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Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

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Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#41

This is pretty alarming stuff. Especially considering how that competitors like Signal are US based. Signal is owned by twitter which by no means is a small player, so it isn't likely to fly under anyones radar.

If Wikipedia is current on the topic [1], then Twitter owns Whisper Systems (RedPhone, TextSecure, ...), but Moxie runs Open Whisper Systems (Signal).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Whisper_Systems

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#42

Hmmmm.... A Russian peddling undocumented crypto warez implies US crypto is untrustworthy despite the obvious open source code. Don't suppose this would be one of Putin's patriotic citizen artists spreading fake news do you? Edit: thanks to all the replies. I am smarter now.

While I certainly not fan of custom-made crypto Telegram is also open source and they at least not pretend there some "end to end encryption" except you actually did key exchange on your own.

> Don't suppose this would be one of Putin's patriotic citizen artists spreading fake news do you?

You might be missed it, but Pavel lost business he built to Putin's oligarch friend.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#43

Hmmmm.... A Russian peddling undocumented crypto warez implies US crypto is untrustworthy despite the obvious open source code. Don't suppose this would be one of Putin's patriotic citizen artists spreading fake news do you? Edit: thanks to all the replies. I am smarter now.

He is not known to be a patriotic Putin supporter, quite the opposite.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#44
post #42

Hmmmm.... A Russian peddling undocumented crypto warez implies US crypto is untrustworthy despite the obvious open source code. Don't suppose this would be one of Putin's patriotic citizen artists spreading fake news do you? Edit: thanks to all the replies. I am smarter now.

While I certainly not fan of custom-made crypto Telegram is also open source and they at least not pretend there some "end to end encryption" except you actually did key exchange on your own. > Don't suppose this would be one of Putin's patriotic citizen artists spreading fake news do you? You might be missed it, but Pavel lost business he built to Putin's oligarch friend.

> Pavel lost business he built to Putin's oligarch friend

Source?

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#45

Hmmmm.... A Russian peddling undocumented crypto warez implies US crypto is untrustworthy despite the obvious open source code. Don't suppose this would be one of Putin's patriotic citizen artists spreading fake news do you? Edit: thanks to all the replies. I am smarter now.

You can't be more wrong and uninformed. Russia-bashing seems to be a common and accepted theme now. He actually left Russia and his old company because the Russian government tried to censor it (VK) and he refused to do so. So basically he and Putin are in some kind of fight / disagreement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov#Dismissal_from_VK

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I certainly not fan of custom-made crypto Telegram is also open source and they at least not pretend there some "end to end encryption" except you actually did key exchange on your own. > Don't suppose this would be one of Putin's patriotic citizen artists spreading fake news do you? You might be missed it, but Pavel lost business he built to Putin's oligarch friend.

> Pavel lost business he built to Putin's oligarch friend Source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov#Dismissal_from_VK

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#47
post #8

Assuming this isn't just PR, in some ways this is scary and disheartening. But my first reaction was "Cool, our government really cares, is creative and has the necessary power to get things done." For those of you who've worked with government, you've seen how insanely difficult the procurement process is. Being as specific as needing to get competitive bids for toilet paper purchases, etc. So the fact that they cou…

> Cool, our government really cares I wonder what they really care about? Liberty, individual rights, security, or more power? They're people too, so I'm sure they believe in the first three, but the last one is a more seductive and drives a lot more of the bad we see governments do; worse is that the drive for more power is frequently justified as "we need this power to protect our nation". > has the necessary power…

The paradox is many people feel the US government should have done more about 9/11 or other such events. Further, people can't get upset about surveillance that they are not aware of.

So, the push is always going to be to collect more data (barring leaks) and it's only people aware of what's going on and thus inside the system that can really resist that pull. Which means the government and politicians are often the most effective supporters of privacy.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#48
post #36
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A Russian Russophobia seems to be the only acceptable form of Xenophobia these days. And a wildly popular one, at that.

Is it bad to be afraid when there is reason to be?

Of course not, but there should be more to it than merely seeing the word 'Russian'. I see this all the time now in left-leaning US papers (NYTimes, WaPo) that immediately imply association with something bad happening (he spoke with a Russian!). Much like the other popular generalization of 'Muslim' without qualification of type of Muslim where significant subsets have never been involved with terrorism (sufism vs wahhabism for example).

There are proponents who want to eliminate any type of generalization based on nationality/religion/etc which is also heavily flawed. Somewhere in between is the rational approach.

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#49
post #5

>"It would be naive to think you can run an independent/secure cryptoapp based in the US." This seems to be a shot at WhatsApp and Signal, implying that they have loopholes that allow the FBI to snoop in. I'm not sure how true that is. This might be an attempt to deflect from the fact that Telegram uses a home-baked encryption protocol which might be insecure, while WhatsApp uses the OWS protocol.

You can read about the court filings [1] for Whatsapp metadata (unencrypted), but the actual text communication from Whatsapp is secure - or at least not returned by subpoena. I think Signal doesn't even have the metadata available, but I'm not sure about that. [1] (Horrible Forbes Link) https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/01/22/whats...

Someone already tried requesting data about two suspects from Whisper Systems. What they got is "one number is not a Signal user, while the second one created his account on X day at Y time."[0]

So yeah, Signal doesn't retain metadata. All they can provide is whether you're using Signal or not and when you've started using it.

[0] https://whispersystems.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand...

Re: Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption

#50
post #9
post #5

>"It would be naive to think you can run an independent/secure cryptoapp based in the US." This seems to be a shot at WhatsApp and Signal, implying that they have loopholes that allow the FBI to snoop in. I'm not sure how true that is. This might be an attempt to deflect from the fact that Telegram uses a home-baked encryption protocol which might be insecure, while WhatsApp uses the OWS protocol.

If I'm not mistaken Telegram has already been proven insecure once in the past. WhatsApp is a zuck property now, you can consider it insecure.

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