17 ms·

Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook

188 points by lxm 5y ago

29athrowaway 5y ago
Facebook became the anti-Facebook.
- nikolay 5y ago
  Yeah, from a social network, it turned into disinformation and censorship network! About one year ago I made a post about the Bulgarian gypsies and actually pointed out the discrimination against them and offered a PC-compliant solutions to the problem and they removed my comment, the appeal didn't change their decision, and they've blocked me from posting for a week. Some words always get your comment deleted and you get blocked for at least 24 hours! Pretty much all my friends move to Telegram channels. It's not the same, but nobody enjoys being watched and censored! Well, the guy who probably makes out with his wife in VR and make this the norm so that he feels better of himself cannot get this basic truth, of course.
dijit 5y ago
"Telegram is favoured by Jihadists" "Telegram is Russian Spying" "Telegram has extremely weak crypto" "Telegram is used by pedophiles" "Telegram is used by far-right terrorists" .... Use Signal! sigh The amount of times people bash on telegram is becoming painful. But lets take a logical argument; NSA has made it's mission in backdooring basically everything. We know from the Snowden revalations that their technical capability in 2008 (he only exposed info on things that were already old, his intent was to show illegal surveillance not capability remember) was such that they had some kind of access to every conceivable device on the planet and the majority of communication that went through the US. I don't think their technical capability got significantly worse in that time. So, if Telegrams private crypto code is backdoored or weak: well, NSA have it. No doubt should remain in anyones mind about that. Telegram is hosted on Google Cloud, which is under the juristiction of USA. Google cloud claims to not have access to client data, but I think it's not outside the realm of possibility that something could exist between the TLS terminators and the telegram communication relays. Maybe I'm wrong here entirely, but two things cannot be true at the same time: 1) Telegram is weak, NSA has access 2) Telegram is strong, NSA does not have acces If telegram was strong: NSA would do everything in it's power to push users to more controlled platforms. If telegram was weak: Jan 6th and Jihadi terrorists wouldn't use it. Addendum: all of these same complaints (save: weak crypto) can be used against Signal. --- I don't think this is a good justification for not using telegram, you wont be labelled alt-right or a terrorist or a pedophile. These same arguments come out time and time again about Tor too. It's pitiful, honestly.
- Krasnol 5y ago
  > Addendum: all of these same complaints (save: weak crypto) can be used against Signal. Better and E2E crypto is the main argument for Signal though. This is a significant difference between those two. You can't just ignore it if you build up such a case.
- thrown_22 5y ago
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  > If telegram was weak: Jan 6th and Jihadi terrorists wouldn't use it. The Jan 6 dudes ("terrorists" and/or otherwise) put their ugly mugs all over Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and the public Internet. I wouldn't exactly take opsec advice from that lot.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - 8note 5y ago
    Some Jan 6 folks did. Presumably not all of them did
    - noxer 5y ago
      The whole Jan 6 thing is a complete joke. Many people outside the USA can not even understand why this is still a thing people talk about, compare it to terrorism and even to the 9/11 attacks. Its completely insane. I remember 9/11 from outside USA. It "broke" the normal way people lived their life. Jan 6 on the other hand did nothing, no one cared. Only US propaganda media made a huge deal out of it. And they keep talking about the 768 (an more) people who have been charged as if they where charged for terrorism or something. Most of them simply got charged for entering a restricted building. Comparing this to a terrorist attack that took the life of 3000 people and injured at least 6000 other is grotesque and disgusting.
      - 5y ago
vinayakpandey 5y ago
paulpauper 5y ago
telegram is way overrated. too hard to create an account, takes up too much memory, accounts do get closed for automated/arbitrary reasons. not at all like described in the article .
- kaba0 5y ago
  How does it take up too much memory? It has the very best client on every single platform.
  - weberer 5y ago
    Maybe that person is comparing it to more traditional chat clients like Pidgin or Hexchat. Right now on my Manjaro desktop, Telegram is using 230mb of RAM, while Pidgin is taking 46mb. That being said, its a hell of a lot better than Slack, which could use up several gigabytes if you were in multiple groups.
