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The widespread usage of Telegram in a situation as sensitive as the Hong Kong protests is a failure on behalf of the security industry in educating the public.

by mahemm 7y ago

The widespread usage of Telegram in a situation as sensitive as the Hong Kong protests is a failure on behalf of the security industry in educating the public. Even WhatsApp is miles better, but in reality it should be a no-brainer for the relevant people to use Signal or perhaps Threema/Wire. What a shame that charlatans have successfully marketed themselves to the top of this segment with a distinctly inferior product.

ufmace 7y ago
I don't think Signal supports very large groups well (hundreds of users or more). Or things like announcement channels where tens of thousands can subscribe, but only a handful of accounts can post. Sounds to me like they have a superior product.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  > Sounds to me like they have a superior product. Groups in Telegram are not encrypted. And now its shown that it also reveals phone numbers, and this is not a feature. Whatsapp shows phone numbers by default, so it wouldn't be a criticism of whatsapp.
ajconway 7y ago
WhatsApp does secure group messages with end to end encryption, but what good is encryption in a public protests group where everyone can see your phone number?
sschueller 7y ago
charlatans? You mean like when Facebook claims they have implemented the signal protocol but then scan your messages for keywords in order to disable encryption for governments? There is no way for you to check my claim nor Facebook's as it's closed source. Same goes for threema which will shortly be required by Swiss law to comply with Büpf as they will reach a size requiring it. It's closed source, we can't check what they are doing. Their external security audit was a long time ago. At least with telegram if I install the android version off fdroid it is compiled from source and I can verify that. I can gets users to switch to telegram, I can't get them to switch to signal. There is a trade-off but I would argue telegram over whatsapp anytime.
toosangiforthis 7y ago
Is Telegram that bad? I thought it was fairly good. Atleast better than WhatsApp Edit: Nvm, I remembered that telegram isn't e2e by default

by mahemm 7y ago

ufmace 7y ago

I don't think Signal supports very large groups well (hundreds of users or more). Or things like announcement channels where tens of thousands can subscribe, but only a handful of accounts can post. Sounds to me like they have a superior product.

rolltiide 7y ago
> Sounds to me like they have a superior product. Groups in Telegram are not encrypted. And now its shown that it also reveals phone numbers, and this is not a feature. Whatsapp shows phone numbers by default, so it wouldn't be a criticism of whatsapp.

ajconway 7y ago

WhatsApp does secure group messages with end to end encryption, but what good is encryption in a public protests group where everyone can see your phone number?

sschueller 7y ago

charlatans? You mean like when Facebook claims they have implemented the signal protocol but then scan your messages for keywords in order to disable encryption for governments? There is no way for you to check my claim nor Facebook's as it's closed source. Same goes for threema which will shortly be required by Swiss law to comply with Büpf as they will reach a size requiring it. It's closed source, we can't check what they are doing. Their external security audit was a long time ago. At least with telegram if I install the android version off fdroid it is compiled from source and I can verify that. I can gets users to switch to telegram, I can't get them to switch to signal. There is a trade-off but I would argue telegram over whatsapp anytime.

toosangiforthis 7y ago

Is Telegram that bad? I thought it was fairly good. Atleast better than WhatsApp Edit: Nvm, I remembered that telegram isn't e2e by default