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when telegram has been proven insecure? in every topic about telegram people keep saying telegram is not secure. i failed to find info about how insecure their

when telegram has been proven insecure? in every topic about telegram people keep saying telegram is not secure. i failed to find info about how insecure their secure chats. maybe you can help me?

narrowrail 9y ago
Many prominent and respected HNers have laid out the case for why Telegram has security issues. If you use the search function at the bottom, you will easily find these issues raised. I don't personally possess the knowledge to determine the soundness of Telegram's crypto, but there have been enough red flags raised on HN over the years to merit skepticism.
- Dolores12 9y ago
  Is that how you prove something - by reading comments on HN? Oh, how about all these red flags are raised to scare people to not let them use Telegram which is really secure?
  - WillyOnWheels 9y ago
    > Is that how you prove something - by reading comments on HN? I enjoy the comments of tpacek and ryanlol
    - Dolores12 9y ago
      I don't think you answered my question.
      - WillyOnWheels 9y ago
        I don't base my life on them but I think tpacek and ryanlol know more about computer security than I do.
- RodericDay 9y ago
  tbh, people like tptacek and his buddies have a clear agenda and attitude of their own. I'm definitely not sated by their pronouncements alone.
  - daxorid 9y ago
    While I absolutely agree with you about the "tptacek & friends" agenda, that really has no bearing whatsoever on the actual problems they've raised with MTProto, their weird KDF, and IGE in general. Whenever one can consider a person's arguments in isolation from your opinion of said person, it's wise to do so. This is one of those opportunities.
    - tanderson92 9y ago
      Can you elaborate on what that agenda is?
notheguyouthink 9y ago
I think he's spreading a lie.. based on what I've seen, at least. It's a not yet proven secure protocol, is the worst you can say against it I believe. I'm not a security guy mind you, I'm just parroting what I keep seeing. Rightfully so, lack of deep audit is a very valid reason to worry. Yet, worry and untrusted is vastly different than actively exploitable / broken.
- roywiggins 9y ago
  Encryption should probably be considered broken until demonstrated otherwise.
  - memmcgee 9y ago
    By that logic all encryption is broken.
bascule 9y ago
Their homebrew crypto seems very shaky: https://cs.au.dk/~jakjak/master-thesis.pdf https://cs.au.dk/~jakjak/master-thesis.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf tl;dr: they tried to use SHA-1 as a MAC. This is something of a crypto 101 mistake. Had they even used HMAC they'd be in much better shape. Worse, even after this was pointed out to them and people started writing papers about potential attacks, they have stood by their shaky design, refusing to update it or even admit mistakes were made in the initial design. But even worse than that, end-to-end encryption is off-by-default, and users must opt into it. Why? https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-secret https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-secre... "This allows Telegram to be widely adopted in broad circles, not just by activists and dissidents, so that the simple fact of using Telegram does not mark users as targets for heightened surveillance in certain countries. We are convinced that the separation of conversations into Cloud and Secret chats represents the most secure solution currently possible for a massively popular messaging application." Putting aside the fact that if Telegram's cryptography were properly implemented, an outside observer shouldn't be able to tell whether or not end-to-end encryption is being used or not (i.e. Telegram does not provide proper separation of data-at-rest versus data-in-motion), this seems to be the "I don't need encryption because I have nothing to hide" argument, but perpetrated by what's allegedly supposed to be a secure messenger. The real reason why Telegram doesn't enable end-to-end encryption is pretty clear: they don't have the features to provide a good end-to-end encryption experience: They don't support end-to-end encrypted group chats. They don't have encrypted backups like Signal and WhatsApp.
- ycmbntrthrwaway 9y ago
  > But even worse than that, end-to-end encryption is off-by-default, and users must opt into it. Why? Because it is unusable. It has no synchronization between devices, only 1 device to 1 device. And if you accidentally closed the chat, you have to verify it again. You can't store trusted key fingerprint. It is not suitable for mobile devices. Secure chats are like OTR, but with bad crypto. Signal and WhatsApp are the same protocol as OMEMO, originally designed for Signal. > so that the simple fact of using Telegram does not mark users as targets for heightened surveillance in certain countries And yet Telegram is associated with terrorism more that, e.g., WhatsApp.

when telegram has been proven insecure? in every topic about telegram people keep saying telegram is not secure. i failed to find info about how insecure their secure chats. maybe you can help me?

narrowrail 9y ago

Many prominent and respected HNers have laid out the case for why Telegram has security issues. If you use the search function at the bottom, you will easily find these issues raised. I don't personally possess the knowledge to determine the soundness of Telegram's crypto, but there have been enough red flags raised on HN over the years to merit skepticism.

