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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

#171

Post by WillyOnWheels »

openasocket wrote: post #96
sndean wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there's lots of Tor posters hung up at USG labs (e.g., https://www.torservers.net/wiki/_media/tor-relay-poster.resi... ). I was pretty surprised, at first

Tor has probably saved more than a few CIA agents' lives, not to mention free access to the Internet being a powerful tool for undermining authoritarian regimes.

> Tor has probably saved more than a few CIA agents' lives

Tor's main purpose is to allow agents of US intelligence agencies to communicate back with the home base.

"Giving free access to the Internet being a powerful tool for undermining authoritarian regimes" makes it harder for an adversary to focus solely on intelligence agency agent traffic.

I'm not saying Tor is backdoored or monitored, though it's heavily monitored.

When enjoying the benefits of Tor, it's wise to also remember Tor's main purpose.

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

#172

Post by WillyOnWheels »

Dolores12 wrote: post #76
narrowrail wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many prominent and respected HNers have laid out the case for why Telegram has security issues. If you use the search function at the bottom, you will easily find these issues raised. I don't personally possess the knowledge to determine the soundness of Telegram's crypto, but there have been enough red flags raised on HN over the years to merit skepticism.

Is that how you prove something - by reading comments on HN? Oh, how about all these red flags are raised to scare people to not let them use Telegram which is really secure?

> Is that how you prove something - by reading comments on HN?

I enjoy the comments of tpacek and ryanlol

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

#173

Post by sandov »

toephu2 wrote: post #83
retox wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not mistaken Telegram has already been proven insecure once in the past. WhatsApp is a zuck property now, you can consider it insecure.

Why? Do you have any proof WhatsApp is insecure?

As long as it's closed source, we have to assume that it's unsecure.

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

#174

Post by mikeash »

dmix wrote: post #159
mikeash wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stuff in the papers is not taking "Russian" to mean "bad." It's looking at serious allegations of collusion with the Russian government, known interference in the 2016 election by the Russian government, statements by various administration officials that they had no contact with the Russian government, and then using meetings with high-level officials in the Russian government to imply something bad happening. W…

> The stuff in the papers is not taking "Russian" to mean "bad." It's looking at serious allegations of collusion with the Russian government That's a very generous assessment. If only accusations of "speaking to a Russian" were qualified by the conversation actually involving something malicious or illegal before suggesting it was improper then I'd be in much more agreement. The fact is besides Michael Flynn who was…

The allegations are serious enough for there to be multiple ongoing official investigations, and were enough to get Flynn fired, I don't see what's so generous about that.

Lying under oath to Congress is pretty bad, and when you lie about never meeting Russian officials, and then it turns out you met Russian officials, it's even worse.

Most of your comment is downplaying the consequences of Russian interference, which doesn't make any sense to me. I don't care if Russian interference resulted in +10% of the vote for Hillary, a foreign power screwing with our democracy is capital-B Bad, and if there was in fact coordination between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, then it's capital-T Treason.

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

#175

Post by mverwijs »

custos wrote: post #82

Option 1: Could be Russian/Telegram propaganda. Option 2: Could be true because seriously, who trusts the FBI/NSA not to violate our privacy anymore? Really not sure what to believe about this one.

A person born in Russia says something and you think it's "russian propaganda".

Mccarthy would be proud.

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

#177

Post by fredsir »

Retric wrote: post #47
falcolas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The paradox is many people feel the US government should have done more about 9/11 or other such events. Further, people can't get upset about surveillance that they are not aware of. So, the push is always going to be to collect more data (barring leaks) and it's only people aware of what's going on and thus inside the system that can really resist that pull. Which means the government and politicians are often the…

> The paradox is many people feel the US government should have done more about 9/11 or other such events.

Certainly. After all, they chose money instead of keeping the one tool[1] they already had that were able to tell them about 9/11 before it happened and save all those people who have died in 9/11 and other attacks. Negligence is complicity when it's a government choosing money over it's citizens, so in the case of 9/11, I'd say the US government is as guilty as the attackers.

A great documentary about NSA and ThinThread is A Good American[2], and a good follow-up is The Maze[3].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread

[2]: http://agoodamerican.org

[3]: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/themaze

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

#178

Post by k-mcgrady »

nyolfen wrote: post #141
TallGuyShort wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's a reason to be afraid, give it. Nationality is a weak reason.

there's a difference between 'afraid of' and 'don't trust closed-source crypto from'.

There should still be a reason at the end of that: don't trust closed-source crypto from [] because [].

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

#179

Post by DiThi »

rnhmjoj wrote: post #139
berns wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Telegram stores the messages you send/receive unencrypted on their servers. Anyone who has used Telegram for more than 5 minutes knows there are secret chats. The effort being made to rig the information against Telegram also tells a lot about its relevance.

The secret chats are almost useless. Even setting aside the impossibility of syncing between devices the support is severely lacking: Telegram web? No[1], telegram desktop? Nope[2], telegram-cli? Yes, but the client is completely broken and abandoned[3]. The telegram desktop main developer said[4]: "Well, I'm afraid there isn't. They are just not in high priority, many other important things first." It seems stickers…

Oddly enough, they did implement encrypted calls in telegram desktop, and relatively quickly after the release of the feature in mobile.

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

#180

Post by c22 »

toss1 wrote: post #87
geofft wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we can all agree that if some totally below-the-radar crypto anarchist who happens to have a few million dollars from bitcoins figured out that they actually have enough access via the dark web to bribe a few Russian generals and long story short detonate a nuclear bomb a few miles outside New York City, just for shits and giggles, then they should be stopped at some point along the way. I agree with this,…

It seems the problem logicallee is working is the massively growing destructive power available to individuals or small groups. Technology is accelerating to the point where the destructive power that was formerly available only to state actors with proper command & control systems is now available to small states, groups, and even individuals -- chemical, bioweapons, delivery by drone, etc. It is now possible to mai…

But crypto is built from math, which is available to anyone who possesses a brain. Even if you locked down all the academic output related to encryption you can't ensure no one will discover another way to hide and transmit secrets either around or through your usually-private-except-for-serious-threats communications network. You'd have better luck trying to lock down harmful bioagents and fissionable materials, but as you alluded, as long as these technologies exist the world faces a security threat. It seems to me the only way to combat these threats is to construct a society where individuals never feel the need to leverage their increasing power, a police state where anyone's communications can be inspected or abused at will by an agent, a heirarchy, or an algorithm seems antithetical to such a society.
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