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Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

reuters.com

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Re: Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

#121

Post by 14u2c »

tasogare wrote: post #96
otachack wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't use it for e2e, then? There are plenty other solutions for incredibly sensitive chats (Signal, Tox, etc) I think Telegram is a good trade off for group chats, personally. It's feature rich compared to others.

Signal is asking phone number to use, I don't see how this is good for sensitive communication (since metadata alone are often very informative).

Exactly. I have found the phone number requirement idiotic from day one. I recognize the decision was made as a trade off between usability and security (enabling discovering friends via phone etc), but they seem unwilling to admit that this does compromise security.

Re: Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

#122

Post by prirai »

AdamHominem wrote: post #71
don-code wrote: post #30

I'm actually quite thrilled that end users found a way to communicate in spite of "the everyday solution" being down. That gives me some hope that smaller vendors do stand a chance against incumbents, even in Facebook's space.

I'm not particularly thrilled, given Telegram is based in the United Arab Emirates, its client-server encryption is almost purposefully garbage (they basically rolled their own TLS, and predictably researchers keep finding vulnerabilities in "MTProto"), they don't enable e2ee chats by default, and they don't e2ee group chats at all. Do. Not. Use. Telegram.

That was the MTProto. The newer one is MTProto 2.0 but they are still on the older method. Also they have servers distributed across regions so there's no single point of failure. Perhaps they are considering e2e for smaller groups.

Re: Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

#123

Post by prirai »

grishka wrote: post #108
AdamHominem wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not particularly thrilled, given Telegram is based in the United Arab Emirates, its client-server encryption is almost purposefully garbage (they basically rolled their own TLS, and predictably researchers keep finding vulnerabilities in "MTProto"), they don't enable e2ee chats by default, and they don't e2ee group chats at all. Do. Not. Use. Telegram.

Any sources about any real vulnerabilities in MTProto?

Mtproto did have. Mtproto 2.0 hasnhasn't seen such vulnerability. Reporters are still on the older method as that's what creates an effective login.

Re: Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

#124

Post by 0x000000001 »

AdamHominem wrote: post #71
don-code wrote: post #30

I'm actually quite thrilled that end users found a way to communicate in spite of "the everyday solution" being down. That gives me some hope that smaller vendors do stand a chance against incumbents, even in Facebook's space.

I'm not particularly thrilled, given Telegram is based in the United Arab Emirates, its client-server encryption is almost purposefully garbage (they basically rolled their own TLS, and predictably researchers keep finding vulnerabilities in "MTProto"), they don't enable e2ee chats by default, and they don't e2ee group chats at all. Do. Not. Use. Telegram.

You're exaggerating the state of MTProto 2.0. They haven't rolled their own with this release.

Re: Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

#125

Post by prirai »

vinay427 wrote: post #109
trenchgun wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram offers the absolute best user experience IMHO. I would love to use Signal, but I can't really stand it.

Are they competitors? As far as I can tell, Telegram focuses on non-E2EE messaging and is more of an alternative to Facebook Messenger, Google Talk, etc. for non-private messaging. That's fine, but its support for E2EE is incredibly limited compared to Signal (or even WhatsApp), which includes multi-device support, a fairly-functional encrypted backup method especially in the case of Signal, etc.

Multi device yes. The unlimited member functionality and seemless sync without having the phone turned on are the biggest pros. Also, in e2e the contents aren't revealed in notifications.

Re: Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

#126

Post by prirai »

SXX wrote: post #55
whimsicalism wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The clients are open source, which provides better assurances around the E2E encryption than whatsapp.

Except who the hell even use E2EE on Telegram?

You can keep it for personal chats. Also it has no contents revewled in notifications so apps with notification access cancan't steal it.

Re: Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

#127

Post by prirai »

SergeAx wrote: post #67
thepasswordis wrote: post #13

Is there a way to join telegram without giving them my phone number? That just feels like a honeypot/dataleak waiting to happen.

Those 70m are mostly Whatsapp users, so...)

They went back as well.Nothing really matters to them.

Re: Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

#128

Post by zozin »

finfinfin wrote: post #8

I am used to seeing these numbers when talking about social media but really… 70 mln is a huge number. It’s a total population of many countries.. combined! Retention will be much smaller of course.

Facebook has what, almost three billions users across its platforms? 70M is ~2% of that, so a small percentage. While I too doubt that 70M figure, WhatsApp is the de facto communications application in a lot of countries, with many businesses highly reliant on it. In a pinch, you download something, anything to try to continue messaging.

Re: Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

#129

Post by jp0d »

lucb1e wrote: post #58
jp0d wrote: post #20

Some of my closest friends and I moved to Telegram a few months ago. It's actually quite good. I've to be on WhatsApp as it'd be a pain to teach parents how to use a new app!

It's much more convenient indeed, just be aware (I kinda trust that you, being on HN, already are) that it's all encrypted-to-the-server, so any sysadmin can read or hand over your messages. Choosing between known metadata gathering on WhatsApp and a potential Telegram data breach (intentional or unintentional), it's really a devil's dilemma for me. Since a few months (now that Telegram has failed to deliver on the e…

Yes, thank you. I wasn't aware of Telegram's shady models. I'll read about it. But its UI is far better than Signal. I don't use FB and their other products, except for WhatsApp. I've disabled all tracking features on IOS just to be safe! :)

Re: Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook outage

#130

Post by finfinfin »

zozin wrote: post #128
finfinfin wrote: post #8

I am used to seeing these numbers when talking about social media but really… 70 mln is a huge number. It’s a total population of many countries.. combined! Retention will be much smaller of course.

Facebook has what, almost three billions users across its platforms? 70M is ~2% of that, so a small percentage. While I too doubt that 70M figure, WhatsApp is the de facto communications application in a lot of countries, with many businesses highly reliant on it. In a pinch, you download something, anything to try to continue messaging.

Fair point. However, 70 million in a single day is almost unheard of.
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