    - konart 5y ago
      One should also check Telegram settings for media downloads\autoplay. This may change memory consumption drastically.
    - em-bee 5y ago
      on my desktop tg would routinely eat up to much memory so that i am now starting it with a script that sets a hard memory limit. haven't had a problem since.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
  its the best msging app. the features are wonderful and their art style and ux is fabulous.
- leshenka 5y ago
  Not saying that it's fine but > accounts do get closed for automated/arbitrary reasons can happen on any of big platforms
- 5y ago
civilized 5y ago
Wow, even shitty publications have paywalls now. Guess I've been saved from wasting my time!
- throwjs51009 5y ago
  No paywall when uBlock Origin is used. It's not the solution but still...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
tpoacher 5y ago
I mean, I've seen hit pieces before, but man was this elaborate. It even had chapters!
- shp0ngle 5y ago
  You have not read many "hit pieces" then. My favourite one from Wired is when they critically examined Project Xanadu leader and its history. It's from 1995 but people still keep linking to it whenever Xanadu is mentioned. https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/ https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/
  - mellavora 5y ago
    So even you couldn't resist the curse?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
TruthWillHurt 5y ago
- trees101 5y ago
  agreed, the giveaway is the label "far right" to describe anyone who doesn't agree with their politics.
  - Krasnol 5y ago
    So are they not allowed to write about the "far right" or doesn't it exist according to you?
    - danrocks 5y ago
      What a massive strawman.
    - silvercove 5y ago
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      As someone mentioned somewhere, there are more articles in mainstream media mentioning Ku Klux Klan than there actually are KKK members. The far right exists and is potentially dangerous, but overconcentrating on it will let other dangers fly under the radar.
      - motoxpro 5y ago
        To respond to your first point, I mean there are more articles mentioning members of congress than there are members of congress. Or more articles mentioning Taylor Swift than there are Taylor Swifts. Not sure how quantity of articles is a unit of measurement here.
        inglor_cz 5y ago
        True, but the Congress has enormous power and Taylor Swift is at least creative enough to merit some attention.
shp0ngle 5y ago
This article is good. Telegram is really weird and sketchy; the rants Durov posts on his channel against WhatsApp usually make no sense; and their claims of security are dubious. And TON was a disaster. On the other hand. If I did any social organizing today, I would definitely use Telegram. Signal is fine, but nobody is using it and the UX is just worse. I don't trust Facebook to randomly not shut everything down because some outsourced content moderator in New Delhi had a bad sleep. Durov might be sketchy and weird libertarian, but damn, his developers can deliver good and working product really fast. (And from what I understand, it's a really small team.) Credit where it's due. I still think Telegram will plainly run out of money in a few years (you can use it to host unlimited amount of data and share it with unlimited number of people!! that is not sustainable), but well, I will use them before they do.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  Telegram is ridiculously smooth, runs on everything, doesn’t treat any platform as an afterthought (despite having the electron thing, Signal is still very mobile oriented), and isn’t Facebook. It’s about as good as you’re going to get without making big sacrifices somewhere.
  - shp0ngle 5y ago
    Yeah, it’s ridiculously well made. I’m not disputing that. The protocol is weird but they built a great app on top of that. They just cannot be sustainable long term. There is literally no restriction size-wise on data you can save on their servers. For free. And they have basically no income. They have some new ad program with basically no tracking (which is good for users, sure, but nobody will pay that much for that). They get 0 commissions from payment (and I never heard anyone using their payment thing). TON went nowhere.
    - tazjin 5y ago
      I'd pay double what I pay for things like media streaming services for Telegram if they had a supporter tier. It's easily the best service I use.
vmception 5y ago
telegram is an amusement park so just stop using it for sketchy things and have fun! the E2E feature is... there... who cares about it, just load it up for one specific conversation and move on.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- vinay427 5y ago
