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Telegram publishes users' locations online

blog.ahmed.nyc

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Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Not the way I understood it. Inertia implies the world is divided into cells numbered 1 to N, and people don’t move from X to X + 1 unless they report, say 5, consecutive times from X + 1. Overlapping systems remap the cells 1,2,3 to 1; 2,3,4 to 2 and so on. So if someone oscillated between new no. 1 and new no. 2, you’d still have no of knowing whether they were in old style cells no 2 or 3.

Inertia would just reduce the frequency of the jumps, not eliminate them completely. E.g. if you randomly get the new cell 6 times in a row you'll still oscillate, just slower.

It should be hysteresis, to jump to another cell you have to be pass some threshold of distance from it's border. This way if you live on the border you will just stick to some of cells.

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#162

It's a shame that people still use Telegram when Signal is so much better, and has better credentials all around.

It's crazy to me how few people remember that, prior to its launch, Telegram was endlessly hyping up how it would be the most secure protocol ever, while trash-talking competitors and explicitly refusing to have their hand-rolled crypto examined by security professions... and then it was broken within days of launch by an admitted amateur [0]. I don't understand why this didn't immediately tank their credibility, but…

It's almost as if "absolute security" was not the only, or even an important, consideration for most people.

This should be obvious if you look at most popular chat apps:

* WhatsApp

* Facebook Messenger

* WeChat

It's like... a who's who of the worst privacy violators.

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#163
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't use signal without a cellphone... and cellphones are a privacy nightmare.

for telegram you need a phone number as well, which is bad if not for security, then for privacy reasons

You can use a separate dumbphone for the sms verifications. It's at least much better.

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#164
post #68

A user does not show up in “People nearby” unless they enable the function. Doing so triggers a warning from Telegram informing you your location is about to be published and it may lead to undesired attention so it really can’t happen by accident. I’m also using the app on iOS, the operating system asks periodically if I want to continue sharing location in the background (in case I forget to turn it off) or I can j…

it's a privacy issue. Users who enable the feature don't understand that are basically publishing thier latitude longitude online. Which can be resolved into a home address.

the warning message tells them _exactly that_.

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#166
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't use signal without a cellphone... and cellphones are a privacy nightmare.

for telegram you need a phone number as well, which is bad if not for security, then for privacy reasons

You can hide your phone numbers from other Telegram users and still chat with them (this is the default). On Signal, anyone you chat with will have your phone number.

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#167

Please change title so that it reflects that shared location is only for those who explicitly enabled feature to do so and not implicitly that all users location is shared.

"Telegram publishes users' locations online only for those who explicitly enabled feature to do so and not implicitly that all users location is shared" is a bit long for a title.

While you're right, the title is accurate although it comes with bunch of caveats of course, some of them outlined in the article. That's why we read the full article instead of just titles. More caveats are that they are using a smartphone, has GPS location on, are using Telegram, have allowed the app to access the location and finally shared their location in Telegram.

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