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After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

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Re: After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

#161

Post by Gasp0de »

aliqot wrote: post #140
Gasp0de wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Signal does require a phone number to register, they only know your phone number, your date of registration and the date of your phones last connection to signal's servers. Anyone requesting your information from them needs to provide your phone number, so any info they can get is account creation date and date of last connection.

Signal shouldn't ask for phone numbers. I don't give a shit what the justification is.

If you want an anonymous messenger, Signal is not the product for you. If you want a secure messenger that doesn't (and can't) collect any data on your communication, and at the same time (due to the lack of anonymity) prevents spam, then Signal is the messenger for you.

Re: After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

#162

Post by marcinzm »

symlinkk wrote: post #148
njarboe wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditionally Americans are quite suspicious of their government. The battles over 1st Amendment free speech and 2nd Amendment gun rights, among many, are a testament that the sentiment is still widely held.

Well, only republicans.

Unless you're thinking of getting an abortion.

Re: After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

#163

Post by ghostpepper »

Gasp0de wrote: post #121
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes. yes yes. yes. yes 100%. the same reason i avoid whatsapp and signal like the plague. "mobile number" is in itself a big identifier when you are living in a place where you have o do mandatory KYC so that the government knows which each mobile number is linked to the actual human being. i dont care signal doesnt hold any messages. the government can ask for my number and they can use the xkcd spanner method to do…

So what exactly is your threat model here that signal doesn't counter? They need to know your phone number before asking signal about it.

Not the OP but I would guess that there is a large group chat of people talking about something the government doesn't like. The government manages to get their hands on one phone from the group, and then they automatically have all the other phone numbers too.

Re: After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

#164

Post by egberts1 »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #18
ls15 wrote: post #2

Don't use messengers that ask for your phone number and aren't end-to-end encrypted. Use services that store as little data as possible. If data is stored, it can be given away and I would assume that it will be given away. Telegram disguises itself as encrypted chat app, when it is actually just a regular centralized plaintext messenger that has an encryption feature that nobody uses.

yes. yes yes. yes. yes 100%. the same reason i avoid whatsapp and signal like the plague. "mobile number" is in itself a big identifier when you are living in a place where you have o do mandatory KYC so that the government knows which each mobile number is linked to the actual human being. i dont care signal doesnt hold any messages. the government can ask for my number and they can use the xkcd spanner method to do…

I prefer privacy over anonymity, which is what Signal does best.

Only Signal leaves your message on their servers totally encrypted at-rest whose keys stays at your phone. No court order can ever hope to compel Signal what was said. The court will instead need one of the parties' phone for that, if it hasn't expire-deleted yet and doesn't have 9-alphanumeric characters or longer password length.

That cannot be said true of Telegram, WhatsApp, WeChat (that I've reversed engineered).

Re: After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

#165

Post by Gasp0de »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #96
cpach wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to explain your threat model. We are quite many where the threat model does not depend on hiding our phone number from the government.

yeah.... let me present some material https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/kashmir-lockdown-arres... https://thenextweb.com/news/kashmirs-police-want-people-to-r... >Kashmir’s police want people to ‘register’ their WhatsApp groups https://www.dailyexcelsior.com/police-crackdown-keypad-jehad... >Police crackdown on ‘keypad jehadis’ https://kashmirobserver.net/2022/01/11/jk-police-launches-cr... >J&K Police Launches C…

The only threat that comes from Signal using phone numbers is that if the police arrests someone you are communicating with, and police somehow unlocks their phone (https://xkcd.com/538/), then they can see what you and them wrote as well as your phone number and therefore know who you are. I agree that in some situations, for example anti-government activists, journalists communicating with whistleblowers or criminals, this is bad. For these situations, Signal is not the solution.

Re: After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

#166

Post by ViViDboarder »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #18
ls15 wrote: post #2

Don't use messengers that ask for your phone number and aren't end-to-end encrypted. Use services that store as little data as possible. If data is stored, it can be given away and I would assume that it will be given away. Telegram disguises itself as encrypted chat app, when it is actually just a regular centralized plaintext messenger that has an encryption feature that nobody uses.

yes. yes yes. yes. yes 100%. the same reason i avoid whatsapp and signal like the plague. "mobile number" is in itself a big identifier when you are living in a place where you have o do mandatory KYC so that the government knows which each mobile number is linked to the actual human being. i dont care signal doesnt hold any messages. the government can ask for my number and they can use the xkcd spanner method to do…

So I’m this threat model the government knows your phone number, suspects you’ve been communicating with others, and beats a confession out of you… Why is the phone number being used in a chat app significant?

They can still beat you with a wrench to divulge your information even if it’s on Matrix or even pen and paper.

Re: After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

#167

Post by Gasp0de »

simiones wrote: post #132
sfusato wrote: post #81

All of a sudden, it seems really stupid that telegram stores all their data unencrypted and waiting for a court order. I expect them to fight this, because they have a very good track record there, but the moment they capitulate the floodgates will open.

You expect them to fight this after they have now disclosed all of the data? That's quite a high amount of optimism from you.

Have they disclosed the data? I think the title of the article is misleading. In the content, it says that they have been ordered by a court to disclose the data, but not that they have (they have in other cases though).

Re: After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

#168

Post by freeqaz »

derwiki wrote: post #149
leetnewb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness, I got my entire non-technical family onto xmpp/jabber with Snikket (which is a highly opinionated packaging of existing xmpp server and clients with minor tweaks). They scan a QR code to download the app and join the server. It is e2ee out of the box and the experience is quite comfortable and seamless, even for a non-technical person.

There are varying degrees of “non-technical”, and you lost most of my family at “scan a QR code”

I thought this was a skill that most people had now that most restaurants only give QR codes for menus?

Re: After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

#169

Post by CommitSyn »

cl3misch wrote: post #103
baxtr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ones don't ask for a phone number?

"Session": it's a Signal fork which uses Tor

It's a Signal fork that uses Oxen, a Tor fork. It also changes a lot under the hood with regards to encryption, and I'm not smart enough to know if the changes are good or bad.

There's not a truly solid secure anonymous implementation that I've found.

Re: After Delhi High Court ruling, Telegram discloses personal details of users

#170

Post by leetnewb »

derwiki wrote: post #149
leetnewb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness, I got my entire non-technical family onto xmpp/jabber with Snikket (which is a highly opinionated packaging of existing xmpp server and clients with minor tweaks). They scan a QR code to download the app and join the server. It is e2ee out of the box and the experience is quite comfortable and seamless, even for a non-technical person.

There are varying degrees of “non-technical”, and you lost most of my family at “scan a QR code”

I don't know how it would have gone remotely, but no issue in-person. I opened an invite QR on my device, asked parent to open camera, and point it at code. They get the gist that the app name is Snikket, they get notifications of messages and calls, and the layout and icons are pretty similar to every other messaging app. I am going to attempt it with an in-law who only just stepped into the smartphone era this month, has no familiarity with a smartphone interface, and is the least technical person I know.
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