  To be fair, it doesn’t even have feature parity with Signal for “one specific conversation,” which I might have been fine sacrificing to use Telegram. Among other things, there’s no multi-device E2EE support or message history backup for E2EE, last I checked.
discordance 5y ago
https://archive.is/tU8ps https://archive.is/tU8ps
lazzlazzlazz 5y ago
People are consistently surprised that Telegram is not encrypted by default in any setting. You have to create a device-to-device-specific encrypted chat with your counter-party. It's not a reasonable security model, vastly outclassed by (the still quite flawed) Signal. Ultimately, we need encrypted-by-default messaging based on public/private key pairs (obscured from the uninterested user, of course).
- smsm42 5y ago
  If I'll ever need an app to pass around Pentagon secrets, I'll surely use Signal or something better. But if I need an app to chat with my friends and discuss what's going on without being banned and having the daily dose of Mandatory Truth injected, then Telegram works just fine so far.
- j16sdiz 5y ago
  Not end-to-end encrypted, but it is encrypted.
- bakuninsbart 5y ago
  Both Threema and Signal are the way to go with chat apps, the only advantage Telegram offers are vast groups for specific purposes. Here in Berlin, I'm getting cheap produce through telegram, get alerted to public transport controls (I do have a ticket, but sometimes friends do not), and sell/buy stuff I don't need.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    Telegram's advantages are a simple bot API and proper moderation tools for large channels.
    - krzyk 5y ago
      And an app that is small and fast (and a proper desktop app, not some electron).
      - 5y ago
silvercove 5y ago
It's hilarious to watch Americans get triggered at Telegram's success. I'll grab my popcorn.
- thwoeriu234 5y ago
  - Fatnino 5y ago
    It's just made by a Russian but the Russian gov is mad at him and he's living abroad.
    - braymundo 5y ago
      Exactly. People read "Russian" and freak out without any nuance.
      - amelius 5y ago
        Not really strange, given what this country has done on social media to control foreign elections, allegedly, just saying.
        grishka 5y ago
        As a Russian, this goes both ways. I really hate how the US tries its damnest to pretend they control the entire planet and meddles with internal politics of other countries, something they have no business even knowing about, all the time. Sovereignty? What sovereignty?
        amelius 5y ago
        True, but that it happens on both sides is not really an argument that will make people more at ease with foreign social media apps, I suppose.
        deleted 5y ago
amelius 5y ago
If we install binaries, how can we be sure that any messaging app has no backdoors?
- silvercove 5y ago
  You can't. That's why WhatsApp's claims on E2E encryption are nonsense.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mrfinn 5y ago
  You can install the Telegram FOSS client, at least in an Android cellphone.
  - zoobab 5y ago
    For me, Telegram FOSS client stopped working. Telegram server side is open source?
    - AnonC 5y ago
      The Telegram server code is not open source. It's been in the "we will open source everything at some point in time" limbo for years.
      - ffpip 5y ago
        Durov has said server code will not be open sourced since it would help countries block them more easily. They use many methods to avoid being blocked by government. Also, https://t.me/durovschat/515221 https://t.me/durovschat/515221
- bwindels 5y ago
  Also, why put a backdoor in the client if the server sees pretty much every message in plaintext?
- 5y ago
AnonC 5y ago
This was a great article! It provides a lot of past details that most people wouldn't know about, especially about Pavel Durov (who is an eccentric character, as seen in the posts on his channel). I'd actually pay a monthly subscription for the value Telegram has given over the years. The pace of development is unmatched by any other platform. I know Telegram chats are not end-to-end encrypted by default. Pavel Durov has explained, and I'm sure it's somewhere on Telegram's site too, that a big reason for not doing E2EE is enabling fast search (on the server). And it shows: Telegram has the best search among chat platforms and is even better than search on social network platforms with more features like Facebook. Maybe they have ulterior motives and/or aren't technically able to provide E2EE for all chats. So far, it hasn't had widespread scandals (other than TON) like Facebook/Meta has had. This is not to claim that Telegram doesn't have design flaws or drawbacks. But no other platform can catch up to its UX and features for at least a few more years, and that gap seems to be widening as time passes. If any platform were capable of doing so, it would've happened already. Among Telegram's many features (if you use Telegram, check how many of these