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Telegram is asking German users when to share information with law enforcement

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Telegram is asking German users when to share information with law enforcement

#81

Post by upofadown »

izzytcp wrote: post #3

Hi, German here. How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. Just like Signal. I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! The app doesn’t solve any privacy problem, default chats are unencrypted, keeps personal info. App should be dead already or turned into a dating app because it’s clearly not seriously privacy fucused.

>How about not storing any information at all?

That wouldn't work for groups. Abusers could then destroy the groups with impunity for the purpose of censorship. Telegram is mostly about groups. Telegram is often used for activism.

Signal claims to not store data about who is talking to who. That doesn't mean that they don't. If they were, say, a secret subsidiary of the CIA they would act exactly as they are acting now. In general you can't trust the providers of these sorts of things. See Crypto AG...

Re: Telegram is asking German users when to share information with law enforcement

#82

Post by formerly_proven »

neverrroot wrote: post #45
funnym0nk3y wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram is considered a platform for people, which do not respect the basic values of democracy like groups far right expressing xenophobia and groups which think (and express loudly) of the COVID measures as repression by some elite against the common citizen. Most of them whish for a autoritarian government. Groups which act against the constitution are observed by the Verfassungsschutz, an authority to protect th…

On the surface you are correct, this is especially the painted picture by the mass media and at least partially by the government (who also sought banning Telegram entirely in Germany). If you go deeper, you get to see that also a lot of human rights activists and NGOs are using it. Have been using Telegram since 2015, and in the meantime, most of my IT buddies use it and/or Signal.

With the invasion of Ukraine it seems like 95 % of the information out of Ukraine flows through Telegram (I'm not a user myself but the watermark and screenshots of the app are everywhere).

Telegram also has some ~700 million monthly active users - it seems unlikely to me that there are even 700 million alt-right people in the entire world.

Re: Telegram is asking German users when to share information with law enforcement

#83

Post by em-bee »

izzytcp wrote: post #3

Hi, German here. How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. Just like Signal. I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! The app doesn’t solve any privacy problem, default chats are unencrypted, keeps personal info. App should be dead already or turned into a dating app because it’s clearly not seriously privacy fucused.

I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason!

telegram is the only chat app that offers Free Software clients, does not force me to share my phonenumber, is easy enough to use even for old people.

matrix is ok. but element is still buggy and the ux is complex and takes some learning.

another alternative is deltachat. it uses smtp as transport and works with an email account. the UX is also easy enough to use. easier than matrix/element.

Re: Telegram is asking German users when to share information with law enforcement

#84

Post by Sakos »

pjio wrote: post #15
hnbad wrote: post #2

Note that they didn't provide options for "with a warrant" and "without a warrant", they only provided options for "with a warrant but only for suspected terrorism" and "for any serious crime but without a warrant". I suspect some users would vote for "any serious crime with a warrant" but will now vote for option 1 because they still want a warrant.

You're right, there is no option for "serious crime but only with warrant". Option 1 is more strict in both ways. Only Terrorism (which is more serious than "just" crime) and even then only with a warrant. Option 2 is unacceptable (IMO). "serious crime" is too ambiguous and without a warrant prone to misuse.

Option 2 is clearly the "but the children!" solution which will fuck us all over.

Re: Telegram is asking German users when to share information with law enforcement

#85

Post by wruza »

idaseing wrote: post #62

Lots of people here in Germany use Telegram for their purchases of substances (a serious crime here) because they consider it safe. If there's a danger of Telegram sharing their data with the police, the app is no longer safe. If it it's no longer safe for one thing, people won't use it for anything.

for their purchases of substances

Purchases are where the sales at. Strange that these sellers aren’t using more secure messengers.

I believe that illegal activity is a good litmus test for a messenger, much better than forum theories or headlines. If for some reason drug dealers stay away from particular apps, so should you.

Re: Telegram is asking German users when to share information with law enforcement

#86

Post by khannurien »

onli wrote: post #35
izzytcp wrote: post #3

Hi, German here. How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. Just like Signal. I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! The app doesn’t solve any privacy problem, default chats are unencrypted, keeps personal info. App should be dead already or turned into a dating app because it’s clearly not seriously privacy fucused.

You can install Telegram with f-droid, and it works well on a degoogled phone. Signal forbids alternate clients and is not on f-droid. It's thus just not an option.

https://signal.org/android/apk/

Signal will send you a notification when updates are available, and self-update.

Re: Telegram is asking German users when to share information with law enforcement

#88

Post by archi42 »

hnbad wrote: post #2

Note that they didn't provide options for "with a warrant" and "without a warrant", they only provided options for "with a warrant but only for suspected terrorism" and "for any serious crime but without a warrant". I suspect some users would vote for "any serious crime with a warrant" but will now vote for option 1 because they still want a warrant.

I think this is very important: The poll is intended to be able to claim that their users want as little cooperation as possible. And giving the "((1+2)/2). any serious crime but WITH a warrant" option would have undermined that, so they manipulate the poll.

At least that's what I'm reading into this. Picking option #2 was my personal "f..k y.." to them for this manipulation; not that it changes anything. (I really don't want to have a company share info without a warrant, but when a court warrant is issued they should comply).

Re: Telegram is asking German users when to share information with law enforcement

#89

Post by atemerev »

Telegram is not a privacy-focused messenger. It is not a messenger at all, it is a dialog-based development platform, like WeChat. Most of its value is in public channels and groups, and bots. It is dead simple to build a useful Telegram bot; good luck doing this on Signal.

Wire and Threema are serious privacy-focused messengers. They have all things necessary for good privacy: full E2E, pseudonymous IDs not linked to phone numbers, multiple accounts, ephemeral accounts, side-channel authentication, etc.

Signal is something in between. It is not enough for state of the art privacy (as it is linked to phone numbers which are really tightly coupled to real-world identities), and it doesn’t provide a lot of features to be a good development platform. I think it is stuck in its current state, and no longer evolving.

Re: Telegram is asking German users when to share information with law enforcement

#90

Post by [deleted] »

greatgib wrote: post #13

Sadly I think that it is the slippery slope for Telegram. Instead of the spirit of privacy first, they start to concede little by little for commercial interests. First it is just the IP and phone number. Then, it will be extended to contacts. Because, why not, that can be useful also for "terrorist investigations". Then it will be chat history,because it makes sense, the police has a warrant... And telegram is techn…

[deleted]
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