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Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

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Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#11
post #5

>"It would be naive to think you can run an independent/secure cryptoapp based in the US." This seems to be a shot at WhatsApp and Signal, implying that they have loopholes that allow the FBI to snoop in. I'm not sure how true that is. This might be an attempt to deflect from the fact that Telegram uses a home-baked encryption protocol which might be insecure, while WhatsApp uses the OWS protocol.

Bingo. The CEO of Telegram likes to spread conspiracy theories that are good for business. In a recent tweet he claimed that Signal is "funded by the US government", [1] citing a ridiculous hit piece on OWS and Moxie. [2]

[1] https://twitter.com/durov/status/872891017418113024

[2] https://surveillancevalley.com/blog/government-backed-privac...

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#12
"a few months later i was offered an interview for a position at the fbi office for cyber-warfare in nyc who as well offered to fix my immigration status"

and, "before going to monterey and while exploring the beauty of san francisco i was contacted once by a us navy intelligence officer who seemingly unintentionally appeared next to me at the bar"

http://mickey.lucifier.net/b4ckd00r.html

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#13
post #11
post #5

>"It would be naive to think you can run an independent/secure cryptoapp based in the US." This seems to be a shot at WhatsApp and Signal, implying that they have loopholes that allow the FBI to snoop in. I'm not sure how true that is. This might be an attempt to deflect from the fact that Telegram uses a home-baked encryption protocol which might be insecure, while WhatsApp uses the OWS protocol.

Bingo. The CEO of Telegram likes to spread conspiracy theories that are good for business. In a recent tweet he claimed that Signal is "funded by the US government", [1] citing a ridiculous hit piece on OWS and Moxie. [2] [1] https://twitter.com/durov/status/872891017418113024 [2] https://surveillancevalley.com/blog/government-backed-privac...

Even wikipedia say it's founded by the governement ...

As of October 2016, the project has received an unknown amount of donations from individual sponsors via the Freedom of the Press Foundation.[100] Open Whisper Systems has received grants from the Knight Foundation,[101] the Shuttleworth Foundation,[102] and the Open Technology Fund,[103] a U.S. government funded program that has also supported other privacy projects like the anonymity software Tor and the encrypted instant messaging app Cryptocat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#14
post #13
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. The CEO of Telegram likes to spread conspiracy theories that are good for business. In a recent tweet he claimed that Signal is "funded by the US government", [1] citing a ridiculous hit piece on OWS and Moxie. [2] [1] https://twitter.com/durov/status/872891017418113024 [2] https://surveillancevalley.com/blog/government-backed-privac...

Even wikipedia say it's founded by the governement ... As of October 2016, the project has received an unknown amount of donations from individual sponsors via the Freedom of the Press Foundation.[100] Open Whisper Systems has received grants from the Knight Foundation,[101] the Shuttleworth Foundation,[102] and the Open Technology Fund,[103] a U.S. government funded program that has also supported other privacy proj…

Funded by the government != The government has their hands all over it

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#15
The ridiculousness of it all is it's unreasonable at its base to try to prevent encryption as a form of safety and security from violence.

Sure, you can lock up all communication for privacy reasons, and the government can spend all kinds of resources on trying to control to prevent or circumvent encryption - however it's a waste of resources as it's simply a bandaid.

If I wanted to do something violent or evil I/you can simply have regular meetings and use paper communication - the old spy-style stuff. Of course those networks can be infiltrated by governments with the resources, and they can maintain that presence by allowing certain acts within networks to occur vs. deciding which ones they should stop; it's how the war against Hitler was won once their encryption was broken - watch the very well-done The Imitation Game - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/ - for a reference.

The only real solution is dealing with the root causes. I heard an analyst on TV (a rare occasion for me) mention after Trump's Saudi visit and speech, that he didn't mention that the Saudis should look into the root causes of why there is terrorist activity growing in their countries; of course a lot of it is historical karma and rage from violent acts against their families, however a lot is because people's basic needs aren't being met which prevents the higher levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs from being reached and maintained.

There's a solution and it requires building real community, locally, where you are now - and striving for people to become healthy so they don't develop bias and other coping mechanisms which prevent empathy and understanding and therefore compassion; preventing responsible ownership of weapons isn't useful either, not developing and supplying weapons on mass would be beneficial, however most attacks recently have been with vehicles or knives.

Universal Basic Income will also allow closer to a truly free work market and it can evolve from there, giving people the time to do what they feel is the most important in that moment for themselves, while not having to be forced to working in a shitty environment with shitty managers or co-workers; the health improvement and increased productivity here alone is worth it.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#16
post #7

Sounds like a reasonable exit if noone wants to buy your popular e2e encrypted chat app. Take the bribe, shutdown and move on to the next iteration.

1) Open source codebase pre-backdoor 2) Take bribe 3) Insert backdoor 4) Close company

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#17
post #8

Assuming this isn't just PR, in some ways this is scary and disheartening. But my first reaction was "Cool, our government really cares, is creative and has the necessary power to get things done." For those of you who've worked with government, you've seen how insanely difficult the procurement process is. Being as specific as needing to get competitive bids for toilet paper purchases, etc. So the fact that they cou…

> Cool, our government really cares I wonder what they really care about? Liberty, individual rights, security, or more power? They're people too, so I'm sure they believe in the first three, but the last one is a more seductive and drives a lot more of the bad we see governments do; worse is that the drive for more power is frequently justified as "we need this power to protect our nation". > has the necessary power…

I agree with you completely. I think it's good that they aren't sitting behind a desk doing nothing, but I'm glad these stories come out so we can have the proper conversations and keep privacy-security tradeoffs at a comfortable level for society.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#18

Assuming this isn't just PR, in some ways this is scary and disheartening. But my first reaction was "Cool, our government really cares, is creative and has the necessary power to get things done." For those of you who've worked with government, you've seen how insanely difficult the procurement process is. Being as specific as needing to get competitive bids for toilet paper purchases, etc. So the fact that they cou…

> Cool, our government really cares

Government == Individuals that work in public positions and do not think as one.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#19
post #13
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. The CEO of Telegram likes to spread conspiracy theories that are good for business. In a recent tweet he claimed that Signal is "funded by the US government", [1] citing a ridiculous hit piece on OWS and Moxie. [2] [1] https://twitter.com/durov/status/872891017418113024 [2] https://surveillancevalley.com/blog/government-backed-privac...

Even wikipedia say it's founded by the governement ... As of October 2016, the project has received an unknown amount of donations from individual sponsors via the Freedom of the Press Foundation.[100] Open Whisper Systems has received grants from the Knight Foundation,[101] the Shuttleworth Foundation,[102] and the Open Technology Fund,[103] a U.S. government funded program that has also supported other privacy proj…

The tweet he was replying to said: "I've heard various reports from people I trust that Signal is compromised. Any comments/thoughts/reliable rumors?"

With his reply, Durov is implicitly claiming that Signal must be compromised because it received some funding that can be traced back to the US government. This is the same kind of FUD that has often been used to smear Tor in the past (and indeed, the piece he cites describes Tor as "a federal weapons contractor" and "a foreign policy weapon, a soft power cyber weapon").

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#20
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even wikipedia say it's founded by the governement ... As of October 2016, the project has received an unknown amount of donations from individual sponsors via the Freedom of the Press Foundation.[100] Open Whisper Systems has received grants from the Knight Foundation,[101] the Shuttleworth Foundation,[102] and the Open Technology Fund,[103] a U.S. government funded program that has also supported other privacy proj…

Funded by the government != The government has their hands all over it

Even TOR was originally a government funded project
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