you know about): * Phone number hidden from others? Check. * Username that can be given to anyone or published anywhere for others to contact? Check. * Multiple accounts on one app? Check. (the official Telegram clients allow up to three accounts) * Fast and reliable (comparatively) message delivery? Check. * Client applications for multiple platforms? Check. * Messages (the default, non-E2EE ones) sync across all clients? Check. * Send large files? Check. * Prevent phone number enumeration by others (who randomly add numbers to their contacts list)? Check. * Granular privacy settings? Check. * Search messages by text, by person, by date? Check. Global search? Check. * Use a calendar view to check activity/messages? Check. * Edit messages after sending? Check. * Delete messages after sending? Check. * Message reply threads? Check. * User mentions and quick navigation to mentions? Check. * Scheduled messages? Check. * Audio messages? Check. Video messages? Check. * Voice chats (like clubhouse)? Check. * Polls? Check. * Chat exports? Check. * Media editor? Check. * Built-in video player with playback speed adjustment and fast forward/rewind? Check. * Edit photos after sending? Check. * Forward messages with fine control over whether it shows as a forward and whether the caption should be included? Check. * Pin messages? Check. Multiple pinned messages? Check. * Broadcast channels (one to many)? Check. * Bots? Check. * Themes and stickers? Check. * Message folders? Check. * Interactive emoji? Check. * Message read receipts (by user) for small groups? Check. * Spoiler formatting? Check. * Reactions? Check. P.S.: I do not work for and nor am I in any way associated with Telegram, except as an end user.
baxuz 5y ago
Telegram supports e2ee. https://tsf.telegram.org/manuals/e2ee-simple https://tsf.telegram.org/manuals/e2ee-simple
- tuoret 5y ago
  The article doesn't claim otherwise, it just states that you have to enable it manually for every chat, which most people don't seem to realize (or care about).
nickpp 5y ago
Wasn't Facebook supposed to be some sort of monopoly with an iron grip on its audience due to the first-mover effect? So now it turns out even chat platforms are viable competition...
- throwjs51009 5y ago
  News from last week: Facebook suffers biggest one-day fall in history as shares plunge over 26% More than $230bn wiped off the value of Meta making stock market history. Most concerning was a never-before-seen drop in Facebook’s daily user numbers. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2022/02/03/almost-200bn-wiped-facebook-users-flock-tiktok/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2022/02/03/almost-200... Anyway, I think facebook is too big to fail.
- smsm42 5y ago
  It has been for a while. But nothing lasts forever.
swah 5y ago
The "sad thing" is that Whatsapp is 10x-50x more popular in my country and its quite hard to integrate (APIs, bots) compared to Telegram, at least for "small business". I wonder if Telegram would also be more closed if it was #1...
- vinay427 5y ago
  Telegram doesn't support bots and most other advanced features for E2EE conversations either. It seems at least as valid (IMO) to speculate that WhatsApp's lack of API/bot support is due to an additional technical hurdle than its dominant market status.
  - CodeGlitch 5y ago
    > Telegram doesn't support bots I think it does: https://core.telegram.org/bots https://core.telegram.org/bots
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - SecurityLagoon 5y ago
      You missed it was in the context of E2EE chats.
- lacogubik 5y ago
  WhatsApp recently launched hosted API [1] for faster and easier integration for small business [1] https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/01/whatsapp-brings-its-business-api-to-the-cloud-to-speed-adoption/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/01/whatsapp-brings-its-busine...
  - swah 5y ago
    I think its the same thing [1], but applied anyway with my 1-one company. [1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/whatsapp-business-api/getting-access-to-business-api?fbclid=IwAR3SNPmEl7CyBITljlJp6krZq9Lb3Mz_qqimVa37ODlRck0D8oK4DRqMTFw https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/whatsapp-business-api/getti...
zoobab 5y ago
Anyone wants to add Deltachat support to Nym mixed network? I tried to connect it to a tor email local postfix, still wip.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
smsm42 5y ago
The frequency with which Wired obsessively brings up Trump into everything suggests they are much less interested in exploring the technical side than to push a political agenda. It makes it look like the only thing that matters is where Trump is tweeting now. And of course, at the conclusion of the article, the author shudders of the thought that there could be a communication platform not censored by the government. The horror!

