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Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

latimes.com

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Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#161

Post by huhtenberg »

commandlinefan wrote: post #88
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.

So disappointing that true anonymous communication is technologically feasible but is only unavailable due to government intervention and public apathy.

The main issue is that any form of anonymous communication gets instantly abused for things that very few people are OK with. It's a classic Catch-22 and a very well-known at that.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#162

Post by myth_drannon »

RangerScience wrote: post #74
myth_drannon wrote: post #59

There was also a very large Telegram channel where they were doxing riot police members that were participating in attacks on demonstrators. It was extremely efficient infowar since it was their home addresses, family photos, wife's cellphone number...

Wait seriously? Where can I find out more?

https://t.me/terroristybelarusi

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#163

Post by Barrin92 »

ip26 wrote: post #31
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.

Are you similarly critical of discussions about how ubiquitous camera phones have changed the civil rights movement? Technology is only a tool, and is only as good as what people actually do with it. But it can be a crucial tool that changes everything.

>But it can be a crucial tool that changes everything.

this is the exact same narrative that took place when the Arab Spring happened. What determines the success of revolutions isn't what makes the news media, it's what happens on day 1 after the revolution is over and the cameras are turned off

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#164

Post by [deleted] »

chrisweekly wrote: post #156
nix23 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

You'd be more persuasive if you toned the language down. FWIW, I'm not up nor downvoting you, just sharing perspective as a mod with political sympathies.

[deleted]

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#165

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

heinrich5991 wrote: post #142
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…

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 t…

Can’t Facebook read most people’s WhatsApp messages because cloud backups of chats are enabled by default, and only the tiny minority of users who disable that feature will get truly end-to-end encryption?

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#166

Post by literallycancer »

chromedev wrote: post #99
adityasaky wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately (this may have changed in recent times), they often don't update the public repos in line with their releases. They put them out all at once later. Also, last I checked only the clients are open source? Has that changed?

You can find the releases here, and if there is a delay it is only a few days at most: https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS/releases Only the clients are open source, but anyone could use the source code to create their own network.

Without server source? Might as well start from scratch and use something like matrix.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#167

Post by maccam912 »

throwaway4747l wrote: post #89

Ctrl-F "Signаl": 10 instances Seriously, it'd be nice if we could have one thread about Telegram without S-advocates showing up and complaining about "security". Yes, we know Telegram isn't as secure, yadda yadda yadda. Now if only Signal provided half the features Telegram does, maybe non-cryptonerds would have heard of it.

Yeah honestly I just scroll right past them. I use telegram for my "Can you pick up some bananas on the way home?" messages. If I ever had a confidential tip for some investigative journalist I'd use signal. But it gets annoying if every post with the word "telegram" in the title gets the same "But signal is more secure!" response unrelated to the content of the article.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#168

Post by notahacker »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #147
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.

Even allowing for the fact some Belarusians have multiple mobile phone numbers, as do some people who aren't eligible to vote for perfectly normal reasons, it's quite telling that somebody polled twice as many votes on a communication channel compared with the official 'count'.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#169

Post by ConsiderCrying »

heinrich5991 wrote: post #142
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…

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 t…

> Facebook can't read your WhatsApp messages

Are we sure it can't? Because WhatsApp is closed-source, its GDrive backups are unencrypted and Facebook's whole profit model is based around snooping. Unless they make the app open-source, I'm not trusting them even with a grocery list. People act like E2E is the be-all and end-all but trusting an incredibly shady company on its word is not something I'm comfortable with.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#170

Post by damnyou »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #147
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.

Forget percentages, even the raw numbers show a mismatch between official and Telegram results.
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