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Telegram publishes users' locations online

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Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#201

Post by kop316 »

est31 wrote: post #33
kop316 wrote: post #4

Hmm...So I have Telegram installed via F-Droid (so presumably without Google Play Services). I do NOT have the "People Nearby" feature. I am curious if that means my location is not published?

I can't find the feature at the described location either, but apparently if you go to contacts there is a "find people nearby" button. If I click it it asks me to share the location, which I have disabled. So I guess I'm safe? It's mentioned in this changelog item: https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS/blob/847... It usually takes some time for Telegram to be published on F-Droid, so the newest version…

I found it, and it seems like for the the feature is "opt in", as I have to click it to make myself visible.

But I also see a lot of folks on it....so it us concerning if it isn't opt in for non-F-Droid users?

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#202

Post by ajsnigrutin »

koonsolo wrote: post #194
ffpip wrote: post #173

Clickbait. User explicitly shares location to all people nearby, discovers it is accessible to all people. Feature is disabled by default, and user must find this and enable it. They are not even prompted to enable it unless they seek it.

Most users will not conclude from "sharing how nearby" people are, that someone could pinpoint exactly where they live by triangulating. Unless Telegram does some extra steps to prevent exact locations (see other threads here), they should name it "share my location" instead of "show nearby users".

Yep, users usually expect a (eg.) 1km gradient (less than 1km, 1km, 2km,...), and not precise location.

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#203

Post by g_sch »

arthurcolle wrote: post #7

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

I use Signal for 1:1 messaging and some small groups, but Telegram is much better for large groups and communities. Admin tools, UX, performance, and discoverability are all far better on Telegram. I'm quite happy to use different tools for different purposes, and I'm glad they both exist.

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#204

Post by jethro_tell »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #60
cwhiz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is terrible. I use the app still, but it’s horribly buggy. The disappearing messages, a hallmark feature, is fundamentally broken in some way that I can’t fully comprehend. Totally unreliable. Telegram is better in every way... except security.

> Telegram is better in every way... except security. Which is why anyone bothers with these type apps in the first place, I'd like to say I'm dissapointed with the sentiment towards Signal, especially given how many here work in tech and understand how leaky these apps are designed to be and how hard development can be with a bare bones team (I experienced this first hand), but it never fails to bank on the notion t…

My only problem with signal is they way it announces when a contact gets it. It should be opt in. Many people might not want every contact they've put into their phone over the last decade to know that they got or have signal. It's a nice idea to think that everyone has only contacts they would want to share signal with bit that's not the reality on the ground.

Aside from that, it's really gotten pretty good. I've been running it since the red phone days or what ever that app was called before signal.

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#205

Post by jethro_tell »

bigiain wrote: post #85
cwhiz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is terrible. I use the app still, but it’s horribly buggy. The disappearing messages, a hallmark feature, is fundamentally broken in some way that I can’t fully comprehend. Totally unreliable. Telegram is better in every way... except security.

I'm curious as toileting what you see as "horribly buggy" and what brokenness you see in disappearing messages? I use Signal on iOS, and it's pretty much flawless. Extremely rare for me to even hear friends (many of which I communicate with using Signal) talking about problems, I vaguely recall having something go wrong a long time back, but can't even recall what it was now, only that it went away and started workin…

Yeah, I'm fine with phone numbers. It's skating to the puck in the world we live(d) in when they built it out.

The way they inform which users in your contacts have signal should be opt.

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#206

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

wruza wrote: post #196
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rich irony here is that Telegram, in fact, way less secure than WhatsApp, yet, it's users (wrongly) perceive it to be magically more secure. The reason why WhatsApp is more secure is simple: it uses e2ee for all chats, and consequently has issues with multudevice usage and chats syncing, while Telegram just stores all chats in its servers, sans so-called "Secure chats". (I'm yet to see one person who is using the…

My entire company and tg-part of a friend circle uses them when needed. E.g. to discuss issues that contain private/financial details or something personal that is undesirable to leak to "third parties who ruin parties". Otoh, I wouldn't mind if my mile-long chat with IT buddy went entirely public, because we mostly discuss Web-tech, BTC and other sick jokes there. Personally I'd never bother to start a secret chat w…

> This is claimed often, but I'm yet to see these users

I often see these users. Most tend to just blindly trust a vendor. Also, I recall a talk at a Secure Messaging Summit 2020 given by Nikolas Unger [1], where he referred to a study about this (mis)perception.

[1]: https://claucece.github.io/Secure-Messaging-Summit/

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#207

Post by Hnrobert42 »

j-james wrote: post #69
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard other folks say WhatsApp is insecure. Do you (or anyone else) have specific examples or concerns?

Out of curiosity, how can end-to-end encryption be verified when both the clients and the servers are closed-source?

How can you know it’s not E2EE? The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, or something like that.

I agree that closed source is harder to verify, but that’s not the same as insecure.

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#208

Post by crispyambulance »

vengefulduck wrote: post #19
whomst wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Telegram on iOS and I can't find any People Nearby feature. It doesn't request the location permission according to Settings either.

It took me a while to find it on iOS, it’s under the contacts tab called “find people near by”. It doesn’t seem to work without location enabled so hopefully that would keep you safe.

Wow Telegram ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Most folks would be inclined to look under "Settings" rather than "Contacts" for something like this. How strange!

Re: Telegram publishes users' locations online

#209

Post by anoncake »

Nullslash wrote: post #121
isodev wrote: 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.

If people don't understand that publishing their location makes their location public, that's on them.
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