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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

#401

Post by maqp »

fuzxi wrote: post #340
eitland wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Group chats can easily be obtained as long as you have someone inside in the group. People who join later only see messages from a while before they joined though so that helps a bit but only a bit.

>People who join later only see messages from a while before they joined though so that helps a bit but only a bit. This is customizable and can be disabled, so that new members do not see any messages from before they joined.

The group will leak member roles like the Owner however, so the black bag group will know who(se device) they should compromise next.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#402

Post by maqp »

Krasnol wrote: post #354
godelski wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been frustrated with Signal on this. I pitched that it is a good idea because of a scenario: > You're protesting with people. Cops pick them up, but not you. You can delete their messages and it is likely that you are able to do so before the police can clone your phone or copy the messages (screenshot, whatever). I got a few strange responses back: - Deleting messages doesn't mean they can't be saved (yeah...…

> . We should look at why people are turning to Telegram when protesting. Every single person I know who uses Telegram does it for either porn or piracy or both. So using what you already have for protests if they occur makes sense. Trying to get ppl to install a different app is much more complicated at this point. Sometimes may even be prevented by the regime.

That must be a generational/geolocational thing. I've never even heard either of them was available in the app.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#403

Post by maqp »

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.

This is not true at all. It's already available.

https://cwtch.im/

https://briarproject.org/

https://ricochet.im/

https://github.com/maqp/tfc

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#404

Post by maqp »

huhtenberg wrote: post #161
commandlinefan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's also stuff like ISIS communication and CP in Telegram, so the disgusting stuff is where people are at, no matter what.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#405

Post by maqp »

sneak wrote: post #331
pvg wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Imagine how hard it must be to run a presidential campaign in the US when your incumbent opponent in an election controls the systems that get to read any message in GMail.

Explain how this works. A blue party voter writes to another blue party voter: Hey, let's vote blue this year. NSA that intercepts the message and __________.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#406

Post by maqp »

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…

"Can we stop using 6-year-old info for apps that get updated monthly?"

The fact Telegram's E2EE has not been available

1. by default

2. on desktop apps

3. for group messages

for seven years tells you exactly how secure it is.

"the only other criticism comes from a direct competitor"

Fuck this attitude. Everyone has the right to criticize. If Telegram can't own their mistakes it's their fault, not that of the people who are beating them. Also, impartial professional cryptographers like Bruce Schneier and Matthew Green have told people not to use Telegram. Why is that if not because it's so horribly insecure. Why isn't there a single recommendation for Telegram from ANY cryptographer on the entire planet?

"they recommend WhatsApp despite the fact that it's closed-source and nobody can verify if its encryption truly works."

Because they've helped implement the encryption? Also if proprietary tools doing encryption are not secure, then why do Telegram users think it's ok for Telegram to use closed-source server that's doing the "distributed datacenter encryption" for group messages' at-rest protection. There's not even documentation available for this let alone source code.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#407

Post by maqp »

ConsiderCrying wrote: post #169
heinrich5991 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Are we sure it can't?"

No, there's a 1..2% chance of backdoor.

The real question is, why is Telegram more secure? There's a 100% chance it can read your group messages, because it says so on their documentation that describes the cloud encryption. There is no E2EE at all for groups. There is no E2EE at all for desktop. Together these mean E2EE are completely neutered and useless. I'm a privacy researcher and I don't use them at all. Why would an average joe?

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#408

Post by maqp »

shawnz wrote: post #229
ConsiderCrying wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Open source is not the be-all end-all of security either. Closed source apps can still be audited (with increased difficulty), and open source apps might still be impractical to audit even though they are open source.

Nobody's claimed that. Open source is not panacea for verifiable security, it is however a requirement of it.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#409

Post by atoav »

schmorptron wrote: post #395
crondung wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's cool and all, except everyone in that country had 2 sim cards with 2 numbers. They don't have free long distance over there, nor are plans for cheap text+data the same plans as cheap calls. So I take this information to mean this poll was useless. Everyone who voted could vote twice, and felons and kids voted too.

Wait, how is felons voting a bad thing?

Probably from the US, they didn't sign the human rights treaty and are a bit.. underdeveloped at that front.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#410

Post by oddx »

crondung wrote: post #373
contravariant wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just in case anyone is wondering. The 'official' vote count for Thikhanovskaya is 588,622. So regardless of how unbiased a sample it may be the Telegram poll shows over 2x as many people (or phone numbers to be exact), willing to vote for Thikhanovskaya (at the time of writing). Use this information as you wish.

That's cool and all, except everyone in that country had 2 sim cards with 2 numbers. They don't have free long distance over there, nor are plans for cheap text+data the same plans as cheap calls. So I take this information to mean this poll was useless. Everyone who voted could vote twice, and felons and kids voted too.

> That's cool and all, except everyone in that country had 2 sim cards with 2 numbers.

This is not true. Some people have multiple SIM cards, but it is not even remotely close to "everyone". Based on numbers that I found, multiple SIMs have around 30% people.

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