188 points by lxm 5y ago

29athrowaway 5y ago

Facebook became the anti-Facebook.

nikolay 5y ago
Yeah, from a social network, it turned into disinformation and censorship network! About one year ago I made a post about the Bulgarian gypsies and actually pointed out the discrimination against them and offered a PC-compliant solutions to the problem and they removed my comment, the appeal didn't change their decision, and they've blocked me from posting for a week. Some words always get your comment deleted and you get blocked for at least 24 hours! Pretty much all my friends move to Telegram channels. It's not the same, but nobody enjoys being watched and censored! Well, the guy who probably makes out with his wife in VR and make this the norm so that he feels better of himself cannot get this basic truth, of course.

dijit 5y ago

"Telegram is favoured by Jihadists" "Telegram is Russian Spying" "Telegram has extremely weak crypto" "Telegram is used by pedophiles" "Telegram is used by far-right terrorists" .... Use Signal! sigh The amount of times people bash on telegram is becoming painful. But lets take a logical argument; NSA has made it's mission in backdooring basically everything. We know from the Snowden revalations that their technical capability in 2008 (he only exposed info on things that were already old, his intent was to show illegal surveillance not capability remember) was such that they had some kind of access to every conceivable device on the planet and the majority of communication that went through the US. I don't think their technical capability got significantly worse in that time. So, if Telegrams private crypto code is backdoored or weak: well, NSA have it. No doubt should remain in anyones mind about that. Telegram is hosted on Google Cloud, which is under the juristiction of USA. Google cloud claims to not have access to client data, but I think it's not outside the realm of possibility that something could exist between the TLS terminators and the telegram communication relays. Maybe I'm wrong here entirely, but two things cannot be true at the same time: 1) Telegram is weak, NSA has access 2) Telegram is strong, NSA does not have acces If telegram was strong: NSA would do everything in it's power to push users to more controlled platforms. If telegram was weak: Jan 6th and Jihadi terrorists wouldn't use it. Addendum: all of these same complaints (save: weak crypto) can be used against Signal. --- I don't think this is a good justification for not using telegram, you wont be labelled alt-right or a terrorist or a pedophile. These same arguments come out time and time again about Tor too. It's pitiful, honestly.

Krasnol 5y ago
> Addendum: all of these same complaints (save: weak crypto) can be used against Signal. Better and E2E crypto is the main argument for Signal though. This is a significant difference between those two. You can't just ignore it if you build up such a case.
thrown_22 5y ago
fennecfoxen 5y ago
> If telegram was weak: Jan 6th and Jihadi terrorists wouldn't use it. The Jan 6 dudes ("terrorists" and/or otherwise) put their ugly mugs all over Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and the public Internet. I wouldn't exactly take opsec advice from that lot.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 8note 5y ago
  Some Jan 6 folks did. Presumably not all of them did
  - noxer 5y ago
    The whole Jan 6 thing is a complete joke. Many people outside the USA can not even understand why this is still a thing people talk about, compare it to terrorism and even to the 9/11 attacks. Its completely insane. I remember 9/11 from outside USA. It "broke" the normal way people lived their life. Jan 6 on the other hand did nothing, no one cared. Only US propaganda media made a huge deal out of it. And they keep talking about the 768 (an more) people who have been charged as if they where charged for terrorism or something. Most of them simply got charged for entering a restricted building. Comparing this to a terrorist attack that took the life of 3000 people and injured at least 6000 other is grotesque and disgusting.
    - 5y ago

vinayakpandey 5y ago

paulpauper 5y ago

telegram is way overrated. too hard to create an account, takes up too much memory, accounts do get closed for automated/arbitrary reasons. not at all like described in the article .

