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Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

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Re: Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

#111

Post by theshrike79 »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #109
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #83

People are consistently surprised that Telegram is not encrypted by default in any setting. You have to create a device-to-device-specific encrypted chat with your counter-party. It's not a reasonable security model, vastly outclassed by (the still quite flawed) Signal. Ultimately, we need encrypted-by-default messaging based on public/private key pairs (obscured from the uninterested user, of course).

Both Threema and Signal are the way to go with chat apps, the only advantage Telegram offers are vast groups for specific purposes. Here in Berlin, I'm getting cheap produce through telegram, get alerted to public transport controls (I do have a ticket, but sometimes friends do not), and sell/buy stuff I don't need.

Telegram's advantages are a simple bot API and proper moderation tools for large channels.

Re: Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

#112

Post by j16sdiz »

smt88 wrote: post #81
konart wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people the said security is not a big issue. Esp. in countries where police can come for you and make you talk by any means. E2EE won't help you if they want you.

"Encryption isn't useful because you can be tortured" is a bizarre and ridiculous argument. The police can only make you talk if they know who to make talk in the first place. Reading your messages tells them who to interrogate, where to find them, who else is involved, etc. Encryption is important especially in such countries.

It is encrypted, just not e2ee.

The police need to crack the encryption protocol (not impossible, telegram use non-standard crypto), or somehow gain access to telegram's server farm.

Re: Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

#113

Post by [deleted] »

shp0ngle wrote: post #23

This article is good. Telegram is really weird and sketchy; the rants Durov posts on his channel against WhatsApp usually make no sense; and their claims of security are dubious. And TON was a disaster. On the other hand. If I did any social organizing today, I would definitely use Telegram. Signal is fine , but nobody is using it and the UX is just worse. I don't trust Facebook to randomly not shut everything down b…

[deleted]

Re: Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

#114

Post by baxuz »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #109
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #83

People are consistently surprised that Telegram is not encrypted by default in any setting. You have to create a device-to-device-specific encrypted chat with your counter-party. It's not a reasonable security model, vastly outclassed by (the still quite flawed) Signal. Ultimately, we need encrypted-by-default messaging based on public/private key pairs (obscured from the uninterested user, of course).

Both Threema and Signal are the way to go with chat apps, the only advantage Telegram offers are vast groups for specific purposes. Here in Berlin, I'm getting cheap produce through telegram, get alerted to public transport controls (I do have a ticket, but sometimes friends do not), and sell/buy stuff I don't need.

Other advantages:

-not being tied to a phone number

-having a desktop app which doesn't suck (sync issues, connection issues, lacking features, is basically a simple proxy for your phone, etc)

-allows me to use 3rd party apps

-having chat history synced across my apps and devices and backed up. History is immensely important

Re: Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

#116

Post by maemre »

wruza wrote: post #91
shp0ngle wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it’s ridiculously well made. I’m not disputing that. The protocol is weird but they built a great app on top of that. They just cannot be sustainable long term. There is literally no restriction size-wise on data you can save on their servers. For free. And they have basically no income. They have some new ad program with basically no tracking (which is good for users, sure, but nobody will pay that much for th…

protocol is weird You’re repeating weird , but working with both bot api and tg api weekly or so (tg api through a wrapper, but I’ve read about lower level calls and used these in gramjs) I can’t see what do you mean by that.

Maybe they are referring to the fact that Telegram rolled their own cryptographic protocol that had a vulnerability that was fixed with a cryptic message [1] and still has some dubious choices [2]. I am not a cryptographer by any measure, so I don't whether there was a reason why they didn't pick an existing protocol like OTR. But, it doesn't make sense to me that they didn't switch to another protocol that is audited several times but released a second version of their protocol with the same criticisms.

[1]: https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/ [2]: https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/31418/signal-vs-t...

Re: Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

#117

Post by grandpoobah »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #83

People are consistently surprised that Telegram is not encrypted by default in any setting. You have to create a device-to-device-specific encrypted chat with your counter-party. It's not a reasonable security model, vastly outclassed by (the still quite flawed) Signal. Ultimately, we need encrypted-by-default messaging based on public/private key pairs (obscured from the uninterested user, of course).

Nobody I know gives a shit that it's not E2E encrypted. It's a kick ass instant messenger, that's all that matters to most people. Vastly superior to Signal and others in almost every way.

Re: Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

#118

Post by krzyk »

theshrike79 wrote: post #111
bakuninsbart wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Threema and Signal are the way to go with chat apps, the only advantage Telegram offers are vast groups for specific purposes. Here in Berlin, I'm getting cheap produce through telegram, get alerted to public transport controls (I do have a ticket, but sometimes friends do not), and sell/buy stuff I don't need.

Telegram's advantages are a simple bot API and proper moderation tools for large channels.

And an app that is small and fast (and a proper desktop app, not some electron).

Re: Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

#119

Post by piaste »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #92
konart wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does UX\UI has to do with E2EE? Sure, Telegram team used more human resources elsewhere while WA and Signal where doing their E2EE magic, but once they where done - what stopped them from investing into everything else?

If you have true e2ee, you can't enter your login/password and see all your chats right there, instantly.

Are you sure? You can do what good password managers do:

- Hash the password client-side

- Send the hash to the server. The server treats it as a password, and gives you your blob of encrypted data

- Decrypt the data client-side using the original password

Re: Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

#120

Post by krzyk »

gonehome wrote: post #64
kitsunesoba wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram is ridiculously smooth, runs on everything, doesn’t treat any platform as an afterthought (despite having the electron thing, Signal is still very mobile oriented), and isn’t Facebook. It’s about as good as you’re going to get without making big sacrifices somewhere.

Isn't the big sacrifice with Telegram security? I get that people like its UX, but if you're sacrificing security for UX then basically anything becomes fine?

Is having a "seciurity" for vast majority of people that just do a little chit-chat with they friends and family a big thing suddenly?

If you want to exchange your private keys, you better not do it using any chat platform.

What countries do you people live in that needs such hiding from the police/state?

In my country they bought Pegasus and what can I do about it? If they want to trace me they can do it.

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