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Telegram has released user data to German Feds in multiple cases

217 points by CHEF-KOCH 4y ago

CHEF-KOCH 4y ago
Telegram has released user data to the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany in several cases
- IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
  Yes, you already mentioned that.
gerikson 4y ago
Isn't this simply in line with the Data Retention Directive?
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Telegram doesn't care about EU law that much...
jeroenhd 4y ago
Did anyone expect otherwise? Telegram is a mostly unencrypted chat application, of course it's going to cooperate if local law enforcement comes knocking on their door with a warrant. If you don't want your chats to end up in the hands of law enforcement then you should consider using an end-to-end-encrypted messenger application. Signal will hand over your data too if the police show up, but they don't have any data to hand over.
- WilTimSon 4y ago
  > Telegram is a mostly unencrypted chat application That's just plain incorrect. > if local law enforcement comes knocking on their door with a warrant How is German law enforcement relevant to an app HQ'd in Dubai? They've been openly criticised before for not cooperating with law enforcement.
  - andreskytt 4y ago
    Hq location can be quite irrelevant. Legal intercept laws can be quite old-fashioned and might make a case than two German citizens having a conversation while on German soil makes the conversation fall under German jurisdiction. There can be a surprisingly large number of ways the jurisdiction can be determined, for all parties involved and, without analysis of German law, I would not readily make assumptions as to if they have a legal basis to talk to Signal or not. And if they do, I’m sure Signal is a law-abiding company.
  - miohtama 4y ago
    > That's just plain incorrect All chats are unencrypted by default.
    - WilTimSon 4y ago
      That's what the other user said and it is still incorrect. [0] People either don't read the basic FAQ or conflate E2EE to being the only encryption in the world, which is ridiculous. [0]: https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data
      - cassianoleal 4y ago
        Honest question. Can you clarify this? I read the FAQ and even skimmed the MTProto 2.0 docs but from where I stand this Server-Client encryption sounds like encryption in transit but the server still has the ability to decrypt. This, from a privacy against law enforcement perspective (which is what the article and comments are about), is more or less the same as no encryption. Edit: s/transport/transit/, add "perspective" to the last paragraph.
        AnonC 4y ago
        It’s true that Telegram only uses encryption for data in transit for normal person-to-person chats and group chats. Data at rest is stored in a way the server can read. That’s one of the things that makes Telegram search so fast. The encryption part [1] is covered in the FAQ, along with more details. Also see the question and answer on “Fo you process data requests?” [2] Telegram has a feature called secret chats, which are only person-to-person. That uses end-to-end encryption. [1]: https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data [2]: https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests
- hitovst 4y ago
  Everyone will likely hand over whatever they can... which means the most decentralized options which leave as little to hand over as possible are best.
  - buro9 4y ago
    Most encrypted. Centralised or decentralised means little compared to a lack of encryption. You can't give up that which you don't have access to.
    - kornhole 4y ago
      Both are important. When governments mandate back doors such as in EU chat control or US Earn it act, centralized services can be targeted much more easily than the thousands of xmpp and matrix servers running around the world.
      - sodality2 4y ago
        Isn't that federated rather than decentralized?
        kornhole 4y ago
        What distinction do you mean? Federation allows for interoperable decentralization. Without federation, we would have thousands of chat/mail/social media servers that can't talk to each other. Some may choose not to federate, but most want to federate to create a useful protocol.
        sodality2 4y ago
        I always believed decentralized was if each user doubled as a server and required no external setup (example: scuttlebutt). Whereas federated was a plurality of servers with users communicated with each other but no central authority (email, mastodon, matrix, etc). However, reading some peer to peer literature like that 1500 page behemoth of a book, "Handbook of Peer-to-Peer Networking", it seems they are used relatively interchangeably..
- BelleOfTheBall 4y ago
  The app famous for not cooperating will cooperate? https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/05/exclusive-telegram-to-temporarily-refuse-data-requests-from-hong-kong-courts-amid-security-law-terrorism-row/ https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/05/exclusive-telegram-to-temp...
