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I was recently very curious about this question and asked similar ones here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41267877
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41270863
On a side note, I was just recommending Telegram as alternative to WhatsApp (but I did mention that we need to enable Private chats for E2E). It is definitely not an ideal UX.
UPDATE: anyone who downvote, I invite to check for themselves.
Just a few known media:
1. https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2024/8/25/telegram-messag...
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/25/durov-t...
3. https://www.businessinsider.com/telegram-ceo-pavel-durov-arr...
4. https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/aug/24/telegr...
However, indeed, I‘ve seen a few media that call it encrypted. This include France24, POLITICO, and The Times.
https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests
> To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption, Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure. Cloud chat data is stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are controlled by different legal entities spread across different jurisdictions. The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data.
> Thanks to this structure, we can ensure that no single government or block of like-minded countries can intrude on people's privacy and freedom of expression.
> Telegram can be forced to give up data only if an issue is grave and universal enough to pass the scrutiny of several different legal systems around the world.
> To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments.
Obviously if your phone is compromised your e2ee chat is not safe.
If telegrams encryption is so bad why is Pavel Durov under arrest? The arrest cites that he was not cooperating with authorities to crack down on various drug illegal activities on telegram. None of the other social networks have their ceos arrested. Is it simply that telegram is the only one without backdoors for five eyes? It seems to me the secret chat feature actually works too well?
Even so, most messages sent on Telegram are plaintext, they're encrypted only in transport layer, but Telegram's servers see them in full. Secret chats (the only E2EE chats on Telegram) are hidden away from the users, hence the original link.
If telegrams encryption is so bad why is Pavel Durov under arrest? The arrest cites that he was not cooperating with authorities to crack down on various drug illegal activities on telegram. None of the other social networks have their ceos arrested. Is it simply that telegram is the only one without backdoors for five eyes? It seems to me the secret chat feature actually works too well?
He's under arrest precisely because it is bad enough that Telegram is in a position to share data with law enforcement, but it chooses not to.
This is such an old topic. Every time something related to the Telegram happens, somebody starts a discussion about how it's not an e2e-by-default. But the reality is nobody cares. And considering this, it's ridiculous now that Durov is detained on the accusations of being responsible for all kinds of information that's being spread in non e2e-by-default messenger.