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Telegram messaging app proves crucial to Belarus protests
- nikivi 6y agoVery curious how Telegram plans to monetize the app eventually given their crypto thing didn't work out.
- johnisgood 6y agoUI is neat.
- fretn 6y agoAnd very responsive
- victords 6y agoI honestly don’t think they do. I really think that’s just a personal project of a Russian billionaire that has enough free time and pretty much unlimited resources.
- mercacona 6y agoYeah, that’s what their website claims. But it isn’t.
- nobodyshere 6y agoNormally I’d ask you for some kind of proof, but I know you won’t be able to output any of it.
- mercacona 6y agoProof? The ICO they did isn’t enough? They act as a business, Durov keeps control, it did not create a foundation or a non-profit. What extra proof do you need?
- maqp 6y agoI totally understand where you're coming from but in order to be better than Durov who claimed Signal had backdoor without any evidence, we can't say he's selling user data without evidence. We also can't claim he's secretly handing all non-end-to-end encrypted group chats and one-on-one messages to Kremlin, or that he's an oligarch who made his money by spying on Vkontakte users. We also can't say it's extremely suspicious his arrest warrant only lasted two months, or that journalists who visited Telegram offices in Dubai heard the company Telegram shared floor with had never even seen Telegram employees enter the offices. There is no evidence Telegram is an intelligence agency front. None. We should periodically remind people of this.
- allarm 6y agoThe fact that there’s no proofs, alone, says something. Telegram has been around for 7 years. There’s no external funding and yet the project lives and grows. It’s either being funded from the Durov’s pocket, or from elsewhere. Take your pick. To better understand who Durov is, look up the story about him throwing money to a crowd out of a window of his VK office. He also believed that foreigners should be able to buy land in Russia to create small states within the country. I would not (and I do not) believe in good intentions of this guy, at all. And in fact it is you (or Durov himself) who should provide a proof that Telegram is not getting funded by governments, being one of the most popular communication tools around. Especially after the failed ICO. The source of funds should be transparent.
- baybal2 6y agoPublic estimates of his net worth are hard to believe. Not a billionaire, at most 2-3 hundred megabucks cash as his Russian assets are rendered effectively worthless, and he burned himself a lot trying himself in investments, real estate, and, in general, burning money on expensive things, including telegram, like no tomorrow. I am still very suspicious at how he managed to flout around Kremlin for so long.
- SXX 6y ago> I am still very suspicious at how he managed to flout around Kremlin for so long. His first successful project (VK) was founded and gained popularity partially using money of really weird investors some of whom were related to Kremlin. Also keep in mind that Russia was just a kleptocracy until around 2008-2010 and only after 2012 when Putin decide to get back presidency everything started to go really sour. So it's not surprise they taken control of the company away from him shortly after.
- mercacona 6y agoWhy are the people is downvoting me? Did Durov create a non-profit or a foundation lately? Telegram it’s currently a business and Durov keeps the control...
- fuzxi 6y ago>Why are the people is downvoting me? Because you made a definitive claim without providing any evidence, or even your line of reasoning.
- outime 6y agoCompared to WhatsApp, they do have access to all messages from every person (except for the few people using secret chats) and group so I'd not be very surprised if they started to mine that data somehow if they really want the money.
- enkid 6y agoWhich would make me not want to use it if I was a revolutionary in a totalitarian state that could get access to that data.
- eitland 6y agoCompared to WhatsApp that is owned by a massive megacorp that bought it for over $10bn and that has already tried to start mining metadata from it I would say Telegram still has its advantages. (FWIW: I prefer Signal.)
- VMG 6y agoWhat is the advantage when Telegram has less money and more data?
- eitland 6y agoSame advantage as buying a car from someone you don't know versus buying from a known fraudster and bully? Yes: in Telegrams case I might possibly, maybe at some time be taken advantage of. In WhatsApps case it would surprise everyone greatly if one isn't - sooner or later - take advantage of.
- 1023bytes 6y agoSignal doesn't make money either.
- baby 6y agoSignal is a non-profit though no?
- em-bee 6y agothey still have to cover their cost somehow.
- MatthewMcDonald 6y agoSignal was given $50M by Brian Acton (WhatsApp co-founder), I think they will be fine for a while.
- maqp 6y agoSignal will most likely run on dividends from shares/investments owned by the Signal Foundation.
