Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests • Hacker News Board

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#101

Post by pvg » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #44

Should the revolution fail, the digital trail left by these messages will give the government everything they need to hunt down every last activist. We saw it with the Green Revolution in Iran. We've seen it several times since. So long as messages are not encrypted, messaging apps are much more naturally suited as tools of oppression than tools of revolution.

That can happen anywhere and not just with Telegram - imagine what a repressive government can do with a dump of GMail. Iran's a much bigger country with a regime much more capable and willing to use violence.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#102

Post by ROARosen » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #96

ROARosen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- Not owned by Facebook "nine out of ten Egyptians and Tunisians responded to a poll that they used Facebook to organise protests and spread awareness" [1] "During the Arab Spring the number of users of social networks, especially Facebook, rose dramatically in most Arab countries, particularly in those where political uprising took place, with the exception of Libya, which at the time had low Internet access preven…

Facebook 2020 isn't the same as Facebook 2010. Their public image has changed a lot in between.

> Their public image has changed a lot in between.

Keyword "public". It is the same useful for protests as it was then.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#103

Post by ConsiderCrying » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

DavideNL wrote: post #94

input_sh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By default it's no more encrypted than HN (as in, traffic to their servers uses TLS, messages on the server are not encrypted at all). There's Secret Chats feature which they claim to be end-to-end encrypted, meaning that it's no more secure than Facebook's Messenger (also end-to-end encrypted in Secret Conversations). Even less so considering that they roll their own encryption (MTProto), while Facebook's Messenger…

> There's Secret Chats feature But secret chats are only for 1-to-1 chats, not for groups as far as I know (or has that changed?)

Nope, hasn't changed and it's one of the things on my "feature wishlist". Really hope they add for at least small chats.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#104

Post by diimdeep » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #90

iillexial wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They tried to block it but didn't really succeed. It continued working although with some glitches.

If any technical details of that block and why it failed emerge, they would be fascinating reading. It also kind of makes one wonder if there's a non-technical reason why blocking it failed.

Telegram constantly pushed new settings and routes to users with native Apple and Google push services.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#105

Post by vel0city » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

BelleOfTheBall wrote: post #71

mbowcutt wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know too much about Telegram but isn't it encrypted?

It is encrypted by default but end-to-end is only for calls and Secret Chats (one-on-one). You can delete any message at any time without a trace for both sides, which protesters often do, really don't think the government needs messages to pin a crime on them. Hell, they've pinned crimes on people for literally no reason before.

So when you try and go tell the other person's device to delete your message, how does it go into their iCloud backups and delete that message, or some other backup?

Don't depend on asking someone else's device to delete the data as that data being gone.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#106

Post by tryptophan » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

robertfw wrote: post #87

zanny wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix has comprehensive encryption now and is decentralized.

Matrix really does seem like the ideal future platform to build on, I've started poking around it and really like what I see. Does anyone with more experience want to chime in on what they've found using it?

It has the best protocol I'd say, but other than that everything else is worse.

All the clients suck, features are missing/buggy, nobody is sure if it is supposed to be a discord/slack or whataspp replacement, giving a half-ass implementation of both, and confusing to users security stuff(asks random users about their keys).

That being said, I still love the project and hope they sort out their UX problems.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#107

Post by BelleOfTheBall » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #105

BelleOfTheBall wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is encrypted by default but end-to-end is only for calls and Secret Chats (one-on-one). You can delete any message at any time without a trace for both sides, which protesters often do, really don't think the government needs messages to pin a crime on them. Hell, they've pinned crimes on people for literally no reason before.

So when you try and go tell the other person's device to delete your message, how does it go into their iCloud backups and delete that message, or some other backup? Don't depend on asking someone else's device to delete the data as that data being gone.

Telegram doesn't store messages on the device, you don't need to "tell the other person's device" anything, it's deleted from the Telegram cloud.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#108

Post by 75dvtwin » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

soufron wrote: post #10

It's never "the work of a long-preparing revolutionnary crowd" revolution, but always a "latest fashionable technology" revolution. Tech propaganda at its best.

@soufron, I agree with you. It is shameful, to call uprising of suppressed -- against systemic unfairness -- as 'Telegram revolution'.

This is akin to stealing valor (basically stealing medals and pretending to be the honorable).

This type of valor stealing, is also happening when people call US border detention facilities as 'Nazi concentration camps'. For people whose family members went through a Nazi concentration camp, hearing such a comparing is painful.

For Byelorussians whose livers and kidneys were raptured by the beatings, whose loved ones are imprisoned -- hearing Telegram marketing spin is painful, like when their valor, their sacrifice is stolen.

Yes of course, without recording technology, in my view, we would not have successful type of investigative journalism that project Veritas has delivered.

Or, without cell phones, the ability of people of Belarus to share images of brutality with the world.

Technology, is helping to concentrate the will power of the masses, against well funded machines of system oppressions.

But the will of the people, their sacrifices, their sufferings -- is the driving force -- not Telegram

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#109

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

ceeniwer wrote: post #64

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long-preparing revolutionaries need a way to communicate and coordinate with a bunch of people who suddenly see things their way. The government often tries to jam the lines of communication, so some alternate form of communication is often critical.

I wonder why is it that folks in Hong Kong, xinjiang and Tibet can’t effectively work together using telegram to start a massive nation wide riot. There are so many Folks in those regions who are oppressed (millions) and they are being organ harvested, forced to work in factories as slave labor, held in concentration camps, disappeared without trials, and tortured for democratic ideals. Or these folks can coordinate…

In Xinjiang, the Uighur population are obliged to run a version of Android with surveillance software installed on it that is constantly phoning home about all activity on the device. So, even if it were possible to install a chat app that evades the Great Firewall, everything that one reads and types on that phone would still be sent on to the authorities regardless. Belarus is a dictatorship, but far less authoritarian in the digital realm than Xinjiang.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#110

Post by AcerbicZero » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:09 PM UTC

What was the revolutionary app during the Ukrainian protests? I remember reading almost the exact same article at that time, although then I was a little distracted because that revolutionairy app ended with Russia annexing Crimea. Guess that wasn't in the TOS?