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Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

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Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#81

Post by conradfr »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #52
dangoodmanUT wrote: post #4

Telegram has always felt like the catch-up of the messenger apps. I don't know a single person who uses it.

I don't get this. I'm in the EU and nearly everybody I know has Telegram. Telegram has a huge advantage versus WhatsApp: it's not Meta. Then the Telegram UI is really excellent. When you tell people all your friends and family are using it and that's it's not from Facebook, they usually install it on the spot. Then they're hooked.

I'm in France and don't know anyone using it.

Except the government, as reported in the news.

Actually the only time I used it it's because I needed to chat with a Russian SaaS personnel.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#82

Post by FabHK »

yreg wrote: post #61
tifik wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just opt-in, it's a non-default option you have to actively seek out and enable with every new conversation you start. So yes, by default, without additional steps taken, telegram is not e2e encrypted.

"Non-default option" is exactly what "opt-in" means, no?

You can opt in to something and then have it enabled by default. Not so with e2ee in Telegram.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#83

Post by Quiark »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #66

I don't know about Telegram being nasty towards Signal but Signal brought this upon themselves. Metadata are more important than the content of the messages and yet Signal has always been about knowing your phone number, with handwaving when the subject is mentioned. Sessions, a Signal fork, had its tagline right: "Share encrypted messages, not metadata" . Signal is a metadata exchanging app and it's about collecting…

Not sure if metadata is more important but ok. Signal has launched support to use nicknames instead of phone numbers although it's true this took a long time.

I think Telegram is very wide-spread for running large group chats and communities, a use case that Signal is not interested in. Personally, I want my chats end to end encrypted and I'm grateful to Signal for pioneering this and inspiring Whatsapp, facebook messenger and others to adopt the same.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#84

Post by Stagnant »

yreg wrote: post #38

So the entire argument for "Telegram isn’t a secure messenger, full stop." is that E2EE is opt-in? If that's all there is to it, then the opinion is rather weak. edit: maybe post a comment in addition to pressing the downbutton. I'm curious what's so problematic about what I've said.

I'd guess telegram can be secure if used correctly but the fact that their desktop client doesn't support secret chats at all feels weird. It has been one of the most requested features but they seem to have no interest in implementing it and have closed the issue on github.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#85

Post by konart »

dangoodmanUT wrote: post #4

Telegram has always felt like the catch-up of the messenger apps. I don't know a single person who uses it.

Can say the same for Viber and to a lesser extent Whatsapp. Not to mention Signal. I'd guess popular IRC servers have more real users than Signal.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#86

Post by piaste »

XorNot wrote: post #41
pydry wrote: post #28

Given the location of Telegram's servers (Dubai), and the nature of the government (neutral dictatorship) and the lack of encryption, my default assumption would be that not only are they selling access to your data to major governments, they've probably even streamlined the bidding process.

Yep. The magic of "you could turn on encryption" is that nearly all people using it won't. "Ah, but if you need encryption then you'll..." - well, two things now. Suddenly you're the person who has encryption switched on . And also more likely, someone they talk to will forget to switch it on and just blab everything into cleartext anyway. The entire importance of Signal's model is that it is always encrypted. It's w…

Addressing only one point, not your main one which I agree with:

> And also more likely, someone they talk to will forget to switch it on and just blab everything into cleartext anyway.

I expect that if you enable a Telegram Secret Chat with Bob, Bob cannot unilaterally un-secret it. I would be very surprised if that was the case.

Of course Bob can then share the contents with Carol via an un-encrypted channel. But every encrypted channel has that weakness.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#87

Post by lukan »

To quote one comment (Phillip.png):

"With assistance from Elon Musk" is a pretty big accusation. I held off replying until I read your whole thread, and then you didn't mention that at all. What the hell?"

Seriously, what the heck has Elon Musk to do with this? Unless we also want to debate what we all think of Elon Musk when we talk about chat protocols?

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