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Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

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Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Signal specifically used phone numbers to leverage the already existing social graph on your phone. The numbers were never transferred or stored by Signal. You can literally see what information they gave when they were subpoenad: https://signal.org/bigbrother/central-california-grand-jury/

If you read the PDF, the phone numbers are in the subpoena as the key for what's being requested, so yes they clearly were stored in a way Signal can access.

Your account phone number, yes. But, most importantly, Signal doesn't store your social network in its servers in a way that it could give authorities the phone numbers of all the people you communicate with. Or, worse, the times and dates of those conversations.

So all it can tell authorities is that a person with x phone number uses Signal and still uses it.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#273
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you sign up for Telegram without a phone number?

Yes: https://telegram.org/blog/ultimate-privacy-topics-2-0

That's just buying a fake phone number, I don't see what would prevent you from using it with Signal the same way.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram iirc moved it's lead developers to Dubai specifically because the FSB was demanding info from them, so you could argue that's an unfounded concern. The bigger problem with Telegram is that it by default has insecure encryption settings (as opposed to Signal, where encrypted is the default, you need to manually activate it with Telegram + I think it's not possible to enable for all chats and clients) and to m…

> security dark pattern - make privacy a big selling point, but then don't activate the security by default pretty similar to whatsapp. they boast end to end encryption, but business account (all of them now) uses the facebook server's key, so that the business can give access to several other clients to answer customers. they still call it end to end encryption, and this was actually the last crap the original found…

“All of them” in what sense?

I use WhatsApp dozens of times a day, and interact with business accounts every couple months at most.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#275
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically I saw that FB Messenger started adding E2EE by default to my chats, whereas Telegram I believe still requires opt-in.

yes, but that's the point: it's not a technical problem, it's an institutional problem. Facebook is pure surveillance capitalism. They live by scooping your data. E2EE is hardly a concern or a solution.

While metadata can leak a lot about conversations, it doesn't leak nearly as much as plain-text data of conversations. I've argued for years that companies have an incentive to do E2EE on private messages so they don't have to be held liable or have to get involved in a lot of investigations if they don't have any access to the info. Telegram has access to the plain-text data of the conversations, as far as I know. Signal, WhatsApp, and Messenger (more and more), seem to not have much, if any, access to the plain-text data of conversations.

But the Meta companies are lying about E2EE, I don't know? Signal has seemed to me to be the company (org actually, nonprofit) that cares the most about privacy in terms of intentions and implementation.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram has moved to Dubai long ago so no idea where you get the idea that FSB can strong-arm them from.

Did you hear about a russian pilot who defected to Ukraine and then was killed in Spain? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/world/europe/russian-pilo... If russia wants to find and kill you they will.

Okay, and your concussion in relation to the topic is...?

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#278
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram has moved to Dubai long ago so no idea where you get the idea that FSB can strong-arm them from.

Ah yes, Dubai the bastion of integrity, equality and human rights.

True, they aren't. Whether they're friends with Russia is another thing though.

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram has moved to Dubai long ago so no idea where you get the idea that FSB can strong-arm them from.

Hardy har har har. How quaint. Guess you never heard of polonium either. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/alexander-litv...

I heard. Your point?

Re: Telegram has launched a pretty intense campaign to malign Signal as insecure

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardy har har har. How quaint. Guess you never heard of polonium either. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/alexander-litv...

I heard. Your point?

They have a long reach and like to be brutal for effect.
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