- conception 6y agoNon-profits can and should make money. That’s a common misconception and a big problem for charities are people think they are being greedy if they are making money regardless of the impact of that money. A non-profit just means profit isn’t their goal.
- baby 6y agoI don't think that's what it means, I think it means they have to re-invest benefits in the company no? Signal does get money from donations
- punnerud 6y agoPayments with bots as an entrance. Trying to copy WeChat? https://core.telegram.org/bots/payments https://core.telegram.org/bots/payments Update, from the doc: «Telegram does not charge any commission for using the Payments API.»
- eitland 6y agoSome of you might remember me as the guy who defends Telegram, and I still am: most of the claims I see here are less than well researched it seems. The thing you bring up here however is my main issue with Telegram: I want it to be sustainable line WhatsApp once was.
- WilTimSon 6y agoSeeing how averse they are to putting any kinds of ads on the platform, I think they might find the middle ground by helping make ads in channels go through the official route. Basically, right now, some channels post "sponsored posts", which nets them some payment. By getting involved, they could probably help people not get ripped off, take a small cut of the fee, and make those sponsored posts integrated a bit better, maybe highlighted somehow. So no ads in the app, only in some channels, so that people can leave if they hate the ads.
- _ink_ 6y agoI would make companies pay if they want to use these channels for promotions.
- kozak 6y agoConsidering that the app has been created by Russians (albeit ones who claim to oppose the current government of Russia), and it is popular mostly in countries that surround Russia, this is not surprising at all that it's the default choice for young people in Belarus. Telegram is a strong indicator of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_world these days.
- hojjat12000 6y agoTo be fair. It's the best messaging app out there (feature-wise). It got banned in Iran because it was so influential in the protests. The channels are great for being up to date on the latest news and seeing what is happening in different cities. Groups are awesome for coordinating gatherings. It allows you to send huge files and documents. It has bots (which people used to get info on the current police location, or get VPN and proxy information). It's a great app. I wish the people behind it and its security was more transparent.
- samat 6y agoThe word ‘platform’ is being abused so much it does not mean anything today, but telegram is a platform indeed: 1. Bots allow you to develop automations and services inside 2. Channels allow publishers to have very easy to use blogs 3. Chats (with bots! Admin bots!) allow unlimited collaboration. Have you ever seen tens of thousands people in a chat? Public chats with anonymity protections? It is a real platform.
- maqp 6y agoFacebook is also filled with great features, but since they're not private we don't really consider those features but tasty baits for stealing our personal data. The question is, why should Telegram whose author is literally called the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia, be exempt and handed all that data. Of course he wants to make the app that gives him all that valuable data easy and fun to use. The real engineering starts when you want to achieve those fun features in a secure way -- people should ask WHY is it that it takes a bit of time from Signal developers to implement same features. That's precisely why. They're actual features with painstaking security design with clear rationale and security proofs, not a dish of spyware served with the side plate of bullshit that is damage control. I guess it's because Durov attended the St. Petersburg military academy and studied propaganda and information warfware that makes him such a chef when it comes to the latter.
- paganel 6y agoSimilar thing is happening in the States with different social media platforms (FB, Reddit until recently) which have empowered political views not reguarded as “good” by the mainstream media, but you don’t see congratulatory articles about this phenomenon, with FB even seen as Satan itself when it comes to politics.
- airstrike 6y agoSocial media != instant messaging
- jessaustin 6y agoCIA encourages lots of friendly articles about social disruptions they've planned and funded. It seems likely they didn't plan BLM and related recent American protests, but definitely they are behind anything going on in Belarus.
- scroogeydop 6y agoYou should be on thorazine.
- jessaustin 6y agoThanks!
- soufron 6y agoIt's never "the work of a long-preparing revolutionnary crowd" revolution, but always a "latest fashionable technology" revolution. Tech propaganda at its best.
- ip26 6y agoAre you similarly critical of discussions about how ubiquitous camera phones have changed the civil rights movement? Technology is only a tool, and is only as good as what people actually do with it. But it can be a crucial tool that changes everything.
- echelon 6y agoI don't think so. Calling it "{arbitrary brand} revolution", when pretty much every messaging platform is indistinguishable feels crass and tacky. The brand isn't the one in the trenches making the sacrifices. It could be called a smart phone revolution instead. A revolution of the people.
- ip26 6y agoIn defense of the journalist, it's a direct quote from a protester who is presumably in the trenches making the sacrifices.
