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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

#171

Post by leetnewb »

alistairSH wrote: post #155
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.

Can they use it to chat with classmates from high school? Given my parents generation (Boomer, born 1948), they're mostly all on Facebook, so they either use Facebook groups+Messenger, SMS, or email (yikes!). Family chat is just on a giant SMS chain, which admittedly is awkward as there are several "sub-chains" with some people removed. Or is my family just weird in their chat preferences?

My folks are in the same age group and don't care for FB. Not sure that is representative of boomers as a whole, but the family generally likes the idea of communicating on a private, secure chat system.

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

#172

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

ghostpepper wrote: post #163
Gasp0de wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://thenextweb.com/news/kashmirs-police-want-people-to-r...

exact same thing. you register your whatsapp group meaning you either get a mole as a member to keep track of the activities or you are made to (unverified) install pegasus style malware on your phone so that the admins can be tracked.

this is exactly https://kashmirlife.net/sleuths-silently-listen-to-clubhouse...

so its not like i am just making this shit up.

remember, clubhouse makes you sign up using the phone so there you go. Now, if the numbers werent there, it would still be possible but not as low effort

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

#173

Post by ViViDboarder »

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.

Each party picks something it seems. Republicans can’t seem to be bothered with the 4th amendment and Democrats seem to support it. At least at local levels. At the federal level nobody seems to care.

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

#174

Post by discardedrefuse »

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.

> Telegram disguises itself as encrypted chat app

No. It doesn't. This sentiment is pretty much confined to HN and seems to stem from the whole Moxie non-sense from years ago.

Telegram is a so much more than a messenger. It competes with WeChat, not Signal. It has an incredible API, bots, payments, apps/games, and is host to Onlyfans / Discord-like social groups.

It's time to stop parroting this idea that Telegram is some kind of secure messenger. Yes, it has secret chats, but that is not Telegram's defining feature.

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

#175

Post by ViViDboarder »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #104
XorNot wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is silly. You adopt practice based on your threat model. Threat models presuming the government can just torture information out of you also mean that any system will give you away - you're either completely anonymous or not, but if you use a messenger of any kind from your home internet IP address, then they'll come pick you up. Telecom companies have full records of who had what IP, for what duration and when…

people regularly use VPNs and today,in 2022, that is no longer a fringe action. NORMAL people now use VPNs to bypass geo restrictions. signal to noise ratio of people using VPNs removes the linking user device to an account to a good extent. now, in the existing model, whatever method you use, your number is STILL a PII, in whatsapp or signal or whatever. >then so will anything else. 100% agree but you whatever count…

I’m not sure what the threat is that the phone number opens you up to.

That a government will scan all domestic phone numbers against a Signal API to identify a list of users who, at one time, installed Signal and use that list to target you? They can do the same with IP addresses of people using VPNs as well. Something is tied to you regardless.

You’re right that the Signal would allow this by phone number or IP, so it’s an additional angle at the same threat.

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

#176

Post by simiones »

Gasp0de wrote: post #167
simiones wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The article goes on to say:

> Justice Prathiba M. Singh in the order dated November 24 said the names of admins, the phone numbers and IP addresses of some of the channels as are available with Telegram have been supplied.

Of course, I can't independently verify this, but the article claims pretty clearly that the data has already been provided.

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

#177

Post by Semaphor »

freeqaz wrote: post #168
derwiki wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Probably depends on where you are, I’ve only seen that option once or twice, and that was in addition to a proper menu.

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

#178

Post by ViViDboarder »

emptysongglass wrote: post #49
ls15 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://telegram.org/ > Private > Telegram messages are heavily encrypted and can self-destruct.

But they are encrypted. I think you're looking for e2ee, which it advertises only for Secret Chats.

That’s exactly why it’s deceptive.

Most people think of “private” as between the conversation parties, not everyone in the conversation, the company, and any government with leverage on them.

Encryption at rest prevents from some intrusion attacks but does absolutely nothing against a warrant if the government has leverage.

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

#179

Post by ViViDboarder »

stefandesu wrote: post #32
maxpro wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not the first case for Telegram. So, Durov will continue with his show... they claim that Telegram is e2e encrypted, but don't mention that needs to be activated per chat

I'm a little bit sad because I'm sure if they invested some effort into it, they could make all chats e2e encrypted while still allowing sync with their server. They "just" need to figure out a way to safely exchange the private key between devices. I know it's not completely trivial, but if anyone could create a good user experience for this, it's certainly Telegram.

It’s possible and how to do it is public. Signal has encrypted group chats across devices already and is open source.

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

#180

Post by cryoz »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #123

Does Telegram have a branch in India? What is the teritorial limit of the Indian court decision? Internet is very tricky in this regard, but an Indian court has no jurisdiction over entities that are in other countries (this is also a very complicated matter).

Indian court has the jurisdiction to ban all Telegram activities in India. So if they want Indian users they have to comply.
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