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Telegram - secure, free messaging

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Re: Telegram - secure, free messaging

#51

Post by alco »

na85 wrote: post #7

From their FAQ: > Q: How secure is Telegram? > Very secure. We are based on a new protocol, MTProto, built by our own specialists from scratch, with security in mind. At this moment, the biggest security threat to your Telegram messages is your mother reading over your shoulder. We took care of the rest. Oh good, a bunch of randoms have rolled their own crypto. I stopped reading at this point.

>Q: How secure is Telegram? >Very secure. [...]

It's just an advertisement like any other. I'm sure the people responsible for the content of the FAQ know their target audience, so they know the wording will work for those whose attention they care about.

It is good that we, technical people, understand how completely worthless those words are. It begs for the "citation needed" label.

The question for me is this: do ordinary people (non-programmers in this case) really believe in most of the things ads tell them?

Re: Telegram - secure, free messaging

#52

Post by josu »

ingenter wrote: post #31

>Q: Who are the people behind Telegram? >Telegram is supported by Pavel and Nikolai Durov. I would not trust social network owner with my messages.

This is what the wikipedia says about Pavel[0]:

>Durov holds libertarian economic and political views and says he is a vegetarian and identifies as a Taoist. He published anarcho-capitalist manifestos describing his ideas on improving Russia. On his 27th birthday, he donated a million dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Well, I think I'd rather trust them than Google or Facebook, after all, you've got to trust somebody.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov#Personal_life

Re: Telegram - secure, free messaging

#53

Post by yeukhon »

> Telegram is decentralized!

Great. Then...

> Telegram servers are spread worldwide for security and speed.

So this is what they mean by decentralized....

> As a result, Telegram is the fastest and most secure messaging system in the world

And this has exist for how many years?

I can probably say everything except private message, google hangout or Facebook chat is already doing it. They have some of the top-notch security, network and distributed system developers and they have their own cable delivering more volume than your new service can combine together. and if I want true privateness? I'd one-time pad everything. in reality, I guess PGP is good enough.

Re: Telegram - secure, free messaging

#56

Post by kpierre »

huhtenberg wrote: post #22

Looking at [1], it has several red flags. The replay protection is overly complicated and doesn't kick in after the message is decrypted. This makes it possible to DoS the server with forged messages. Key derivation uses a custom scheme. Typically there's no reason NOT to piggy-back on existing schemes and there's plenty to choose from - from TLS to IKE. Also, as already mentioned, there's again NO reason not to use…

make sure to check out their structure definition language:

http://core.telegram.org/mtproto/TL-dependent

look like a great parody to me? can't tell if they are serious with these 'dependent types'

Re: Telegram - secure, free messaging

#57

Post by techquery »

joosters wrote: post #21

So many dubious claims on just the front page: * 'delivers messages faster than any other application' - any application? Hmmm. They must be using magic. * 'messages are heavily encrypted and can self-destruct' - but like every system, the self-destruction is not assured since it's impossible to enforce. * 'keeps your messages safe from hacker attacks' - a bold claim. Maybe they do some stuff to protect messages, but…

Have you tried the app? I've moved my top-5 chats from WhatsApp just because of speed! The messages are sent really fast. But if you know any other messenger apps for iOS, which are just about so fast, I'll definitely give them a try.

Anyway yep, these marketing stuff is a bit too dubious, but what should they write?

* is rather fast, faster than some applications

* can self-destruct, but sometimes can not (Ha!)

* etc

That's not the thing that happens in real world nowadays.

Re: Telegram - secure, free messaging

#59

Post by [deleted] »

techquery wrote: post #57
joosters wrote: post #21

So many dubious claims on just the front page: * 'delivers messages faster than any other application' - any application? Hmmm. They must be using magic. * 'messages are heavily encrypted and can self-destruct' - but like every system, the self-destruction is not assured since it's impossible to enforce. * 'keeps your messages safe from hacker attacks' - a bold claim. Maybe they do some stuff to protect messages, but…

Have you tried the app? I've moved my top-5 chats from WhatsApp just because of speed! The messages are sent really fast. But if you know any other messenger apps for iOS, which are just about so fast, I'll definitely give them a try. Anyway yep, these marketing stuff is a bit too dubious, but what should they write? * is rather fast, faster than some applications * can self-destruct, but sometimes can not (Ha!) * et…

[deleted]

Re: Telegram - secure, free messaging

#60

Post by chippy »

josu wrote: post #52
ingenter wrote: post #31

>Q: Who are the people behind Telegram? >Telegram is supported by Pavel and Nikolai Durov. I would not trust social network owner with my messages.

This is what the wikipedia says about Pavel[0]: >Durov holds libertarian economic and political views and says he is a vegetarian and identifies as a Taoist. He published anarcho-capitalist manifestos describing his ideas on improving Russia. On his 27th birthday, he donated a million dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation. Well, I think I'd rather trust them than Google or Facebook, after all, you've got to trust someb…

> you've got to trust somebody.

Better the devil you know?

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