Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by alexpc201 » Mon, May 13, 2024, 11:52 AM UTC

OSI-Auflauf wrote: post #98

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…

Signal has got Usernames now. You can block number discovery. You can't resolve username to number. Your main account ID internally is not your number anymore. If 2 users add you using 2 different links or usernames. Its now harder to confirm its the same account.

Tell me, can you have a Signal account WITHOUT giving them your phone number?

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

#112

Post by yreg » Mon, May 13, 2024, 11:52 AM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #82

yreg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Ah, I see.

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

#113

Post by gardenhedge » Mon, May 13, 2024, 11:53 AM UTC

yreg wrote: post #9

https://nitter.poast.org/matthew_d_green/status/178968789886...

Woah, people are still doing that thing where they break a post into 10+ tweets?

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

#114

Post by treprinum » Mon, May 13, 2024, 11:53 AM UTC

Which messaging app applies US, Russian and Chinese encryption on each message/metadata at the same time that neither agency can break it alone?

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

#115

Post by baq » Mon, May 13, 2024, 11:53 AM UTC

vbezhenar wrote: post #14

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 know a single person who doesn't use Telegram.

I don't know a single person who does.

Yeah, plenty have accounts, but nobody uses it to actually chat.

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

#116

Post by OSI-Auflauf » Mon, May 13, 2024, 11:53 AM UTC

treprinum wrote: post #100

imjonse wrote: post #90

Telegram were claiming they were more secure even when they had their own home-rolled crypto. Security is not Telegram's strong point and it never was.

Why is home-rolled crypto inherently insecure?

Because theirs was particularly bad. They xored a server provided nonce in their modified DH scheme making their side able to mitm the key exchanges.

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

#117

Post by FabHK » Mon, May 13, 2024, 11:53 AM UTC

spoiler wrote: post #108

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…

[flagged]

> Telegram doesn't enable E2E out of the box because it wanted users to compare some image matches in person (akin to the idea of PGP sign parties I suppose?)

That makes sense only in the context of e2ee to avoid MITM attacks, unless I'm mistaken.

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

#118

Post by rahen » Mon, May 13, 2024, 11:54 AM UTC

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…

Telegram also exchanges metadata. Only Sessions and Tox achieve full and decentralized privacy.

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

#119

Post by raspyberr » Mon, May 13, 2024, 11:54 AM UTC

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…

But Signal specifically used phone numbers to leverage the already existing social graph on your phone. The numbers were never transferred or stored by Signal. You can literally see what information they gave when they were subpoenad: https://signal.org/bigbrother/central-california-grand-jury/

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

#120

Post by imjonse » Mon, May 13, 2024, 11:54 AM UTC

Durov's exile and distancing from Russia after the VK takeover may be just for show and for selling Telegram as 'the dissident app'. It is popular, easy to use and insecure.