- dgellow 6y agoTelegram has some distinct features that makes it quite good during protests: - location based chats, you see people around and can start a local group. So you can easily get in contact with other protestors around you. - Broadcasting channels - Not by default, but you can creat encrypted chats, with auto destruction - Since a few days, encrypted video calls - Not owned by Facebook
- ROARosen 6y ago>- Not owned by Facebook "nine out of ten Egyptians and Tunisians responded to a poll that they used Facebook to organise protests and spread awareness" [1] "During the Arab Spring the number of users of social networks, especially Facebook, rose dramatically in most Arab countries, particularly in those where political uprising took place, with the exception of Libya, which at the time had low Internet access preventing people from doing so" [1] As far as I'm aware Facebook is actually owned by Facebook. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_the_Arab_Spring#Uneven_impact_of_social_media_on_political_processes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_the_Arab_Spri...
- aborsy 6y agoWhy not Signal? It’s the way to go as far as messaging apps are concerned.
- alextheparrot 6y agoThey probably have higher priority concerns than bike shedding messaging apps.
- eitland 6y agoSignal seems to be more secure. I prefer it. Telegram is really really well made ux wise though, scales effortlessly and is in use anyway for everything else in certain groups so it is easy to reach for.
- Arubis 6y agoMy recollection (can someone verify?) is that Telegram continues to function in limited-connectivity environments, making it a good fit for situations where a state actor is limiting network access.
- sam_lowry_ 6y agoI can confirm ;-)
- maqp 6y agoThere isn't magic that hides list of server IP-addresses from state entities with access to clients source where it's listed https://github.com/zhukov/webogram/blob/c5fc5107cad2a476a03d7ce8427f1def41c20568/app/js/lib/mtproto.js#L13 https://github.com/zhukov/webogram/blob/c5fc5107cad2a476a03d....
- ffpip 6y agoand it works? Unlike signal in Belarus right now? What do you have against Telegram? Do you have a competing app, or are you concerned about security? Everybody (atleast on HN) knows it is not e2ee. They don't use it for security. They know Signal is more secure. Telegram has insane features. I use Telegram for unlimited file sharing, pirating movies not available in my country, bots. nothing personal
- kaonashi 6y agoThat and the CIA.
- x87678r 6y agoWasn't Telegram restricted in Russia? I'm surprised Belarus can't turn it off whenever it wants as well.
- iillexial 6y agoThey tried to block it but didn't really succeed. It continued working although with some glitches.
- nitrogen 6y agoIf any technical details of that block and why it failed emerge, they would be fascinating reading. It also kind of makes one wonder if there's a non-technical reason why blocking it failed.
- diimdeep 6y agoTelegram constantly pushed new settings and routes to users with native Apple and Google push services.
- iillexial 6y agoThey tried to block all IP-addresses that Telegram app uses. It failed and many of other services also stopped working(Google, Github, Twitter, FB). What Telegram did: 1. Started sending pushes from Google services with new IP addresses for their app. 2. They started using IPv6, turns out gov cannot detect them. 3. Also, they added support of SOCKS5 proxy to their app. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_Telegram_in_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_Telegram_in_Russia Russian version has more details.
- SXX 6y agoReal reason is simple: Russian government never actually tried to block it for real. Kremlin could easily force Apple and Google to block the application itself or it's push notification for Russian users, but they never did that. Of course there was a lot of technical shenanigans going to block their IP addresses and proxy servers, but everyone understood that's is very fruitless attempt. Oh and they fully unblocked it when Durov's TON network was destroyed by SEC in the US. Very soon after event Telegram official representative went to Kremlin and poof: Telegram is unblocked.
- rectang 6y agoShould the revolution fail, the digital trail left by these messages will give the government everything they need to hunt down every last activist. We saw it with the Green Revolution in Iran. We've seen it several times since. So long as messages are not encrypted, messaging apps are much more naturally suited as tools of oppression than tools of revolution.
- mbowcutt 6y agoI don't know too much about Telegram but isn't it encrypted?
- mauflows 6y agoI'm pretty sure Signal at least doesn't encrypt at rest on your phone. So the drive would have to be encrypted as well, which is not default on Android
- t0astbread 6y agoApart from that, regardless if you're on Signal or Telegram if authorities get hold of a protester's identity on such an app and have the power to access the app's servers they can gradually uncover social networks by reading metadata (if I'm not mistaken).
