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WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

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Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#221

Post by bashinator »

LunaSea wrote: post #79
rms_returns wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have many like Google plus, twitter, linkedin, reddit and even hacker news (catering to a specific niche). Problem here is that too many people whom we may call "less tech savvy" won't leave FB. So, in order to stay "compatible" with them, we need to keep our FB accounts active!

Reddit and Hacker News are rather content aggregators rather than social networks. Google+ and Twitter have the same issues than Facebook on these specific issues. LinkedIn is a bit too specialised for professional messages and they too like Google+ and Twitter don't have a great track record concerning privacy and abusing their position.

Reddit may have started as a content aggregator, but there are plenty of subs that mostly or only have original/self-posted content. talesfrom*, various hobby groups, support groups, crowd-sourced advice columns like legaladvice or relationships.

It's well past being solely an aggregator.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#222

Post by askafriend »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #106
rms_returns wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB is too large an organization to survive long when competition is eating a huge chunk of their services. And especially so, if the competition is someone like telegram who is both free and open source. Their decision to purchase WhatsApp turned out to be very ill-timed. WhatsApp was at the peak of their popularity when they did, but that peak was only because of ignorance of the masses - ignorance about glaring hol…

When FB bought WhatsApp, they estimated that the user base only had a useful life of seven years. That was one or two years ago now and I'm not sure if the estimate has been updated, but it would seem FB is running out of time to convert the user base.

Do you have a source for your claims?

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#223

Post by superuser2 »

rodgerd wrote: post #211
superuser2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iMessage already does this without leaking private keys by associating users with many public keys (per-device) instead of just one.

Yeah, telling everyone I want to communicate with they have to buy an iPhone to talk to me any more is a totally reasonable approach.

I'm just pointing out what the solution is for end to end encrypted messaging when users have multiple devices. No need to be hostile.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#224

Post by escobar »

spost wrote: post #217
HappyTypist wrote: post #192

I think this is a good opportunity to plug Signal. Telegram uses a non-standard DIY crypto protocol that already had attacks, its chats are not end to end encrypted by default, and Telegram stores all your messages in the cloud by default while deceptively advertising as a 'private' alternative. Signal / TextSecure on the other hand is encrypted by default, implements more thoroughly audited cryptography, and is reco…

Signal's great. I don't use it because it doesn't sync chats between devices or have a desktop client. Full-on e2e is great, and I'd use Signal if it supported my use case, but it doesn't. So I use Telegram instead, as a fast, easy-to-use, grandparent-compatible chat client with sane picture and file-transfer support. The oddball encryption and the fact that it's not end-to-end by default is a downside, but it's bett…

There is an unfinished Browser plugin (Chrome) for Signal that has seen quite a bit of activity recently. I am excited at the prospect of being able to use Signal from a desktop, and am hoping that it gets an actual release date in the next year or so. https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#225

Post by jsprogrammer »

askafriend wrote: post #222
jsprogrammer wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When FB bought WhatsApp, they estimated that the user base only had a useful life of seven years. That was one or two years ago now and I'm not sure if the estimate has been updated, but it would seem FB is running out of time to convert the user base.

Do you have a source for your claims?

FB's SEC filings.

I can pull the link for you tomorrow.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#226

Post by Nitramp »

rms_returns wrote: post #104
izacus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is IMO one of the greatest dangers of leaving those huge corporations like Facebook, Google, Amazon etc. unchecked - they're starting to attack competition by leveraging their primary products (Amazon blocking Chromecasts, Facebook censoring links and pages about their lawsuits are two latest cases) and are working deliberately against interests of greater public (and capitalism itself if we can stretch that :)…

It is not the anti-monopolistic authorities (who are part of the system, anyway), but WE_THE_PEOPLE who need to do something, so that competition is assured. WE need to keep switching services and not let one service rule everything. Be it messengers, social networking apps, eCommerce stores, ERP software, anything - If we choose one organization to rule them all, it won't be very long before they start showing the t…

That doesn't work.