  - legalcorrection 4y ago
    It’s easy to refuse requests from Chinese law enforcement if you don’t have offices, employees, or assets in China. Meanwhile, European countries recognize the legitimacy of each other’s court systems and will enforce judgments and orders across borders.
  - dgellow 4y ago
    > Telegram to temporarily refuse data requests from Hong Kong courts amid security law The headline you linked makes it clear it was temporary. Which mean they do of course cooperate in normal situation. Otherwise they would be blocked everywhere, you cannot maintain a service such as a chat application without cooperating with governments. There is no story here, Telegram shared information with BKA in cases of terrorism and child abuse, as every service operating in Germany would and should do.
    - tzumby 4y ago
      I agree that they should, the story is that they can. Err, not a story, it’s a known fact that they don’t encrypt communication.
- saos 4y ago
  The app does have E2E encryption. It's just not the default. My one wish is they would change this.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    I know, and I agree. MTProtov1 criticisms aside, the E2EE system Telegram uses is perfectly safe. It's just disabled by default, unavailable in group chats or channels, and enabling it reduces usability (i.e. you can't use multiple devices to chat if you enable E2EE). Telegram as a chat app has the best UX of any chat app out there in my opinion, so the lack of proper E2EE is simply disappointing. I don't really trust either, but I consider WhatsApp more secure than Telegram, despite Meta mining my metadata.
    - saos 4y ago
      > but I consider WhatsApp more secure than Telegram, despite Meta mining my metadata Ha, I still prefer Telegram. I just use secret chats by default and enjoy the awesome UX
      - prophesi 4y ago
        Yes, Secret Chat's awesome UX of requiring both recipients to be online and the inability to use it on desktop.
        stereoradonc 4y ago
        Try Unigram to start "secret chats" though it will not sync with other clients. Unigram works in Windows Desktop.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      the E2EE system Telegram uses is perfectly safe Is it? How would you go about confirming that?]
    - alaricus 4y ago
      > WhatsApp more secure than Telegram Why is that? With WhatsApp client being closed source, we simply don't know if it really is doing E2EE at all.
- cabirum 4y ago
  These days, any popular messaging app that won't cooperate with local law (by choice or by design in case of e2e) would just be banned/ removed from stores in Germany or most other countries. Strong encryption for wide audience cannot exist today.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    Signal works fine in Germany, doesn't it?
    - ce4 4y ago
      They also have the user's phone number and in most cases their phone's adress book. It's not really about breaking e2e encryption but rather "reveal the identities of following users please". That could be due to all sorts of illegal activities (eg. hate speech, sale of banned substances, terrorism, child abuse, etc.)
      - tptacek 4y ago
        Signal cannot in fact provide your address book to German (or any other) authorities. The whole point of Signal's design, and the reason it's less featureful than things like Telegram, is that it's designed not to collect serverside metadata about who's talking to who.
        ce4 4y ago
        Thanks for correcting!
        chopin 4y ago
        The client has access to the address book and it is hard to verify what the client does in reality. I receive updates of the client every other day and who knows what it brings with it.
        niel 4y ago
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Unfortunately, Telegram doesn't cooperate with German authorities in the majority of cases, because it operates out of the jurisdiction. Telegram probably figured if they don't at least share information on child abuse and terrorism, they'll just motivate regulatory action.
  - svnpenn 4y ago
    > Unfortunately Why is that unfortunate? If I patronize a company, I want to be damn sure they are only giving up info to LEO when it's absolutely necessary.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      If I'm a decent Human being I'd rather no company helps criminals do crime stuff. The standards to turn over such information should not be decided by a private entity but by democratically enacted and enforced laws. Is enforcement of child porn prosecution "absolutely necessary"? Are death threats ok? Where's the line? I don't think a private company sitting in an unaccountable jurisdiction should make that decision. I trust German courts a lot more in that regard.
