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> Telegram stores the messages you send/receive unencrypted on their servers. Anyone who has used Telegram for more than 5 minutes knows there are secret chats

by berns 9y ago

> Telegram stores the messages you send/receive unencrypted on their servers. Anyone who has used Telegram for more than 5 minutes knows there are secret chats. The effort being made to rig the information against Telegram also tells a lot about its relevance.

dsacco 9y ago
I think part of the issue in examples like this one is that journalists read (legitimate) criticism about e.g. Telegram and simply don't report all the nuance (whether due to an actual agenda or honest misunderstanding). Secret chats are not enabled by default, and most users don't enable them; so yes, messages are generally stored without encryption on the Telegram servers. That's a more neutral way of presenting the information.
- ENTP 9y ago
  My understanding was that non-encrypted messages were split across multiple countries/jurisdictions,, making it impractical (not impossible) to snoop.
  - angry_octet 9y ago
    You mean you only have to be able to hack their servers in one of their multiple sites to look at any user? Cool, so all the snoops can look at every citizen's data.
rnhmjoj 9y ago
The secret chats are almost useless. Even setting aside the impossibility of syncing between devices the support is severely lacking: Telegram web? No[1], telegram desktop? Nope[2], telegram-cli? Yes, but the client is completely broken and abandoned[3]. The telegram desktop main developer said[4]: "Well, I'm afraid there isn't. They are just not in high priority, many other important things first." It seems stickers, funny bots and GIFs have more priority over security. I think this tells a lot. [1]: https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/871 https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/871 [2]: https://github.com/zhukov/webogram/issues/126 https://github.com/zhukov/webogram/issues/126 [3]: https://github.com/vysheng/tg/issues/1189 https://github.com/vysheng/tg/issues/1189 [4]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/2z24ly/how_to_start_a_secret_chat_on_telegram_windows/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/2z24ly/how_to_sta...
- DiThi 9y ago
  Oddly enough, they did implement encrypted calls in telegram desktop, and relatively quickly after the release of the feature in mobile.
literallycancer 9y ago
Secret chats that aren't even supported by the official desktop client? Telegram has some things going for it, but privacy and security are not among them.

by berns 9y ago

dsacco 9y ago

I think part of the issue in examples like this one is that journalists read (legitimate) criticism about e.g. Telegram and simply don't report all the nuance (whether due to an actual agenda or honest misunderstanding). Secret chats are not enabled by default, and most users don't enable them; so yes, messages are generally stored without encryption on the Telegram servers. That's a more neutral way of presenting the information.

ENTP 9y ago
My understanding was that non-encrypted messages were split across multiple countries/jurisdictions,, making it impractical (not impossible) to snoop.
- angry_octet 9y ago
  You mean you only have to be able to hack their servers in one of their multiple sites to look at any user? Cool, so all the snoops can look at every citizen's data.

rnhmjoj 9y ago

The secret chats are almost useless. Even setting aside the impossibility of syncing between devices the support is severely lacking: Telegram web? No[1], telegram desktop? Nope[2], telegram-cli? Yes, but the client is completely broken and abandoned[3]. The telegram desktop main developer said[4]: "Well, I'm afraid there isn't. They are just not in high priority, many other important things first." It seems stickers, funny bots and GIFs have more priority over security. I think this tells a lot. [1]: https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/871 https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop/issues/871 [2]: https://github.com/zhukov/webogram/issues/126 https://github.com/zhukov/webogram/issues/126 [3]: https://github.com/vysheng/tg/issues/1189 https://github.com/vysheng/tg/issues/1189 [4]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/2z24ly/how_to_start_a_secret_chat_on_telegram_windows/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/2z24ly/how_to_sta...

DiThi 9y ago
Oddly enough, they did implement encrypted calls in telegram desktop, and relatively quickly after the release of the feature in mobile.

literallycancer 9y ago

Secret chats that aren't even supported by the official desktop client? Telegram has some things going for it, but privacy and security are not among them.