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Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

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Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#51
post #34

There's been a lot of controversy over the Telegram encryption protocol. Any cryptographer that looks at it cringes, but Telegram has deep pockets and has done a decent job building hype. Beyond doubts with the protocol itself, I think the more important consideration is that most people never use it . Telegram is not encrypted by default. Users have to create a special "secret chat" with contacts that is ephemeral,…

Thank you for bringing this up, I was under impression telegram would be secure by default.

[deleted]

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#52

I met and talked with Pavel last year in St. Petersburg at the VK office and I found him very curious, humble, and quiet. I enjoyed it a lot and I appreciate his sense of humor. In fact he showed me their conference room, which is decorated like a medieval torture chamber: http://tinyurl.com/nm7pqt2 We didn't get into the details but I appreciate that he didn't take the standard approach to plain old conference rooms…

[deleted]

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#53
post #33

During the standoff with the SWAT team, which took place soon after, he wouldn’t answer the door. They went home after an hour. Wait, what? Is that what police in Russia normally do? This would never, ever happen in the United States. LAPD actually even has a "Wrong Doors Unit" which goes around repairing broken down doors when the cops raid the wrong address.[0] [0] http://www.dailynews.com/20080316/repairs-help-reb…

In Russia cops can't enter your home unless they suspect some crime to be carried right this moment or have a court order. You have to open door for them. However I'm not a lawyer and that might not be valid anymore.

much like the US law from some.... wow a decade ago now. has it been that long?

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#54
post #23
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pavel is widely seen by the Russian developer community as a sort of a douchebag who flaunts his wealth in ways that would seem crass to someone from Silicon Valley. Just look at the guy throwing paper planes made from money at a crowd of onlookers: http://youtu.be/2pxTpFqX6rI?t=25s

I view money planes as a joke. In any case, which is better, openly giving money away, or secretly colluding to keep employee wages down? Personally, I prefer his "crassness" to the crassness of the SV elite.

No one objected to his "openly giving money away"; it was that he made a public display of basically pissing it away, and watching the commoners scramble for it. And what starts with sophomore-level crassness the sort Durov made himself famous for tends to morph into the more genteel, but systematically more pernicious (that is to say: white-collar) crassness you're referring to, later on.

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#55
post #34

There's been a lot of controversy over the Telegram encryption protocol. Any cryptographer that looks at it cringes, but Telegram has deep pockets and has done a decent job building hype. Beyond doubts with the protocol itself, I think the more important consideration is that most people never use it . Telegram is not encrypted by default. Users have to create a special "secret chat" with contacts that is ephemeral,…

Nice try NSA, nice try! I use Telegram, which is not related with country I live and the USA. Also I use Babel when I'm out of internet.

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#56
post #34

There's been a lot of controversy over the Telegram encryption protocol. Any cryptographer that looks at it cringes, but Telegram has deep pockets and has done a decent job building hype. Beyond doubts with the protocol itself, I think the more important consideration is that most people never use it . Telegram is not encrypted by default. Users have to create a special "secret chat" with contacts that is ephemeral,…

Thank you for bringing this up, I was under impression telegram would be secure by default.

The communication with the server is encrypted, if you use the official apps. If you use secret chat they are not stored as plain text on the servers and you can make them auto destroy. Also you can delete your chat history. But it is better than WhatsApp because it is not part of governmental control.

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for bringing this up, I was under impression telegram would be secure by default.

The communication with the server is encrypted, if you use the official apps. If you use secret chat they are not stored as plain text on the servers and you can make them auto destroy. Also you can delete your chat history. But it is better than WhatsApp because it is not part of governmental control.

[deleted]

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for bringing this up, I was under impression telegram would be secure by default.

The communication with the server is encrypted, if you use the official apps. If you use secret chat they are not stored as plain text on the servers and you can make them auto destroy. Also you can delete your chat history. But it is better than WhatsApp because it is not part of governmental control.

> it is not part of governmental control

Isn't that a pretty dangerous assertion in itself? It's a private company running private servers that you have no control over and no ability to tell whether or not an external entity has accessed your data.

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for bringing this up, I was under impression telegram would be secure by default.

The communication with the server is encrypted, if you use the official apps. If you use secret chat they are not stored as plain text on the servers and you can make them auto destroy. Also you can delete your chat history. But it is better than WhatsApp because it is not part of governmental control.

Totally bogus. TextSecure-enabled WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted using a widely-respected cryptographic messaging scheme. Telegram isn't. The point of serious end-to-end encryption is that it doesn't matter who runs the servers.

TextSecure-enabled WhatsApp beats Telegram on a pure engineering level; we don't even need to reach politics to prefer it.

Re: Once Celebrated in Russia, Programmer Pavel Durov Chooses Exile

#60
post #34

There's been a lot of controversy over the Telegram encryption protocol. Any cryptographer that looks at it cringes, but Telegram has deep pockets and has done a decent job building hype. Beyond doubts with the protocol itself, I think the more important consideration is that most people never use it . Telegram is not encrypted by default. Users have to create a special "secret chat" with contacts that is ephemeral,…

Nice try NSA, nice try! I use Telegram, which is not related with country I live and the USA. Also I use Babel when I'm out of internet.

This kind of nonsense isn't making Telegram look any better.
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