Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 609 posts

Re: Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?

#31

Post by littlestymaar »

331c8c71 wrote: post #13

I am null at cryptography but thie following does not sound too bad as a default tbh. And I think it is misleading to focus solely on e2ee and not mention the distributed aspect. 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…

Splitting stuff between multiple companies doesn't really protect anyone if the boss of all companies is held hostage.

Also

> To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments.

Didn't they conclude an agreement with Russian gvt in 2021?

Re: Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?

#32

Post by taikahessu »

lxgr wrote: post #18
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #6

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?

> If telegrams encryption is so bad why is Pavel Durov under arrest? 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.

Or maybe he is sharing with the other guys.

Re: Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?

#35

Post by lxgr »

ahmedbaracat wrote: post #11

Are there any pointers for work to try to make metadata private (I.e encrypted)? 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 idea…

> I was just recommending Telegram as alternative to WhatsApp

If you care about privacy and security, please don't. Defaults matter, and private chats are effectively unusable for anyone using more than one device or needing group chats. And that's not even considering their strange home-baked cryptography.

Re: Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?

#36

Post by kitkat_new »

331c8c71 wrote: post #13

I am null at cryptography but thie following does not sound too bad as a default tbh. And I think it is misleading to focus solely on e2ee and not mention the distributed aspect. 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…

I wonder if this is practically relevant at all.

Given that users can access their messages without interaction with people at Telegram, automatic aggregation of the cloud data for single end points is in place.

In consequence the data can be accessed from a single jurisdiction anyways.

Re: Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?

#38

Post by codethief »

Thanks for the blog post, now I finally have a good resource I can point people to next time they claim Telegramm is secure.

> I am not specifically calling out Telegram for this, since the same problem [with metadata] exists with virtually every other social media network and private messenger.

Notably, Signal offers a feature called Sealed Sender[0]. While it doesn't solve the metadata problem entirely, it does at least reduce it a bit.

[0]: https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/

Re: Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?

#39

Post by cheptsov »

Cynddl wrote: post #24
cheptsov wrote: post #12

The author claims that everyone refers to Telegram as an encrypted messenger, but he only provides a single example to support that. I quickly checked Google News and couldn't find any media on the first page that did the same. It feels like a manipulation. 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…

Just today, every French newspaper and hundreds around the world. Two examples: https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/pavel-durov-te... “Chief executive of the encrypted messaging app reportedly detained at an airport near Paris over alleged failure to stop criminal activity on the platform” https://www.tf1info.fr/high-tech/telegram-qui-est-pavel-duro... (one of the largest French newspaper) “Qui est Pavel Du…

It’s called handpicking
Post reply on HN