      - Zak 4y ago
        I'm inclined to agree, partly. If companies have the information, they should not have the last word about whether law enforcement gets access. That said, I do consider properly secure communication tools desirable and am very concerned about ongoing attempts to ban them. The uncomfortable truth is that if a communication method isn't secure for child molesters and terrorists, it isn't really secure for anyone.
        bayesian_horse 4y ago
        In the case of Telegram they do require you to use a mobile phone number to sign up and use their service. Mainly so they can be sure you don't abuse THEM, mostly. So the safety of criminals from law enforcement does come from Telegram refusing to give up information they have. And this concerns an area of crimes were the perpetrators don't very actively evade detection. There are other means to do so. And in the case of Germany, openly and publicly criticizing against the state is no problem as long as you don't propose to violently overthrow the state.
- gsich 4y ago
  This is unrelated to encryption. Telegram is still encrypted, otherwise you wouldn't need to ask them.
  - UltraViolence 4y ago
    It's not end-to-end encrypted. Of course the communication between the client app and the server is encrypted using TLS. But this allows Telegram itself to see the content of the conversation when it arrives on their servers. This has piked the interest of LEA, who want continuous, real-time access to that information.
- mr_mitm 4y ago
  > Did anyone expect otherwise? In a sense, yes. In case you don't speak German, the article [0] touches on this: > Dass Telegram überhaupt Auskunft über Nutzer an Behörden erteilt, markiert zumindest eine vorsichtige Kehrtwende im Kurs des 2013 gegründeten Unternehmens. Lange bekamen deutsche Ermittler keinerlei Antworten, wenn sie wissen wollten, wer hinter Telegram-Konten steckt, die strafbare Inhalte im Netz verbreiten. Die Betreiber erklären auf ihrer Seite weiterhin: »Bis zum heutigen Tag haben wir 0 Byte Nutzerdaten an Dritte weitergegeben, einschließlich aller Regierungen.« In a nutshell, this is considered a turning point because Telegram's official stance is (even today) that they don't share data, not even with any government. And now they did, apparently. So yes, this definitely news, if not a bit surprising. The German government has even made hints that they will seek to ban Telegram from app stores if they continue to refuse to comply with law enforcement [1] [0] https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/telegram-gibt-nutzerdaten-an-das-bundeskriminalamt-a-0e4d3fcb-8081-4b87-b062-db412bbc294b https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/telegram-gibt-nutzerdat... [1] https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/faeser-will-telegram-aus-den-app-stores-werfen-lassen-a-30f191c7-ecb6-4d2c-997d-cfceadd2eb60 https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/faeser-will-tele...
  - anony999 4y ago
    >> In a nutshell, this is considered a turning point because Telegram's official stance is (even today) that they don't share data, not even with any government. If you care about your privacy the "official stance" alone is close to worthless. That includes governments and corporations as well. I think we already learned that. Just like on security you need in defense in depth on privacy(i.e. hardware, software, and "official policy" as well).
  - BelleOfTheBall 4y ago
    Their stance has always been that they don't protect terrorism suspects, they even had a channel where they reported how many ISIS groups/channels got shut down.
  - jjav 4y ago
    > Telegram's official stance[...] ... doesn't really matter. This is something I find surprisingly difficult to get through to people at both a personal and professional level (as I often work in security-related projects). People speak of whether they trust this or that entity. Reality is that it's an irrelevant discussion. Trusting an organization is always misplaced, no matter who they are. If you hand over data to an organization, you must immediately assume that data is compromised. Yes, that's all SaaS and all cloud providers, for example. Any party who could see the data in unencryted form, you need to assume they have it and can potentially at some point abuse it. This has nothing to do with the ethics of whoever is running the given organization at the moment. There are many points in time in various organizations where they truly protect the data. I thank you. But it's not a stable situation. Things can change. Less ethical management can come in during a reorg and suddenly everything is fair game and the consumer won't know until it is too late. And always there is the threat of governments demanding the data, at which point no matter how ethical the organization may be, nothing matters since there is nothing they can do. For any data that could at any level be potentially sensitive, you must make sure it is either not sent through third parties at all, or be encrypted with keys that only you control. Otherwise, assume it is compromised and sold to every bidder.