- voxic11 6y agoI think you are mistaken. Before your text is sent to Signal your sender information is encrypted with the receiver's public key. So while Signal's servers can see who to deliver the message to they cannot see who sent it. Only the receiving client can decrypt and authenticate the message. This feature was rolled out in late 2018 and is called "sealed sender". It was developed to prevent leakage of any social network information via the message metadata. But as far as I know Telegram has no equivalent feature.
- t0astbread 6y ago
- myth_drannon 6y agoThere was also a very large Telegram channel where they were doxing riot police members that were participating in attacks on demonstrators. It was extremely efficient infowar since it was their home addresses, family photos, wife's cellphone number...
- RangerScience 6y agoWait seriously? Where can I find out more?
- myth_drannon 6y agohttps://t.me/terroristybelarusi https://t.me/terroristybelarusi
- sam_lowry_ 6y agoThis is the biggest, but there are also others.
- CryptoBanker 6y agoShittier than perpetuating violence on demonstrators?
- RangerScience 6y agoNeat. Can't read the language, but this reminds me of a scene near the end of Doctorow's "Walkaway".
- knolax 6y agoWow what a shitty thing to do.
- myth_drannon 6y agoIf your teenage son was arrested for nor other reason than walking on the street and then was tortured. Wouldn't you want to punish the perpetrators? But you can't in Belarus. The only way is to call their wives and mothers and tell them the husband/son is a monster.
- democracy 6y agoActually there are reports that riot police was specifically looking at ones telegram channels to decide on the degree of your immediate punishment (yes, old school batons). And it was easily decrypted (phone unlocked) with a threat by the cops. I am in Belarus at the moment and can confirm telegram was not available without vpns/proxy just like any other resource. And why wouldn't it be?
- sam_lowry_ 6y agoThis is why many protesters had kill swithes on their devices to whipe them out in case they are arrested.
- democracy 6y ago...most of the detained people didn't have such switches and it's not easy to use it - just look at how quickly people get arrested - it happens within seconds, hardly enough time to even take the phone out of your pocket and unlock it.
- newsbinator 6y agoAlso they don't know they're about to be arrested. One second they're walking along a street, one of dozens of other random pedestrians, the next second six guys are literally carrying them into a van.
- sam_lowry_ 6y agoThe kill switch is used to wipe the phone when the pin is extorted from the protester. Enter a kill pin once and bye-bye.
- maqp 6y agoSource on this "kill switch"?
- throwaway4747l 6y agoCtrl-F "Signаl": 10 instances Seriously, it'd be nice if we could have one thread about Telegram without S-advocates showing up and complaining about "security". Yes, we know Telegram isn't as secure, yadda yadda yadda. Now if only Signal provided half the features Telegram does, maybe non-cryptonerds would have heard of it.
- maccam912 6y agoYeah honestly I just scroll right past them. I use telegram for my "Can you pick up some bananas on the way home?" messages. If I ever had a confidential tip for some investigative journalist I'd use signal. But it gets annoying if every post with the word "telegram" in the title gets the same "But signal is more secure!" response unrelated to the content of the article.
- newen 6y agoDoesn't Signal give out your phone number to whoever you message?
- maqp 6y agoBoth sender and recipient need to have each other in contacts to message one another.
- maqp 6y agoIf you only use Signal for sensitive stuff, you leak extremely valuable metadata about when you discuss sensitive stuff. When you use Signal for everything, it's harder to tell if you asked for bananas or for a revolution ;)
- dang 6y agoThe problem with a comment like this is that it adds to what it is complaining about. While I have you: Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- AcerbicZero 6y agoWhat was the revolutionary app during the Ukrainian protests? I remember reading almost the exact same article at that time, although then I was a little distracted because that revolutionairy app ended with Russia annexing Crimea. Guess that wasn't in the TOS?
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoThe one thing I did not see in article or comments is that Telegram will have a bigger target on its back. Governments are not fond of communication channels they are unable to control.
- diimdeep 6y agoTelegram created Belarus language public channel. And posted poll to vote for new president with some clever restrictions. Anyone can vote, but you can't choose options with candidates if your phone number is not Balarusian. "I am not from Belarus" is only available poll option to make your vote if your phone number is not Balarusian. There is currently 736'000 votes with that option. Telegram poll https://t.me/s/telegrambelarus/9 https://t.me/s/telegrambelarus/9 In Belarus there is only 7.8 million eligible voters. Poll shows that 1,184 million choose to vote for new president Tikhanovskaya. Only 85'000 votes for current president Lukashenko. While official results is 80% for current, 7% for new, with 40% participation. This is obviously mind blowing picture for citizens.