We the people have invented these authorities a long time ago precisely because we the people suck at making individual decisions to improve global outcomes, and we need to organize ourselves in institutions such as these to fix things.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#227

Post by darklajid »

plusquamperfekt wrote: post #188
darklajid wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's .. the same thing. Now, bear with me: I don't say that it doesn't offer something over Telegram (most probably: Far better privacy/security), but it's a centralized service, hosted by a single entity, using your phone number as 'identity'. Ignore the first points, but the latter is so broken, Signal could be the most usable and glorious app ("Everything just works") on the planet and I'd still hate that idea. Ri…

Signal uses asymmetrical encryption - your private key is very well able to prove your identity - I'm pretty sure the concept "identity" in Signal is built on that technology. But for contacting people - well - what else would you suggest?!

Hi plusquamperfekt.

I don't know your mail address or telephone number. If this message manages to reach you - can you explain your point a bit more?

If the private key would _be_ the identify, that'd be awesome. And maybe I fail to understand ChatSecure/Signal. I'd be glad to be corrected. But as far as I understand, that system ties a user to a mobile number, because 'that is as good a unique identifier as we get' and uses that instead. I think Threema does what you describe - or at least expects you to exchange keys via QR code when you physically meet?

My gripe with telephone numbers is this: I don't want to be tied to an identity I cannot control, to an identify that is public knowledge and unchangeable. I want to contact people via IM without them being able to call me.

Phone numbers are for calls (okay, texts for historical reasons).

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#228

Post by Justsignedup »

xg15 wrote: post #187
necessity wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem with not helping your competitor? Telegram can use that ("censoring") as marketing if they know how to play it. People wanting to tell others what to do and how to operate their business calling themselves "capitalists" is hilarious.

If nothing else, it's that the users get pulled into some braindead power struggle between two companies that they could care less about. Yet they are the ones who find that they cannot use the products anymore properly. Moves like this decrease the quality of both your product and your competitor's. Yet the whole sense of competition in capitalism is supposedly to increase quality. Of course that's just the obvious…

Generally in a competitive market, you have one company selling product / service X and a competitor selling service Y which does something similar.

This is fine.

However online communication is different. Imagine if the telephone company would bleep out any time your friend mentions a competitor's company. You'd never know a competitor exists. Especially if that competitor is up-and-coming and doesn't have the pockets to send flyers to every damn house in the state.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#229

Post by Aoyagi »

3333z777 wrote: post #63
Khao wrote: post #20

I saw this pop up on /r/android yesterday and it made me and a couple friends sign up for Telegram, so I guess good job whatsapp on pushing more people towards Telegram. Streisand effect in action!

A reason not to use Telegram: https://oflisback.github.io/telegram-stalking/

What, that some people can't even look at the settings [1] of the client? This is getting pretty pathetic.

I really don't think people expect complete security and privacy from anyone ever, that's impractical and probably impossible. They expect their data to not be used for advertising or whatever and more security than WhatsApp (edit: Wait, it's not using e2e encryption by defautl now?), Skype, and the like. The only thin Telegram should be more upfront about is that the feature with all the security stuff is secret chats.

I just don't understand this mentality. People start using something that's not owned by a huge NSA-friendly megacorporation, that is using some advanced security (which will probably be called "unproven" for the next thousand years) along with regular security - and a ton of people get mad, because it's allegedly not "secure enough". What's next, people start using Signal and hordes of angry 'experts' show up claiming it's not secure and private unless you make a new identity for every chat through Tor running in a VM on some 3rd world island, using your own infrastructure?

If I was only slightly more paranoid, I'd start throwing accusations of false flag attacks directed from Facebook.

[1] http://puu.sh/lGpoL/f455206b98.png

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#230

Post by Aoyagi »

bad_user wrote: post #164

Signal from Open Whisper Systems is open source, easy to use, provides rock solid encryption for both text and audio calls and is available on both iOS and Android: https://whispersystems.org/

And it has neither Windows nor WP client. Oh, and you can't send all kinds of files over it.
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