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Group Video Calls

telegram.org

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Re: Group Video Calls

#101

Post by nucleardog »

ticviking wrote: post #37
Yaina wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Telegram Apps are all great and have so many awesome features that are crucially also extremely well implemented. Everything seems so well thought through! It's just incredibly scary not to know anything about who these developers are, where they are located and most importantly how this is all financed! I understand Pavel Durov is a very wealthy man, but developing and hosting a popular global messenger service…

TBH my threat model views Russian and Middle Eastern oligarchs and governments as less of an immediate threat to my freedoms than my own government or major US tech firms. Long run it's a problem, but until I have a app at the same risk/feature sweet spot I don't mind the downsides of telegram. (Edited cause I am utterly unable to spell)

This was part of how I settled on Telegram.

Basically any western country can be secretly ordered to turn over all my information on the flimsiest of reasons, if it’s not already just intercepted through Five Eyes style arrangements.

The chances of Russia volunteering to share my chat history with anyone that could actually impact my day to day life is pretty much nil, and I’m certainly not interesting to anyone in their sphere.

Re: Group Video Calls

#102

Post by wiradikusuma »

qwertox wrote: post #34

To me Telegram feels like the red corner district of a city. I simply don't feel like I can trust it, there's something very shady about it. I wouldn't be surprised if Telegram reads those exclusive Bitcoin whale groups and uses that insider info. Group chats are not end to end encrypted. That being said, WhatsApp is like the authorized garage where you know that you'll get the service which is officially recognized…

I think maybe because your family and coworkers live in WhatsApp, while your dodgy friends and "random" groups are in Telegram? That's my case :)

Re: Group Video Calls

#103

Post by ec109685 »

nokya wrote: post #95
Egrodo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious how WhatsApp makes you feel screwed over? The work they do to ensure end to end encryption is impressive.

Facebook doesn't really get a strong advantage in keeping keys to read your messages on its own servers. Intelligence services would benefit from this, so would fraudulent or corrupted employees. For Facebook, storing keys to your message is more a burden, if anything. Facebook derives valuable data about you through WhatsApp in three channels: - analyzing the content of your discussions before they get encrypted and…

On iOS apps can’t find out what other apps you have installed.

With gdpr, you can at least download all the data they have collected about you. Have you verified your Trojan horse claim?

Re: Group Video Calls

#104

Post by noofen »

tptacek wrote: post #30
Trias11 wrote: post #4

Lots of oppressive governments and controlling entities are not happy about it. Kudos to Telegram team!

If it's not encrypted end-to-end, why exactly would it be alarming to an oppressive government?

It's still encrypted over the wire. And Pavel Durov isn't exactly a bootlicker (see his history with Russia).

That said, who knows who has access to Telegram servers.

Re: Group Video Calls

#105

Post by joecool1029 »

Arathorn wrote: post #69
joecool1029 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the development teams at Telegram should be applauded I can't stress enough that it helps that they don't have E2EE and centralized most of the complexity to their server. Related regarding feature deployment: I got some negative feedback for dumping on Matrix for announcing Spaces without iOS client support. They should have waited until Element had all their major platforms covered before announcing it. It's…

It wasn’t a roll-out - it was the announcement of the first public beta. Spaces has lots left to do: not just iOS but private spaces etc too.

Please just give me folders like Telegram did, so I can organize my own chats. I get the point of Spaces and was excited to use it for my homeserver since it helps onboarding new users, but to announce it without support in one of the 3 popular reference clients is just silly.

Re: Group Video Calls

#106

Post by vngzs »

ec109685 wrote: post #103
nokya wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook doesn't really get a strong advantage in keeping keys to read your messages on its own servers. Intelligence services would benefit from this, so would fraudulent or corrupted employees. For Facebook, storing keys to your message is more a burden, if anything. Facebook derives valuable data about you through WhatsApp in three channels: - analyzing the content of your discussions before they get encrypted and…

On iOS apps can’t find out what other apps you have installed. With gdpr, you can at least download all the data they have collected about you. Have you verified your Trojan horse claim?

Many of these claims are described in [0]:

> WhatsApp still won't be able to access any of your communications or share them with Facebook. Meanwhile, WhatsApp will be able to share user account information like your phone number, logs of how long and how often you use WhatsApp, device identifiers, IP addresses, and other details about your device with Facebook. Plus, WhatsApp can share transaction and payment data, cookies, and location information with Facebook if you grant permission. All of which has been true since 2016.