kaba0 5y ago
How does it take up too much memory? It has the very best client on every single platform.
- weberer 5y ago
  Maybe that person is comparing it to more traditional chat clients like Pidgin or Hexchat. Right now on my Manjaro desktop, Telegram is using 230mb of RAM, while Pidgin is taking 46mb. That being said, its a hell of a lot better than Slack, which could use up several gigabytes if you were in multiple groups.
  - konart 5y ago
    One should also check Telegram settings for media downloads\autoplay. This may change memory consumption drastically.
  - em-bee 5y ago
    on my desktop tg would routinely eat up to much memory so that i am now starting it with a script that sets a hard memory limit. haven't had a problem since.
ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
its the best msging app. the features are wonderful and their art style and ux is fabulous.
leshenka 5y ago
Not saying that it's fine but > accounts do get closed for automated/arbitrary reasons can happen on any of big platforms
5y ago

civilized 5y ago

Wow, even shitty publications have paywalls now. Guess I've been saved from wasting my time!

throwjs51009 5y ago
No paywall when uBlock Origin is used. It's not the solution but still...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

tpoacher 5y ago

I mean, I've seen hit pieces before, but man was this elaborate. It even had chapters!

shp0ngle 5y ago
You have not read many "hit pieces" then. My favourite one from Wired is when they critically examined Project Xanadu leader and its history. It's from 1995 but people still keep linking to it whenever Xanadu is mentioned. https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/ https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/
- mellavora 5y ago
  So even you couldn't resist the curse?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

TruthWillHurt 5y ago

trees101 5y ago
agreed, the giveaway is the label "far right" to describe anyone who doesn't agree with their politics.
- Krasnol 5y ago
  So are they not allowed to write about the "far right" or doesn't it exist according to you?
  - danrocks 5y ago
    What a massive strawman.
  - silvercove 5y ago
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    As someone mentioned somewhere, there are more articles in mainstream media mentioning Ku Klux Klan than there actually are KKK members. The far right exists and is potentially dangerous, but overconcentrating on it will let other dangers fly under the radar.
    - motoxpro 5y ago
      To respond to your first point, I mean there are more articles mentioning members of congress than there are members of congress. Or more articles mentioning Taylor Swift than there are Taylor Swifts. Not sure how quantity of articles is a unit of measurement here.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        True, but the Congress has enormous power and Taylor Swift is at least creative enough to merit some attention.

shp0ngle 5y ago

This article is good. Telegram is really weird and sketchy; the rants Durov posts on his channel against WhatsApp usually make no sense; and their claims of security are dubious. And TON was a disaster. On the other hand. If I did any social organizing today, I would definitely use Telegram. Signal is fine, but nobody is using it and the UX is just worse. I don't trust Facebook to randomly not shut everything down because some outsourced content moderator in New Delhi had a bad sleep. Durov might be sketchy and weird libertarian, but damn, his developers can deliver good and working product really fast. (And from what I understand, it's a really small team.) Credit where it's due. I still think Telegram will plainly run out of money in a few years (you can use it to host unlimited amount of data and share it with unlimited number of people!! that is not sustainable), but well, I will use them before they do.

kitsunesoba 5y ago
Telegram is ridiculously smooth, runs on everything, doesn’t treat any platform as an afterthought (despite having the electron thing, Signal is still very mobile oriented), and isn’t Facebook. It’s about as good as you’re going to get without making big sacrifices somewhere.
- shp0ngle 5y ago
  Yeah, it’s ridiculously well made. I’m not disputing that. The protocol is weird but they built a great app on top of that. They just cannot be sustainable long term. There is literally no restriction size-wise on data you can save on their servers. For free. And they have basically no income. They have some new ad program with basically no tracking (which is good for users, sure, but nobody will pay that much for that). They get 0 commissions from payment (and I never heard anyone using their payment thing). TON went nowhere.
  - tazjin 5y ago
    I'd pay double what I pay for things like media streaming services for Telegram if they had a supporter tier. It's easily the best service I use.

vmception 5y ago

telegram is an amusement park so just stop using it for sketchy things and have fun! the E2E feature is... there... who cares about it, just load it up for one specific conversation and move on.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vinay427 5y ago
To be fair, it doesn’t even have feature parity with Signal for “one specific conversation,” which I might have been fine sacrificing to use Telegram. Among other things, there’s no multi-device E2EE support or message history backup for E2EE, last I checked.

