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Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

latimes.com

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Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#491

Post by [deleted] »

_jahh wrote: post #369
eitland wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Telegram cooperates with data requests from law enforcements. It is not that black and white: AFAIK and IIRC it is more like this: - yes: Telegram gives data about members of public groups/channels - no: Telegram does not give out information from closed groups / personal chats, and they go to great lengths to prevent that information from becoming available. We might be sceptical all we want about the custom crypt…

main opposition leader got poisoned yesterday you think it matters what a russia based organization says they will do?

[deleted]

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#492

Post by bobwernstein »

maqp wrote: post #387
newscracker wrote: post #264

It's not surprising that every time Telegram pops up here, many comments miss the fact that Telegram has a great UX, a great feature set and also provides the kind of privacy protestors value, i.e., not having their phone numbers flashed to every random stranger in groups or to random channel owners whose channels you've subscribed to. With Telegram you cannot even do a phone number enumeration attack (this can be ch…

" And nope, Signal doesn't make the cut for the above reasons because it exposes your phone number to everyone else " This is being worked on. The thing is you're mixing two threat models. One is a creepy dude who will give you nightly calls if they learn your phone number. The other is a state actor who will hack the server and track you based on your IP-address if no phone number is being used otherwise: hence the…

phone numbers are shared in groups with tens of thousands of people. They spam, herass, hack etc. Forcing you to change your number.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#493

Post by shawnz »

jitbit wrote: post #490
maqp wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they go to great lengths to prevent that information from becoming available." Where's the documentation for this? Without documentation your assumption that there's any security is just blind faith.

Telegram has been sued over and over in many countries for refusing to provide that info, and kept fighting (both legally and technologically - via smart proxy-server rotation, addresses distributed over Apples/Google's push notifications etc.). Here's the case for Russia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_Telegram_in_Russia (eventually the govt has blocked over 20 million (!) IP addresses, including Google's a…

You will notice the same article states they eventually started cooperating with the Russian government, as the other poster noted already.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#496

Post by ric2b »

bennysonething wrote: post #481
atoav wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably from the US, they didn't sign the human rights treaty and are a bit.. underdeveloped at that front.

On the human rights front? Compared to most of the rest of the world they are extremely developed. At least free speech is protected which is more than can be said for most common of Europe now.

Can you share some examples of large infringements on freedom of speech that happened in well developed European countries?

Given the examples of police brutality related to protests that I've seen in the US just this year I doubt you'll be able to provide any examples that are more worrying than that.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#498

Post by nickflood »

gardaani wrote: post #398
rectang wrote: post #44

Should the revolution fail, the digital trail left by these messages will give the government everything they need to hunt down every last activist. We saw it with the Green Revolution in Iran. We've seen it several times since. So long as messages are not encrypted, messaging apps are much more naturally suited as tools of oppression than tools of revolution.

Encryption isn't enough. They could just suspect or arrest anyone who has Telegram installed. Or they could check teleoperators' logs for anyone who has used Telegram during the past weeks. In Turkey, they arrested people who had the ByLock app installed. It didn't matter how people had used it. Having installed it was enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByLock_(application)

But Telegram is really popular. You can't do that if the number of people using telegram that day was literally 20% of the country's population.

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#499

Post by swebs »

commandlinefan wrote: post #88
rectang wrote: post #44

Should the revolution fail, the digital trail left by these messages will give the government everything they need to hunt down every last activist. We saw it with the Green Revolution in Iran. We've seen it several times since. So long as messages are not encrypted, messaging apps are much more naturally suited as tools of oppression than tools of revolution.

So disappointing that true anonymous communication is technologically feasible but is only unavailable due to government intervention and public apathy.

How is it possible? You'd either have to give your IP address to the other person (Tox) or a central server (Telegram, Discord, etc).

Re: Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests

#500

Post by selectodude »

ric2b wrote: post #496
bennysonething wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the human rights front? Compared to most of the rest of the world they are extremely developed. At least free speech is protected which is more than can be said for most common of Europe now.

Can you share some examples of large infringements on freedom of speech that happened in well developed European countries? Given the examples of police brutality related to protests that I've seen in the US just this year I doubt you'll be able to provide any examples that are more worrying than that.

The UK’s insane libel laws are a good example.
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