Dolores12 9y ago
Is that how you prove something - by reading comments on HN? Oh, how about all these red flags are raised to scare people to not let them use Telegram which is really secure?
- WillyOnWheels 9y ago
  > Is that how you prove something - by reading comments on HN? I enjoy the comments of tpacek and ryanlol
  - Dolores12 9y ago
    I don't think you answered my question.
    - WillyOnWheels 9y ago
      I don't base my life on them but I think tpacek and ryanlol know more about computer security than I do.
RodericDay 9y ago
tbh, people like tptacek and his buddies have a clear agenda and attitude of their own. I'm definitely not sated by their pronouncements alone.
- daxorid 9y ago
  While I absolutely agree with you about the "tptacek & friends" agenda, that really has no bearing whatsoever on the actual problems they've raised with MTProto, their weird KDF, and IGE in general. Whenever one can consider a person's arguments in isolation from your opinion of said person, it's wise to do so. This is one of those opportunities.
  - tanderson92 9y ago
    Can you elaborate on what that agenda is?

notheguyouthink 9y ago

I think he's spreading a lie.. based on what I've seen, at least. It's a not yet proven secure protocol, is the worst you can say against it I believe. I'm not a security guy mind you, I'm just parroting what I keep seeing. Rightfully so, lack of deep audit is a very valid reason to worry. Yet, worry and untrusted is vastly different than actively exploitable / broken.

roywiggins 9y ago
Encryption should probably be considered broken until demonstrated otherwise.
- memmcgee 9y ago
  By that logic all encryption is broken.

bascule 9y ago

Their homebrew crypto seems very shaky: https://cs.au.dk/~jakjak/master-thesis.pdf https://cs.au.dk/~jakjak/master-thesis.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf tl;dr: they tried to use SHA-1 as a MAC. This is something of a crypto 101 mistake. Had they even used HMAC they'd be in much better shape. Worse, even after this was pointed out to them and people started writing papers about potential attacks, they have stood by their shaky design, refusing to update it or even admit mistakes were made in the initial design. But even worse than that, end-to-end encryption is off-by-default, and users must opt into it. Why? https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-secret https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-secre... "This allows Telegram to be widely adopted in broad circles, not just by activists and dissidents, so that the simple fact of using Telegram does not mark users as targets for heightened surveillance in certain countries. We are convinced that the separation of conversations into Cloud and Secret chats represents the most secure solution currently possible for a massively popular messaging application." Putting aside the fact that if Telegram's cryptography were properly implemented, an outside observer shouldn't be able to tell whether or not end-to-end encryption is being used or not (i.e. Telegram does not provide proper separation of data-at-rest versus data-in-motion), this seems to be the "I don't need encryption because I have nothing to hide" argument, but perpetrated by what's allegedly supposed to be a secure messenger. The real reason why Telegram doesn't enable end-to-end encryption is pretty clear: they don't have the features to provide a good end-to-end encryption experience: They don't support end-to-end encrypted group chats. They don't have encrypted backups like Signal and WhatsApp.

ycmbntrthrwaway 9y ago
> But even worse than that, end-to-end encryption is off-by-default, and users must opt into it. Why? Because it is unusable. It has no synchronization between devices, only 1 device to 1 device. And if you accidentally closed the chat, you have to verify it again. You can't store trusted key fingerprint. It is not suitable for mobile devices. Secure chats are like OTR, but with bad crypto. Signal and WhatsApp are the same protocol as OMEMO, originally designed for Signal. > so that the simple fact of using Telegram does not mark users as targets for heightened surveillance in certain countries And yet Telegram is associated with terrorism more that, e.g., WhatsApp.