- HPsquared 6y agoTo be fair though, Telegram users aren't exactly an unbiased sample.
- huhtenberg 6y ago2.3M voted in a poll, 59% from Belorussian phone numbers. That's 1.36 M or 17% of the eligible voter pool. 51% of these are for the secondary candidate. This doesn't reconcile with the official numbers regardless of how you massage them.
- jariel 6y agoIt's good people have a way to communicate beyond the reach of the authorities ... ... but doesn't really matter how big the poll sample was if the sample was not representative - the results don't have a lot of meaning. And it's pretty fair to say it was not representative. In fact, you don't even need remotely that size of a sample if the sample is representative. Polling is not about sample size, it's about the quality of the sample.
- kolinko 6y agoEven in the worst case scenario, where each and every opposition voter took part in the poll, and literally everyone else voted for Lukashenko, this still prpves that the true result was at least 17% for opposition, which is more than the official results claim.
- fsfellowship 6y agofree messaging apps, like free software organizations, are just better at obfuscating their fascist overlords but the fascist overlords are still there pulling the strings somewhere as this clearly demonstrates https://fsfellowship.eu/matthias-kirschner-fsfe-nazi-comparisons/ https://fsfellowship.eu/matthias-kirschner-fsfe-nazi-compari...
- dalbasal 6y agoIt's disappointing that this kind of thing is possible in relation to the sophistication and competence of a regime. Or maybe I should say that 2020 is a disappointment, from a 2005 perspective. The internet was supposed to be free. The ability to use it for political change democratically was supposed to be built in, innate. This wasn't supposed to be a rare and fortunate blip, a soon-to-be-closed loophole in an app that . Internal security office around the world are currently reviewing their susceptibility to Telegram-based "attacks." Even in democratic countries, we're increasingly seeing the internet's ability to lead to political organizing as dubious... something that must be controlled.
- danlugo92 6y agohttps://gun.eco/ https://gun.eco/
- jacobwilliamroy 6y agoI'm surprised that Telegram is proudly proclaiming itself to be sponsoring regime change in a foreign country. Seems kinda... gauche? I mean, that's still frowned upon right? Is my mindset antiquated?
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.is/jbbmQ https://archive.is/jbbmQ
- prajjwal 6y agoIt's amazing that technology is empowering these protestors, but I'm not sure a vulnerable group of people such as this should be leaving identifying information on these servers. - You cannot sign up for Telegram without your phone number (even if it isn't public). - End to End encryption exists but is limited to 1-1 chats. - Telegram cooperates with data requests from law enforcements. The kind of risk this puts them in cannot be overstated.
- eitland 6y ago> Telegram cooperates with data requests from law enforcements. It is not that black and white: AFAIK and IIRC it is more like this: - yes: Telegram gives data about members of public groups/channels - no: Telegram does not give out information from closed groups / personal chats, and they go to great lengths to prevent that information from becoming available. We might be sceptical all we want about the custom crypto, but I've seen no credible source that I can think of that have backs you statement except the limited example I gave above. Happy to learn more though.
- _jahh 6y agomain opposition leader got poisoned yesterday you think it matters what a russia based organization says they will do?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- maqp 6y ago"they go to great lengths to prevent that information from becoming available." Where's the documentation for this? Without documentation your assumption that there's any security is just blind faith.
- jitbit 6y agoTelegram has been sued over and over in many countries for refusing to provide that info, and kept fighting (both legally and technologically - via smart proxy-server rotation, addresses distributed over Apples/Google's push notifications etc.). Here's the case for Russia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_Telegram_in_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_Telegram_in_Russia (eventually the govt has blocked over 20 million (!) IP addresses, including Google's and Cloudflare's, and that disrupted 30% of the Internet in the country, but the app just kept working fine)
- LockAndLol 6y ago> authorities shut off the internet, leaving Belarusians with almost no access to independent online news outlets or social media and protesters seemingly without a leader How are they using Telegram without internet?