discordance 5y ago

https://archive.is/tU8ps https://archive.is/tU8ps

lazzlazzlazz 5y ago

People are consistently surprised that Telegram is not encrypted by default in any setting. You have to create a device-to-device-specific encrypted chat with your counter-party. It's not a reasonable security model, vastly outclassed by (the still quite flawed) Signal. Ultimately, we need encrypted-by-default messaging based on public/private key pairs (obscured from the uninterested user, of course).

smsm42 5y ago
If I'll ever need an app to pass around Pentagon secrets, I'll surely use Signal or something better. But if I need an app to chat with my friends and discuss what's going on without being banned and having the daily dose of Mandatory Truth injected, then Telegram works just fine so far.
j16sdiz 5y ago
Not end-to-end encrypted, but it is encrypted.
bakuninsbart 5y ago
Both Threema and Signal are the way to go with chat apps, the only advantage Telegram offers are vast groups for specific purposes. Here in Berlin, I'm getting cheap produce through telegram, get alerted to public transport controls (I do have a ticket, but sometimes friends do not), and sell/buy stuff I don't need.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Telegram's advantages are a simple bot API and proper moderation tools for large channels.
  - krzyk 5y ago
    And an app that is small and fast (and a proper desktop app, not some electron).
    - 5y ago

silvercove 5y ago

It's hilarious to watch Americans get triggered at Telegram's success. I'll grab my popcorn.

thwoeriu234 5y ago
- Fatnino 5y ago
  It's just made by a Russian but the Russian gov is mad at him and he's living abroad.
  - braymundo 5y ago
    Exactly. People read "Russian" and freak out without any nuance.
    - amelius 5y ago
      Not really strange, given what this country has done on social media to control foreign elections, allegedly, just saying.
      - grishka 5y ago
        As a Russian, this goes both ways. I really hate how the US tries its damnest to pretend they control the entire planet and meddles with internal politics of other countries, something they have no business even knowing about, all the time. Sovereignty? What sovereignty?
        amelius 5y ago
        True, but that it happens on both sides is not really an argument that will make people more at ease with foreign social media apps, I suppose.
        deleted 5y ago

amelius 5y ago

If we install binaries, how can we be sure that any messaging app has no backdoors?

silvercove 5y ago
You can't. That's why WhatsApp's claims on E2E encryption are nonsense.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mrfinn 5y ago
You can install the Telegram FOSS client, at least in an Android cellphone.
- zoobab 5y ago
  For me, Telegram FOSS client stopped working. Telegram server side is open source?
  - AnonC 5y ago
    The Telegram server code is not open source. It's been in the "we will open source everything at some point in time" limbo for years.
    - ffpip 5y ago
      Durov has said server code will not be open sourced since it would help countries block them more easily. They use many methods to avoid being blocked by government. Also, https://t.me/durovschat/515221 https://t.me/durovschat/515221
bwindels 5y ago
Also, why put a backdoor in the client if the server sees pretty much every message in plaintext?
5y ago

