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

Post by orbital-decay » Mon, May 13, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

novaRom wrote: post #263

There are multiple layers where interception can happen: 1) On-screen keyboard - by default most phones do send what is being typed - a lot of phones also have 3rd party keyboards of doubtful origin preinstalled 2) "Enable backup" scam - on starting an app (like Google Photos or WhatsApp) chances you or your wife accidentally press "ok" on a pop up message 3) Hardware drivers - non open source binary blobs with back…

Post by IG_Semmelweiss » Mon, May 13, 2024, 5:00 PM UTC

1oooqooq wrote: post #310

FiloSottile wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“All of them” in what sense? I use WhatsApp dozens of times a day, and interact with business accounts every couple months at most.

Good for you, you probably do not live in a country under digital colonialism where the gov allowed facebook et al to force internet providers to tax the pop with absurdly low and expensive data limits and then "not count" things like facebook and whatsapp and one music app. In most of the global south, 100% of business have a whatsapp. In those places it pretty much replaced telephone and the green whatsapp icon is…

Post by The_Colonel » Mon, May 13, 2024, 5:39 PM UTC

growse wrote: post #438

Sebb767 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but your phone number isn't visible to anyone you chat with. That's irrelevant - the phone number is known to Signal and can be request by law enforcement. And, since it's been made pretty much impossible to buy a SIM in the EU without showing identification [0], this will allow law enforcement to link the account to you. [0] IIRC the Netherlands is the only country left where you can buy SIMs without ID.

> That's irrelevant - the phone number is known to Signal and can be request by law enforcement. So how does this work? Law enforcement asks signal if they have an account for a phone number, signal saying "yes, here's when they created it". Then what?

Post by nabakin » Mon, May 13, 2024, 5:43 PM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #196

mmmdaaa wrote: post #58

This is a response to the following post from Telegram creator Durov https://t.me/durov/274

- "I don't like where one of their board worked" (find someone high up in the cryptography ecosystem who hasn't been involved in this sort of thing somewhere in their career) - "I don't like where their funding comes from" (US govt regularly funds secure software because they depend on it for their own operations, see: Tor) - "An alarming number of people think their chats were leaked". It's easy to state things with…

Post by EasyMark » Mon, May 13, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

raxxorraxor wrote: post #396

OSI-Auflauf wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Signal vs Telegram: Telegrams Encryption is off most of the time. They have serverside access to messages. The optional E2E is annoying to use and isnt even available on every platform. For example Tdesktop afaik still has no E2E support. (And has a very brittle software architecture.) You can't register Telegram accounts with the open source client anymore. This should be a non-Discussion. MG implying that just b…

Both services are relatively insecure because they require phone authentication. In the EU at least the number can always be traced back to you if you don't buy specific burner phones. The level of encryption isn't as important anymore at that point. It is less probable you get into problems by using a service that doesn't know your identity.