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Ask HN: Why do you avoid Telegram, arguably one of the best cloud messengers?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do you avoid Telegram, arguably one of the best cloud messengers?

#11

Post by HelenePhisher »

vpEfljFL wrote: post #4
HelenePhisher wrote: post #3

No end-to-end encryption per default, and if I activate it I’m not able to see the conversation on other devices. Signal does that better.

- end-to-end encryption - able to see the conversation on other devices You can choose only one. Otherwise I can't see how it would be end-to-end encrypted. Your devices should create some sort of a group chat to make this work. Group chats have large enough attack surface and "end-to-end encryption" will create false sense of security.

I use Signal on multiple desktops. It's a good experience and really works well. I can choose both.

Re: Ask HN: Why do you avoid Telegram, arguably one of the best cloud messengers?

#12

Post by vekker »

vpEfljFL wrote: post #4
HelenePhisher wrote: post #3

No end-to-end encryption per default, and if I activate it I’m not able to see the conversation on other devices. Signal does that better.

- end-to-end encryption - able to see the conversation on other devices You can choose only one. Otherwise I can't see how it would be end-to-end encrypted. Your devices should create some sort of a group chat to make this work. Group chats have large enough attack surface and "end-to-end encryption" will create false sense of security.

Huh, why? If you have the same private key on your devices, you can do E2E encryption on the same conversation on multiple devices, no?

Re: Ask HN: Why do you avoid Telegram, arguably one of the best cloud messengers?

#13

Post by stereotactic »

vpEfljFL wrote: post #8
stereotactic wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does end to end encryption make that better? I am genuinely curious. Is your threat model too severe that you really need to hide your conversations?

Could you please "open source" all your conversations to provide ground for reasoning "I have nothing to hide". So, and we can discuss threat models. Thank you.

I don't mind; in public groups its for everyone to see.

Snooping by the government or by the corporations? Which one is more insidious?

Re: Ask HN: Why do you avoid Telegram, arguably one of the best cloud messengers?

#14

Post by _odey »

vpEfljFL wrote: post #4
HelenePhisher wrote: post #3

No end-to-end encryption per default, and if I activate it I’m not able to see the conversation on other devices. Signal does that better.

- end-to-end encryption - able to see the conversation on other devices You can choose only one. Otherwise I can't see how it would be end-to-end encrypted. Your devices should create some sort of a group chat to make this work. Group chats have large enough attack surface and "end-to-end encryption" will create false sense of security.

Signal has end-to-end encryption and you are able to see the conversation on other devices from the point you link your devices.

What it does not have is the ability to send your conversation history to your linked devices (which I find a bit odd, if you can trust a device with your present/future conversations, you should be able to trust it with your past, or at least be able to opt in in trusting it with sending over your past conversations). I hope they will provide this in the future.

Re: Ask HN: Why do you avoid Telegram, arguably one of the best cloud messengers?

#15

Post by fsflover »

stereotactic wrote: post #13
vpEfljFL wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please "open source" all your conversations to provide ground for reasoning "I have nothing to hide". So, and we can discuss threat models. Thank you.

I don't mind; in public groups its for everyone to see. Snooping by the government or by the corporations? Which one is more insidious?

I would prefer to have none, hence e2e encryption.

Re: Ask HN: Why do you avoid Telegram, arguably one of the best cloud messengers?

#17

Post by _odey »

I avoid everything else apart from Signal (this includes Telegram) because with Signal I trust that they have:

- end-to-end encryption enabled by default, and as far as I know there is no possible way to disable this even if I wanted to.

- no logs/state stored server side, or at least that's what they claimed.

- no SPAM. The only people that talk to me on signal are the ones I actually intend to talk to. Not sure if this is just because so few people use Signal or because they don't have a chat-bot API they try to push as a commercial offer.

- a non-profit organization structure, not that being a for-profit is bad, but I tend to trust non-profits more when it comes to things like respecting privacy as a core value of their business (a for-profit would scrap that and abuse their market share at the snap of a shareholder finger).

Re: Ask HN: Why do you avoid Telegram, arguably one of the best cloud messengers?

#19

Post by throwaway6575 »

Because moxie told me it's bad since it doesn't use secret chats by default. All the features in the world that no other messenger remotely approaches still don't make it usable when you actually have to manually toggle a button to start a secret chat with someone. The horror!

Re: Ask HN: Why do you avoid Telegram, arguably one of the best cloud messengers?

#20

Post by m-p-3 »

stereotactic wrote: post #6
HelenePhisher wrote: post #3

No end-to-end encryption per default, and if I activate it I’m not able to see the conversation on other devices. Signal does that better.

How does end to end encryption make that better? I am genuinely curious. Is your threat model too severe that you really need to hide your conversations?

High expectations of privacy. I prefer to hide everything, even mundane stuff, than wished I had and I didn't.
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