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Telegram Isn't for Sale

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Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#131

Post by pfortuny »

Xylakant wrote: post #56
pfortuny wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it is compulsory, it is a tax. Whether it goes to your health problems or your street is irrelevant. If you have no control over the money, it is a tax.

Taxes are free to spend for the government, that is they are levied for whatever action or property the legislators choose to tax. Social security, retirement and health care plans are bound to a purpose and cannot legally be spent on other purposes. They often are compulsory but for example in Germany, health care is mandatory and regulated, but the money does not go to the state but rather to a provider of your cho…

The fact that the government promises to use that money on some thing or other does not remove the other fact: it is totally compulsory and goes to the Government (who is the only entity able to tax, properly speaking). Hence, Germany's system is not strictly speaking a tax, as one has some choice on the destination.

In the same way, donations are not tax (but because they are just contributions to the welfare, they are tax-deductible).

Compulsory Social Security payments to the Government are as much tax as VAT.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#132

Post by Dolores12 »

Grue3 wrote: post #115
eps wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a source for the first claim? Second would've been a red flag if the Russian gvmnt would've been routinely blocking other chat systems.

Russian government is routinely blocking other chat systems. LINE, CacaoTalk and WeChat are currently banned.

>LINE, CacaoTalk and WeChat are currently banned.

No they are NOT banned, I just tried Line & WeChat.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#133

Post by simooooo »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #86
chrisper wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is against physical seizure and tampering. A good part of security against that is obscurity, don't you think?

I wasn't just thinking about security against seizure or tampering of messages, but rather that since the servers could be taken down if discovered by a powerful adversary, then the network would no longer be functional. So it is not a very secure messaging tool to use if the threat model is to provide a reliable means of communication against a powerful adversary who could identify and take down the servers.

How do you know the lack of location info is to stop you knowing if its distributed or not?

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#134

Post by Dolores12 »

baybal2 wrote: post #9

FIY: While they claim being hounded back in Russia, and that they will be instantaneously jumped upon by 3 letter services if they were to run there, they were proven to have a huge office there as well as their main server infrastructure. Another red flag, is that they were never blocked in Russia. They look suspicious.

As far as i remember, the only large system that were banned in Russia is Linkedin, because they didn't follow the law to keep data of Russian users on Russian soil.

And given the fact, that vk.com were taken away from Durov by Mr. Sechin (RosNeft CEO), close friend of Mr. Putin, i highly doubt he is in bed with 3 letter service.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#135

Post by drdaeman »

samat wrote: post #124
slazaro wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it technically impossible to have end to end encryption with full history, even synced? As long as you have the decryption key, you could have synced encrypted history, the best of both worlds, right?

Consider you’ve lost all your devices and logged in to a service. It either can decipher your history or it can’t. And if it can (which is convinient) - why have a e2e in the first place?

Revoke the key, so the lost device won't be able to read the new messages. What the device already knows - it just can't be helped.

This is irrelevant to E2E or even PFS. Basically, it's about message archive security - either it's leaked (and no amount of encryption and authentication would help) or not.

E2E systems can sync message history - by mutually verifying device keys and then propagating data across such trusted links. I mean, if someone can send you a large file there is no reason one of your devices can't send a message to another your device, with a large encrypted blob of what it knows about the past. And if all devices (including possible server-kept archive private key derivation passphrase) are lost, then message history is gone.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#136

Post by omnimus »

b3lvedere wrote: post #73

I'm still not sure which one is better: Signal or Telegram.

Signal. Telegram is a business run by a millionare who is having fun. Signal is run by well known security expert / activist and his very transparent company Open Whisper systems.

The way Signal tackles the problems is smart gradual development and they are the closest to making the holy grail - e2e encryption without users even noticing it. There are no "secure" and "not secure" messages in signal - it is all encrypted and you can't turn it off. That's awesome.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#137

Post by Grue3 »

Dolores12 wrote: post #132
Grue3 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russian government is routinely blocking other chat systems. LINE, CacaoTalk and WeChat are currently banned.

>LINE, CacaoTalk and WeChat are currently banned. No they are NOT banned, I just tried Line & WeChat.

Maybe you got lucky with your ISP, or the apps learned to work around the block. My home ISP definitely blocks Line website. There are plenty of news sites reporting on the blocks, such as [1]

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/08/technology/wechat-blocked-ru...

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#138

Post by Xylakant »

pfortuny wrote: post #131
Xylakant wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are free to spend for the government, that is they are levied for whatever action or property the legislators choose to tax. Social security, retirement and health care plans are bound to a purpose and cannot legally be spent on other purposes. They often are compulsory but for example in Germany, health care is mandatory and regulated, but the money does not go to the state but rather to a provider of your cho…

The fact that the government promises to use that money on some thing or other does not remove the other fact: it is totally compulsory and goes to the Government (who is the only entity able to tax, properly speaking). Hence, Germany's system is not strictly speaking a tax, as one has some choice on the destination. In the same way, donations are not tax (but because they are just contributions to the welfare, they…

> The fact that the government promises to use that money on some thing or other does not remove the other fact: it is totally compulsory and goes to the Government (who is the only entity able to tax, properly speaking). Hence, Germany's system is not strictly speaking a tax, as one has some choice on the destination

There are lots of mandatory payments that are not taxes: To register a car, you need proof of insurance. Mandatory, government controlled, not a tax. Want to build in flood plains? Some regions enforce a flood insurance. Mandatory, not a tax. Want to register a business in germany? Need to be member of the IHK and pay membership fees. Mandatory, government enforced, not a tax.

Money paid to the Rentenversicherung, to health insurance etc does not go to the government. It goes to semi-private entities (mostly Körperschaften öffentlichen Rechts) and the government has very little control over it other than negotiating the rate and negotiating the mandatory payouts. The money does not go to the government, it cannot be spent on anything other than the purpose it way paid for: Arbeitslosenversicherung pays for the year of Arbeitslosengeld, pension funds for your pension and health insurance when you're ill. All of this may be additionally supported by taxes, but that money comes from the regular tax pool. The individual health insurance providers are actually competing and you, as a member can vote for the governing council of your health insurance.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#139

Post by baybal2 »

rebolek wrote: post #107
baybal2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That point is totally valid. "The West" is rapidly becoming a mirror image of the Soviet Union. With half or more of economic value of your work going to uncle Sam, how this is not a state ran economy? If I remember correctly, the split for a typical Soviet citizen was 60/40, and this is where the West will be this decade if government expenses will continue rising at the speed they do.

If you compare the West to the USSR, you certainly don't know what you are talking about. Taxation in the East block was really not the problem.

I'm not talking about per se taxation, but the split how much economic value of your work you get in your pocket with a paycheck.

In USSR, 60 percent of economic value of labour was taken by the state. The West went from <20% to over 50% since WW2 and is about exceed that 60% soon.

Re: Telegram Isn't for Sale

#140

Post by Dolores12 »

Grue3 wrote: post #137
Dolores12 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>LINE, CacaoTalk and WeChat are currently banned. No they are NOT banned, I just tried Line & WeChat.

Maybe you got lucky with your ISP, or the apps learned to work around the block. My home ISP definitely blocks Line website. There are plenty of news sites reporting on the blocks, such as [1] [1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/08/technology/wechat-blocked-ru...

I have checked blocklist, indeed line.me is blocked[0]. I have tried to run application.

[0] https://reestr.rublacklist.net/rec/170456/

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