AnonC 5y ago

This was a great article! It provides a lot of past details that most people wouldn't know about, especially about Pavel Durov (who is an eccentric character, as seen in the posts on his channel). I'd actually pay a monthly subscription for the value Telegram has given over the years. The pace of development is unmatched by any other platform. I know Telegram chats are not end-to-end encrypted by default. Pavel Durov has explained, and I'm sure it's somewhere on Telegram's site too, that a big reason for not doing E2EE is enabling fast search (on the server). And it shows: Telegram has the best search among chat platforms and is even better than search on social network platforms with more features like Facebook. Maybe they have ulterior motives and/or aren't technically able to provide E2EE for all chats. So far, it hasn't had widespread scandals (other than TON) like Facebook/Meta has had. This is not to claim that Telegram doesn't have design flaws or drawbacks. But no other platform can catch up to its UX and features for at least a few more years, and that gap seems to be widening as time passes. If any platform were capable of doing so, it would've happened already. Among Telegram's many features (if you use Telegram, check how many of these you know about): * Phone number hidden from others? Check. * Username that can be given to anyone or published anywhere for others to contact? Check. * Multiple accounts on one app? Check. (the official Telegram clients allow up to three accounts) * Fast and reliable (comparatively) message delivery? Check. * Client applications for multiple platforms? Check. * Messages (the default, non-E2EE ones) sync across all clients? Check. * Send large files? Check. * Prevent phone number enumeration by others (who randomly add numbers to their contacts list)? Check. * Granular privacy settings? Check. * Search messages by text, by person, by date? Check. Global search? Check. * Use a calendar view to check activity/messages? Check. * Edit messages after sending? Check. * Delete messages after sending? Check. * Message reply threads? Check. * User mentions and quick navigation to mentions? Check. * Scheduled messages? Check. * Audio messages? Check. Video messages? Check. * Voice chats (like clubhouse)? Check. * Polls? Check. * Chat exports? Check. * Media editor? Check. * Built-in video player with playback speed adjustment and fast forward/rewind? Check. * Edit photos after sending? Check. * Forward messages with fine control over whether it shows as a forward and whether the caption should be included? Check. * Pin messages? Check. Multiple pinned messages? Check. * Broadcast channels (one to many)? Check. * Bots? Check. * Themes and stickers? Check. * Message folders? Check. * Interactive emoji? Check. * Message read receipts (by user) for small groups? Check. * Spoiler formatting? Check. * Reactions? Check. P.S.: I do not work for and nor am I in any way associated with Telegram, except as an end user.

baxuz 5y ago

Telegram supports e2ee. https://tsf.telegram.org/manuals/e2ee-simple https://tsf.telegram.org/manuals/e2ee-simple

tuoret 5y ago
The article doesn't claim otherwise, it just states that you have to enable it manually for every chat, which most people don't seem to realize (or care about).

nickpp 5y ago

Wasn't Facebook supposed to be some sort of monopoly with an iron grip on its audience due to the first-mover effect? So now it turns out even chat platforms are viable competition...

throwjs51009 5y ago
News from last week: Facebook suffers biggest one-day fall in history as shares plunge over 26% More than $230bn wiped off the value of Meta making stock market history. Most concerning was a never-before-seen drop in Facebook’s daily user numbers. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2022/02/03/almost-200bn-wiped-facebook-users-flock-tiktok/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2022/02/03/almost-200... Anyway, I think facebook is too big to fail.
smsm42 5y ago
It has been for a while. But nothing lasts forever.

swah 5y ago

The "sad thing" is that Whatsapp is 10x-50x more popular in my country and its quite hard to integrate (APIs, bots) compared to Telegram, at least for "small business". I wonder if Telegram would also be more closed if it was #1...

vinay427 5y ago
Telegram doesn't support bots and most other advanced features for E2EE conversations either. It seems at least as valid (IMO) to speculate that WhatsApp's lack of API/bot support is due to an additional technical hurdle than its dominant market status.
- CodeGlitch 5y ago
  > Telegram doesn't support bots I think it does: https://core.telegram.org/bots https://core.telegram.org/bots
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - SecurityLagoon 5y ago
    You missed it was in the context of E2EE chats.
lacogubik 5y ago
WhatsApp recently launched hosted API [1] for faster and easier integration for small business [1] https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/01/whatsapp-brings-its-business-api-to-the-cloud-to-speed-adoption/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/01/whatsapp-brings-its-busine...
- swah 5y ago
  I think its the same thing [1], but applied anyway with my 1-one company. [1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/whatsapp-business-api/getting-access-to-business-api?fbclid=IwAR3SNPmEl7CyBITljlJp6krZq9Lb3Mz_qqimVa37ODlRck0D8oK4DRqMTFw https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/whatsapp-business-api/getti...

zoobab 5y ago

Anyone wants to add Deltachat support to Nym mixed network? I tried to connect it to a tor email local postfix, still wip.

deleted 5y ago

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smsm42 5y ago

The frequency with which Wired obsessively brings up Trump into everything suggests they are much less interested in exploring the technical side than to push a political agenda. It makes it look like the only thing that matters is where Trump is tweeting now. And of course, at the conclusion of the article, the author shudders of the thought that there could be a communication platform not censored by the government. The horror!