71–80 of 85 posts
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Same. I'm nomadic at the moment, and have to change sims with each country. I don't have a permanent phone number (or address). I know I'm in a minority, but still... it's like things businesses assume about people: 1: they have a phone number. 2: they have an address. 3: the country they are in at the moment is the country they live in
Project Fi from Google has been a lifesaver for me while traveling. I get to use the same number everywhere I go and don't have to do the new SIM dance in every country I visit. It can also be very handy sometimes to have internet access minutes after hitting the tarmac. They've also expanded it to support more phones recently. I think having a Fi phone, even if it's not your primary device, makes a lot of sense for…
Would Telegram and others please stop using phone number as a primary source of identity? It's 2018, I have a data only sim and I have no desire to have a phone number.
In cases like these I usually buy a pre-paid SIM for a few cents, verify the account and throw the SIM away. I can continue to use my main data SIM then.
WhatsApp lets you set a pin number to prevent this. Can't remember if Signal does similar..?
As for this Passport - I'm not interested in this feature and I can't see where it would be useful for me. Not mention the security with just their assurances that nobody would have an access to my personal info - it's ridiculous to say least.
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Agreed that such services should stop using phone numbers. In the meantime, you can get inexpensive numbers from https://jmp.chat/ - useful for 2FA as well.
That's technically not two factor if you only need to know a password to get access to the one-time code. It's two passwords, both are something you have to know, there's nothing you need to have or be (sms and biometrics respectively)
For more info go here: http://bit.ly/2uXeFSR
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Any reason in particular you choose not to trust Telegram? Or you're just (rightfully) distrustful of sharing that info in general?
Personally I don't trust telegram because of their funding source. Additionally their first encryption protocol was extremely wonky and most people I know would correctly call it unsafe for use in a chat messenger. Their second version is a tiny bit better but neither has been verified by any proper cryptographer I know. Additionally Telegram as an App seems more like a Toy rather than a proper chat app, the stickers…
You could say the same for Signal (before Signal Foundation was created this year) or Wire (created by the people who created Skype) too.
> Lastly, to my knowledge, end-to-end encryption is not enabled by default, neither for private messaging or groups. That's just a no-go for any chat application for me.
The “secret chats” are always end-to-end encrypted. The normal chats are encrypted only in transit and not end-to-end. But secret chats are also tied to a single device (currently only phones), unlike Wire, which offers end-to-end encryption and synchronized conversations across devices.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I don't trust telegram because of their funding source. Additionally their first encryption protocol was extremely wonky and most people I know would correctly call it unsafe for use in a chat messenger. Their second version is a tiny bit better but neither has been verified by any proper cryptographer I know. Additionally Telegram as an App seems more like a Toy rather than a proper chat app, the stickers…
> Personally I don't trust telegram because of their funding source. You could say the same for Signal (before Signal Foundation was created this year) or Wire (created by the people who created Skype) too. > Lastly, to my knowledge, end-to-end encryption is not enabled by default, neither for private messaging or groups. That's just a no-go for any chat application for me. The “secret chats” are always end-to-end en…
Wire is also Open Source.
>The “secret chats” are always end-to-end encrypted.
Secret Chats come with too many drawbacks and other message applications seem to do perfectly fine. As you mention, only one device.
>The normal chats are encrypted only in transit and not end-to-end
That is TLS and not E2E encryption which is also a total no-go for me.
Telegram has a history of including fairly obvious backdoors in their products https://habr.com/post/206900/ Why should anyone trust them for identification or for storing sensitive documents? (And no, that DH behavior cannot be explained away as a simple mistake)