More is detailed in the WhatsApp privacy policy [1] (emphasis mine):

> We collect information about your activity on our Services, like service-related, diagnostic, and performance information. This includes information about your activity (including how you use our Services, your Services settings, how you interact with others using our Services (including when you interact with a business), and the time, frequency, and duration of your activities and interactions), log files, and diagnostic, crash, website, and performance logs and reports. This also includes information about when you registered to use our Services; the features you use like our messaging, calling, Status, groups (including group name, group picture, group description), payments or business features; profile photo, "about" information; whether you are online, when you last used our Services (your "last seen"); and when you last updated your "about" information.

I suspect nokya was exaggerating somewhat, but only somewhat.

[0]: https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-privacy-policy-facebook...

[1]: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-policy

Re: Group Video Calls

#107

Post by geocar »

ec109685 wrote: post #103
nokya wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook doesn't really get a strong advantage in keeping keys to read your messages on its own servers. Intelligence services would benefit from this, so would fraudulent or corrupted employees. For Facebook, storing keys to your message is more a burden, if anything. Facebook derives valuable data about you through WhatsApp in three channels: - analyzing the content of your discussions before they get encrypted and…

On iOS apps can’t find out what other apps you have installed. With gdpr, you can at least download all the data they have collected about you. Have you verified your Trojan horse claim?

> With gdpr, you can at least download all the data they have collected about you.

I don’t believe this is correct: They may only have to provide data they “control” (in the GDPR-sense of the word; see Art.15,3)

If they merely downloaded it for processing into market segments or even just generated high-value marketing segments directly on the device, they would only have to and be able to give you the list of those segments, and maybe explain broadly that they learned this from “on-line activity”.

If they do exfiltrate everything, they could hold this data for “legitimate interests” such as for lawful intercept, fraud detection, or disaster recovery. If it is not a “normal” business practice to access[1] it they may not be required to reveal that they have it.

Note I am not verifying that Facebook does these things only what my understanding of their obligations are under the GDPR. This does not constitute legal advice, I am not your lawyer, and so on.

[1]: FB’s normal business is selling ads and they don’t typically let ad sales or traffickers access this raw data directly.

Re: Group Video Calls

#108

Post by decrypt »

0xy wrote: post #59
joecool1029 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the development teams at Telegram should be applauded I can't stress enough that it helps that they don't have E2EE and centralized most of the complexity to their server. Related regarding feature deployment: I got some negative feedback for dumping on Matrix for announcing Spaces without iOS client support. They should have waited until Element had all their major platforms covered before announcing it. It's…

Telegram does have E2EE in secret chats. WhatsApp does NOT have E2EE because it backs up your private keys to cloud storage by default. Even if you don't, your contacts might. Therefore WhatsApp is less secure.

This is incorrect. WhatsApp is E2EE as well. It does not backup the keys to their cloud. Rather, you seem to be referring to the fact that they offer cloud backup on Google Drive, in which case the chats are stored in plain text.

Re: Group Video Calls

#109

Post by decrypt »

joecool1029 wrote: post #15
jhabdas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And ephemeral, when desired by the user.

This is kind of loaded. I do think Telegram does an excellent job at ephemerality from a practical standpoint. Without being able to audit their server though, we have no clue if 'disappeared' chats and messages are actually scrubbed from their server. I was once banned from the service for playing around with very old clients and had a back and forth with them over email for a week or so (it was re-enabled and they…

>Telegram does an excellent job at ephemerality from a practical standpoint. Without being able to audit their server though, we have no clue if 'disappeared' chats and messages are actually scrubbed from their server.

Aren't disappearing messages a feature of secret chats? If my understanding is correct here, these messages are not backed up to the cloud. Rather they are stored within your device. That's precisely why e2ee synced chats are not available.

Re: Group Video Calls

#110

Post by decrypt »

tptacek wrote: post #29
jhabdas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And ephemeral, when desired by the user.

_And_ ephemeral? Does that mean this is end-to-end encrypted?

The ephemeral functionality is different from end-to-end encrypted functionality. The former is part of the end-to-end encrypted chats, and can be modified as needed. It's basically a timer that controls when your messages disappear.
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