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> It has many features other platforms lack, is reasonably privacy-friendly Telegram still has no E2E encryption by default and their official desktop client d
by SXX 6y ago
> It has many features other platforms lack, is reasonably privacy-friendly
Telegram still has no E2E encryption by default and their official desktop client dont have it either. So it's worth nothing if no one use it. It's not that I have much trust into proprietary fb code, but there are certainly better apps privacy-wise out there.
- jolux 6y agoSignal
- qhwudbebd 6y agoSignal leaks your telephone number to everyone with whom you communicate, which is a privacy disaster before you even send your first message. (Please don't take this as implicit approval for Telegram's approach to secure messaging, but at least they managed not to cock up in such a basic way.)
- jolux 6y agoThis has been explained on HN ad nauseam. It leaks less metadata than anything else, the phone number is the only metadata that it leaks (only to people you’re messaging, mind), and they’re working on a solution to that problem right now. It works that way because the developers wanted to avoid holding a central server with metadata for their entire user base. Instead it uses your local contact list to discover other users. I would say that being unencrypted by default and having a centralized metadata directory in plaintext is more of a cock-up in secure messaging than taking a rigorous and cautious approach to metadata leakage.
- qhwudbebd 6y agoThe constant repetition is indeed nauseating. It's also nonsense. There is another unique identifier that's stored in the local contact list: email addresses. Use either email address or a phone number as an identifier, and you've no longer built a offensively privacy-violating service but have exactly the same distributed property.
- jolux 6y agoYou can use any phone number to sign up, it doesn’t have to be the one on your SIM. The rationale is that people typically text using phone numbers, and they wanted to make it easier to text people securely. It’s not nonsense, it makes perfect sense, and again, they’re working on it: https://signal.org/blog/signal-pins/ https://signal.org/blog/signal-pins/ If you only have access to one phone number and not giving it out is critical, then Signal might not be the right choice for you. But you won’t find a more secure channel that collects less metadata anywhere else.
- qhwudbebd 6y agoPeople typically email using email addresses, and text using phone numbers. They're both messaging identifiers that might be easily be repurposed for Signal. There's no property of the latter that makes them a better choice than the former, but the existing ecosystem makes a disposable or role email address a much easier thing to obtain, and in general leaking an email address a far-less-damaging privacy violation than leaking a phone number, which can so easily be used to harass and directly track you. In many parts of the world, disposable mobile numbers are very definitely not a practical thing. The correct starting point here is to use either an email or a telephone number as an external ID. It's still not perfect, but at least it's not a complete disaster any more. Alas they've been 'working on it' for a very long time now, and are likely to fail because of this painfully slow progress. Perhaps if they'd pissed around less with trivia like cryptographically secure stickers, they might have increased their chances of becoming a useful product before they end up surrendering the space to an inferior product which gains too much market share to overcome before they're even properly off the starting blocks. I criticise Signal here because I like the design and hate their botched execution, not because I dislike the protocol. On the contrary, I dearly want something that competent to succeed, but fear we're rapidly losing the chance of that happening because they have launched a privacy-disaster product and most of the potential market will have seen that, dismissed it and forgotten about it before they pull their finger out and fix it.
- jolux 6y agoYeah but even with the phone number “leaking” (only to the recipient) nothing else even comes close to it. If your standard calls Signal a privacy disaster, what kind of product would you expect people to use? Everything else either involves storing comprehensive metadata in plaintext or worse durable logs of all conversation and interaction. Prepaid SIMs are pretty cheap and outside the US most phones are unlocked. Emails are too easy to fake and generally abuse. Nobody has solved this problem yet.
- solarkraft 6y ago> there are certainly better apps privacy-wise out there With significantly worse UX. > still has no E2E encryption by default This doesn't make it not reasonably secure in my mind. While the TG people will be able to access your messages, they can also process them, making stuff like large groups even possible (imagine the distribution hell otherwise). I do tend to think that there's not much of a down side to E2E for private chats though, since you can still share private keys between devices to enable sync. > So it's worth nothing if no one use it. Telegram is way more than secret chats.
- jolux 6y ago> This doesn't make it not reasonably secure in my mind. While the TG people will be able to access your messages, they can also process them, making stuff like large groups even possible (imagine the distribution hell otherwise). So your standard for “reasonably secure” communications is Facebook Messenger?
- solarkraft 6y agoNo. You're using the same "if it's not perfect it's worthless" argumentation as GP. It's not perfect, nothing is. But it makes better compromises than others.
- jolux 6y agoIt’s worthless as a “secure messenger.” They can read and store all the messages unless you use the E2E mode.
- stilisstuk 6y agoBut e.g. signal don't have the feature where either party of a conversation can delete messages on both phones. This is possible with telegrams secret chat. And its great.
- jolux 6y agoSignal has disappearing messages for this use case. Not the same but the crypto in Signal is so much better (and permanently enabled) it’s hard to argue that Telegram is more secure.
- vbezhenar 6y agoHow can crypto be better or worse? It's either works or it does not. I did not hear about anyone breaking Telegram crypto.
- jolux 6y agoTelegram have said that you can’t trust Signal because the developers live in the US and something something the CIA, which is pretty ridiculous. They rolled their own crypto and they aren’t cryptographers, which should be reason enough not to trust its security: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/49782/is-telegram-secure https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/49782/is-telegr...
- vbezhenar 6y agoThis answer is ridiculous. They got world level mathematicians in their team, what more do you want? Who are those "cryptographers"? And why those cryptographers don't break Telegram if they think that their crypto is broken? Again, crypto is either broken or not. Telegram crypto is not broken. It's fine. Not everyone might like it, but that does not matter. I don't know story about CIA (although I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Signal is honeypot), so can't comment about that.
- fsflover 6y ago
- xorcist 6y ago>> reasonably privacy-friendly > Telegram still has no E2E encryption by default Right, but e2e encryption is a small part of "privacy". Not leaking your personal data, identity or telephone number, and with whom you communicate is often more important.
- fullstop 6y agoYou can choose to use E2E if desired. Why is the default so important?
- tryptophan 6y agoEmail has no E2E and people still use it all the time, for much more sensitive things than get sent over whatsapp and such.
- StavrosK 6y agoWhat's your point? I'd rather not assume you're saying "privacy doesn't matter because people don't care about it" or "Email is more private because people think it's more private".
- bishalb 6y agoThe point is that it doesn't make sense to be paranoid about no E2E if you still use emails for sending/receiving sensitive info.
- StavrosK 6y agoOkay, but how is that more than a straw man? Who is this mythical person who is paranoid about E2E and then emails their darkest secrets around?