:25 PM UTC

moxie wrote: post #218

etiam wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in the limited sense that Telegram appears to at least have an intention of really providing private messaging and one might hope that they one day drop the delusions of grandeur and start to take seriously constructive criticism about how to do it right, as you and others have presented in other threads here. My understanding of the Whatsapp end-to-end-encryption is that the use of the term is completely mislea…

It's actually the exact opposite. Telegram has made design decisions that prevent them from ever being able to provide private messaging by default without radically altering their design and re-writing all of their clients. The Telegram "client" is really the server -- everything happens there, and the client you use is just a view onto the server.

Thank you for pointing that out.

That structure seems enlightening to understanding how Telegram has been able to create clients for so many operating systems in a relatively short time.

Re: Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban

#258

Post by ethbro » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 9:47 PM UTC

caskance wrote: post #250

ethbro wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reasoning proceed from two different opinions of the citizenry. It's my opinion that in any reasonably developed and old democracy a majority of the population are currently criminals in the sense that they have broken at least one law. In reality, that law is either trivial, inconsistently enforced, or generally ignored. But the important thing is that it's still on the books as the law of the land , and…

You've described a problem privacy only exacerbates. Complete enforcement is the best way to get bad laws adjusted or removed. Privacy makes that harder.

Disagree. Money always buys privacy / leniency.

In a completely transparent system, you'll still have bad or questionable laws. You'll just have them only applied to people who can't buy their way out.

Unless complete transparency also solves the corruption problem. ;)

Re: Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban

#259

Post by hidingfromherd » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 11:03 PM UTC

Perhaps I'm being hard-headed here, but I don't understand the need to debate secure communications here, beyond the benefit of opening doubt in the minds of those ignorant of the underlying physical process.

This boils down to the fact (for me, and by proxy, my community) that I (and by proxy, my community) will not use insecure communication because someone or someones wants me to do so.

Shake your fist, rattle your sabres, put me in your sights, it will not change my (and by proxy, my community's) resolve.

And if I (and by proxy, my community) is to be prosecuted for using secure channels, then I (and by proxy, my community) will resort to steganography. Exact circumstances aside, there's no getting around the effects of a dedicated mind and an overwhelming power (of math) on my communications' transit.

The only means by which a paternal element can mediate the policies of my interactions would be to mediate the interface by which I (and by proxy, my community) communicate (in this case -- electronic/digital computerhuman), and enforce this with vigilant, and economically costly violence.

This matter-of-factness is similar to that in traffic stop interactions. I'm not happy that men with guns can systematically stop my transit, search my belongings, and steal my assets (at least in Texas), with ex post facto logic applied to the inherent justice, and I have no way of stopping this. The exact circumstances aside, there's no getting around the effects of a dedicated mind and an overwhelming power on my transit.

So I work around it, I try not to get stopped, and I deal with it when I do get stopped. I don't shake my fist or pout, beyond for the benefit of opening doubt in the minds of those ignorant of the underlying physical process.

Re: Telegram gains 1M users after Whatsapp ban

#260

Post by kawakiole » Thu, Dec 17, 2015, 11:46 PM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #249

teekert wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying freedom of speech is a bad thing. You are endorsing state censorship. Do you realize that at one point you yourself could be in a position where you disagree with your government and you want to speak up only to find your message being silenced constantly? Either all people are equal or they are not, some people can not be more equal than others.

Yes I realize that. If I disagree with my government and my message cannot spread by any method other than hijacking mass media, then perhaps most people don't feel as I do. And that is super significant. Everyone is equal, and giving random people the chance to control a huge megaphone makes you LESS equal, not more. The one who gets their megaphone spreads their message more. And with great power comes great respon…

> giving random people the chance to control a huge megaphone makes you LESS equal, not more

People can choose what to hear. It's not random, It's the complete opposite of random.