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

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#141

Post by MrVitaliy » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

HPsquared wrote: post #123

diimdeep wrote: post #118

Telegram created Belarus language public channel. And posted poll to vote for new president with some clever restrictions. Anyone can vote, but you can't choose options with candidates if your phone number is not Balarusian. "I am not from Belarus" is only available poll option to make your vote if your phone number is not Balarusian. There is currently 736'000 votes with that option. Telegram poll https://t.me/s/tel…

To be fair though, Telegram users aren't exactly an unbiased sample.

There is no faith that the official polls use less bias data, or any data, really.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#142

Post by heinrich5991 » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

ConsiderCrying wrote: post #92

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…

Can we stop using 6-year-old info for apps that get updated monthly? The problems they have with MTProto have been patched literally 5 years ago, the only other criticism comes from a direct competitor, and they recommend WhatsApp despite the fact that it's closed-source and nobody can verify if its encryption truly works. Facebook is planning to merge Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, which makes it even more awful…

Telegram still doesn't encrypt chats end to end (by default¹), which means it's not a strictly superior choice to WhatsApp.

Facebook can't read your WhatsApp messages (of course they can add an update any time to do that), but Telegram has access to all your messages right now.

¹ Yes, you can select the end-to-end encrypted sessions, but they're very crippled from a usability perspective. I don't remember the last time anyone used it with me, yet all my chats on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted without anyone doing anything.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#143

Post by postmodernbrute » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:33 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…

Protesters in Hong Kong have been using Telegram. And they did use it to start a massive city wide riot.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#144

Post by skyyler » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

input_sh wrote: post #119

ConsiderCrying wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop using 6-year-old info for apps that get updated monthly? The problems they have with MTProto have been patched literally 5 years ago, the only other criticism comes from a direct competitor, and they recommend WhatsApp despite the fact that it's closed-source and nobody can verify if its encryption truly works. Facebook is planning to merge Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, which makes it even more awful…

Fair point, but from my perspective, even if it was absolutely the best end-to-end encryption there is, it wouldn't mean much unless everyone's using Telegram for 1-to-1 communication using Secret Chats feature. > Some of its channels helped unconnected, scattered rallies mature into well-coordinated action. This line alone makes their encryption rather meaningless for this use case, since Secret Chats only work betw…

Which is why I'm confused people are even talking about their encryption in this thread.

This has nothing to do with secure chats and everything to do with Telegram's Channels feature. But a ton of people that have never used Telegram nor read the article don't know that.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#145

Post by literallycancer » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #76

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.

Telegram provides, at best, equal security and ease-of-use to previously existing solutions like Signal and Whatsapp, and in many cases worse security. Telegram didn't do anything to make this kind of technology more accessible or available. So, the fact that it happens to be a popular solution for encrypted chat right now doesn't really speak to its necessity for any revolution like you and the article seem to be im…

Show me a Signal channel with 2 million people in it. Even if it's only writeable by the channel owner.

The adversary in their case is mostly limited to beating up random people and picking on those that take a public stand against the regime.

Turns out it's more important that it works at all and not whether the security is perfect.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#146

Post by luckylion » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

kozak wrote: post #48

chromedev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forget to mention the desktop and mobile apps both are open source, so anyone can build their own network.

I have never seen anyone actually doing that. The popularity of Telegram consists 100% of the popularity of its own network.

A nice thing is that you're allowed to use that network without using the official client. Unlike Signal, they're okay with third party clients, and there are libraries for multiple languages to help build your own client.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#147

Post by stjohnswarts » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

diimdeep wrote: post #118

Telegram created Belarus language public channel. And posted poll to vote for new president with some clever restrictions. Anyone can vote, but you can't choose options with candidates if your phone number is not Balarusian. "I am not from Belarus" is only available poll option to make your vote if your phone number is not Balarusian. There is currently 736'000 votes with that option. Telegram poll https://t.me/s/tel…

why would that blow someone's mind? Obviously if you're on an "anti" communication channel with a revolutionary mindset of course the majority will be overwhelmingly high against the dictator. That's by definition what they are revolting against.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#148

Post by nix23 » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:36 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.

It's really disgusting!! It's like saying, not Trump is bad but twitter is...so US, it's not BLM but TSM (Twitter Shitstorm Matters)

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#149

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:37 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.

[deleted]

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#150

Post by EGreg » Fri, Aug 21, 2020, 5:37 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.

I remember when Arab Spring was blamed on social media and Google

Then Moscow had a giant demonstration on Red Square and that’s right around the time Putin blinked and started cracking down on such platforms and free speech.

Of course, for those who remember, Telegram was started by Pavel Durov, the “Zuckerberg of Russia” who refused to give out details of VKontakte users, and the mail.ru conglomerate took his company, while he fled to France and started Telegram. Roskomnadzor tried unsuccessfully to ban it in Russia, and inadvertently banned colocated AWS servers hosting LinkedIn etc.