- ThinkBeat 6y agoThe encryption is not very good in group chat. All the security services need is to find one protesters phone force the person to unlock it and they have it all. I am sure all network traffic of any kind was heavily monitored too. It also becomes entirely useless when the authority turns off the internet. There is another one that can work with a Bluetooth mesh https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2019/09/02/hong-kong-protestors-using-mesh-messaging-app-china-cant-block-usage-up-3685/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsi... That Bluetooth is easy to notice and I’m the past was easy to listen in on. I presume that is better now.
- newsbinator 6y agoYeah it's pretty annoying that group chat displays real names and profiles. Also group chat has a search feature for all time.
- newscracker 6y ago> Yeah it's pretty annoying that group chat displays real names and profiles. Don't use real name in profiles. You can also set Telegram to show your profile picture only to your contacts and also choose to not share it with specific users or groups in the privacy settings. > Also group chat has a search feature for all time. This is managed by the group administrator when setting up the group to either limit history to new members or provide all history to new members.
- Krasnol 6y agoDid they ever say why it's not possible to have a different nick for different channels?
- newscracker 6y ago> All the security services need is to find one protesters phone force the person to unlock it and they have it all. This is true for all apps regardless of how good their network encryption is. With Telegram it's possible to delete messages for everyone. Not so in some other apps.
- vasu_man 6y agoFor a country ruled by a 'dictator', I'm surprised the Belarus' government hasn't blocked access to Telegram yet. Non-authoritarian democracies (well, at least on paper) such as Brazil and India, in past, have blocked WhatsApp to contain protests and spread of (mis)information.
- samat 6y agoTelegram is notorious for censorship circumvention. They have successfully defeated such an attempt to block telegram by Russian government. Russia used sophisticated DPI, nuked substantial portions of AWS and Cloudflare IP subnets for Russian users and still failed. This guys know how to do censorship circumvention and they are motivated.
- wruza 6y agoTelegram was inaccessible or unreliable for many users after the first block. For a while we used third-party vpn services (these in turn grew like mushrooms after a rain of previous website blocks — e.g. rutracker for drm violations, pornsites for cp, and vue.js for its extremist nature). Then tg implemented proxy switching over socks or something, which is indistinguishable from a regular ssl and could be set up in minutes by anyone. In last years you could use it without any setting, out of the box (but not the web client, which still required a vpn for obvious reasons). Russia basically trained tg and more importantly it's users to work this way to the extent when further blocking would harm the network infrastructure itself.
- ffpip 6y agoThey espaced Russia's ban. They are very good at doing this. Harcoding IP's of Googz and Apple servers, proxies, etc.
- biscotti 6y agoThe Belarus protests work to unseat a President who resisted bribes to impose a strict lockdown. Lukashenko was offered a sum of USD 940M, initially by the WHO & raised by the World Bank. It’s a foreign led insurrection that we should all oppose. That people in this thread label it a revolution just goes to show how easily truth can be perverted. Seems to me he’s a threat to their Corona agenda, that's why he must go.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dschuetz 6y agoI really hope the people of Belarus get the government they deserve.
- newscracker 6y agoIt's not surprising that every time Telegram pops up here, many comments miss the fact that Telegram has a great UX, a great feature set and also provides the kind of privacy protestors value, i.e., not having their phone numbers flashed to every random stranger in groups or to random channel owners whose channels you've subscribed to. With Telegram you cannot even do a phone number enumeration attack (this can be changed in settings) by adding phone numbers to your contacts list to find out who's using it. And nope, Signal doesn't make the cut for the above reasons because it exposes your phone number to everyone else. WhatsApp is the same in this respect. Neither of them prevent enumeration attacks (they may slow that down a bit, but not sufficient enough to protect against state actors). Wire and Element (Matrix) are comparatively better than Telegram, Signal and WhatsApp because you don't need a phone number to sign up and they also have end to end encryption for all chats (with Element it's a bit more recent). Hopefully more people can soon ditch phone number based apps that cause them to be vulnerable because of that vector.
- postmodernbrute 6y agoExactly - Telegram can be used for public gatherings precisely because one can stay anonymous. It's more like Discord in that respect. Wire is a bit of a mess. Client is buggy, cross-platform usage is difficult. At least that's my memory of it.
- ffpip 6y agoI love telegram. Great UI, feels natural to use it. And SO MANY features, it's hard to keep up. Unlimited storage helps too.
- maqp 6y agoWhen you realize end-to-end encryption is a necessary property of all features, you realize Telegram lacks even basic things like desktop clients, syncable chats, and group chats. Not so feature rich anymore ;)
- deathtrader666 6y ago
- throwaway12992 6y agoI find myself surprised that such a large percentage of people use Telegram in Belarus. One might wonder if perhaps some government who wanted nukes on Russia's border might expend some effort into discrediting an election of somebody who was blocking that objective. Telegram accounts can be made in an automated manner, for somebody sufficiently motivated. https://social.techjunkie.com/use-telegram-without-phone-number/ https://social.techjunkie.com/use-telegram-without-phone-num... https://www.voiplid.com/belarus-did-virtual-phone-number/ https://www.voiplid.com/belarus-did-virtual-phone-number/
- danvayn 6y agoThat's a reasonable concern, but considering Belarus has had problems like these for a while, and given telegram's popularity, both as a messenger and as a tool to circumvent Big Brother, I'd say that the majority of those Belarusian accounts are legitimate.
- throwawaynow716 6y agoRelatively long time Signal user (2+ years) from Belarus. Was in the city when internet blackout arrived. I don't want to waste your time on how i moved 30 people to Signal and preached about security and signal being the best pick on the market. Hell, even my family is on Signal. Now, let me tell you this. The `anti censorship switch` did not work during the internet hiccup. In a moment all that fancy stuff just ended up being.... useless. So check this out, i have family members living outside Belarus, they have Signal installed. But i am not able to message quite blatantly simple phrase "i am all right!". Next thing happened i fired up Telegram, hooked up SOCKS5 proxy and was capable to reach out my family members and asked friends to go on Twitter and get @signalapp's attention same evening outage started. Zero reaction. Signal was and is dead silent. This makes me think that, come on, people Signal caters to the USA users only. They won't care for others. Moxxie denouncing american police for their brutality, you've been to Chernobyl, you know what Eastern bloc looks like. Guys over here are three times more fierce than yours. But your company somehow makes a statement to accommodate local protesters, now what have you done to aid anything outside of cozy California? Lesson i've learned, that on the verge of something Belarus experienced last week, Signal has zero value. I even own the debug logs to send 'em so they will figure why the censorship circumvention wasn't working, but i'm drop dead sure i won't hear from them. Not being a hothead to get rid of Signal straight away but definitely i have to tell you my trust in Telegram's resilience grown
- dirtnugget 6y agoStill don’t trust them. Loads of shady things, from them rolling their own encryption to the fact, that is not possible to encrypt group chats. IMHO red flags. However I still have not encountered a messaging app which does group chats with somewhat complete feature set in groups. Signal won’t let you moderate groups for example. (No admin role where you can ban somebody or delete messages)
- maqp 6y agoSignal is working on V2 groups with moderation right now.
- exabrial 6y agoTelegram needs a p2p mode via wifi or bluetooth. If the government forces an outage or implements a great firewall, they'd be dead in the water.
- jacobwilliamroy 6y agoWhen Facebook does it over here it's called "Cyber war" When Telegram does it over there it's called "Liberation"
- avodonosov 6y agoI'm not sure how crucial it is. The main news portal tut.by is also fueling protests.
- hippich 6y agoTut.by was down during 9-10 events, while telegram appeared to work with some kind of VPN workaround (Belarusian, but living in the USA)
- avodonosov 6y agoIn Beltelecom network when using Opera browser VPN I read tut.by. In A1 network Opera VPN didn't help. Actually, availability at 9-10 does not really matter, people were already intended to protest by that time.
- avodonosov 6y agoI mean people were going to protest already
- InnocentAsks 6y agoAbout 9 months ago, Iranian government shutted off the internet amid protests. telegram is the most popular messenger among the Iranians. But it didn't work then and was disconnected, like all other services. only sites and services which had their servers inside Iran could continue their normal functions. my question is, what is the difference between internet shut off in Iran, and Belarus? Could telegram stay available in Iran, but didn't bother to?
- trurl123 6y agoWe are using Telegram every day for a work and private life. This is the best messenger in the world.
- mcsoft 6y agoIt's surprising how Telegram successfully lured public to believe it is a secure messaging app while not providing end-to-end encryption by default. You need to explicitly start secret chat (under More button on the contact page) to opt-in for E2EE, something you get by default in every Whatsapp chat.
- ur-whale 6y agohttp://archive.is/wip/OhtsY http://archive.is/wip/OhtsY