- wruza 4y ago
  is a mostly unencrypted … of course it's going to cooperate if local law enforcement comes knocking on their door with a warrant I don’t see how these are connected. All messengers will hand over all metadata they have to comply. The chatgroups in focus themselves are mostly public groups, you don’t have to play james bond to read what’s there. LEAs are arriving to the scene from that vector, not the other way round. “The NGO CeMAS monitors 3,000 German-language channels & groups for "disinformation, antisemitism, and right-wing extremism." - it’s literally in the tweet, man. Metadata logging is unrelated to encryption, not sure what’s the sensation is without comparing what messengers will actually have on hands in case of a warrant, minus publicly accessible info.
- arpanetus 4y ago
  It really doesn't matter, or in general you can never be sure that any app that stores any data won't ever meet requests of any officials or any people with guns. Especially the case of Telegram was quite simple, since SEC filed a complaint we could clearly see who are the main investors. It's not necessarily about the country or investors either. You can choose only the place where things are stored and expect the company to act according to local laws (for e.g. Protonmail doing its proton things in Swiss judiciary). And, I guess, a thing we have to teach people is something vague and unclear like post-privacy scene, like how one has to operate knowing that pigeon mails can always be spoofed, no matter how encrypted the conversation is.
- ahmedk92 4y ago
  Honest question, how do you prove you don't own user data?
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > If you don't want your chats to end up in the hands of law enforcement don't use chats meet in person like all respectable criminals do Anyway it would still mean that you're being investigated for something and the court authorized the request Now imagine what would happen if US law enforcement got hands on the chats of the Texas shooter. Truth is they didn't do anything even though he posted publicly about what he was going to do. https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/texas-school-shooting-uvalde-facebook-messages/#app https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/texas-school-shooting-u... So maybe the idea that anyone is spied and controlled by law enforcement or governments is not exactly true.
  - TimeBearingDown 4y ago
    Don’t worry, it’s worse. They collect everything, illegally and without any ethics. Then they’re incompetent as well, so action doesn’t happen when it should. Instead we get capricious, haphazard enforcement, and a dark future with all of this stored in permanent record to be retrieved using the search tools of 2040 and weaponized later when we later make nuisances of ourselves in response to future legislation.
WilTimSon 4y ago
What a weird article, unless Google Translate really messed up for me. Spiegel basically references itself as the source, cites some minister who says she has pressure on the app and then explains that they plan to fine Telegram for not cooperating. So they claim that Telegram cooperates... and then claim it does not cooperate. This is ridiculously vague. Not to mention that the article doesn't clear up if it's data or metadata. Weird, poor journalism.
- ju-st 4y ago
  I think you missed the first paragraph: The operators of the messenger app Telegram have handed over user data to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in several cases - contrary to what has been publicly reported so far. According to SPIEGEL information, this involved data on suspects in the areas of child abuse and terrorism. In the case of violations of other criminal offences, it is still difficult for German investigators to obtain information from Telegram, according to security circles. (Translated with www.DeepL.com)
- lavela 4y ago
  > references itself as a source This might be a 'germanism'. The article says 'according to SPIEGEL information' which translates to 'according to undisclosed sources that gave us information' > cooperating and not cooperating Recently there was a huge controversy about Telegram in Germany about them not disclosing personal information about accounts spreading illegal information according to German law. There were claims about banning Telegram in Germany, but after pressuring the app stores, Telegram seems to have given in slightly. So they are still not disclosing as much information as the authorities want them to, but it seems like they started to cooperate a bit. >data or metadata 'Nutzerdaten' in my understanding means mostly personal Data(real name, ip, address) but you are right, it is quite vague.
- orangeoxidation 4y ago
  They claim to have learned Telegram gave up IP-Addresses and/or telephone numbers > on suspects in the areas of child abuse and terrorism. In the case of violations of other criminal offenses, it remains difficult for German investigators to obtain information from Telegram, according to security circles. So Telegram is not giving free access or follows German law, but did help out in some specific cases. Telegram claims otherwise and says it never responded to requests. Yes, they are protecting their source(s), so you have to take them on faith. Der Spiegel has, however, an excellent reputation and good track record.
throw457 4y ago
The privacy movement should really distance itself from criminals it always looks sketchy when the most vocal advocates are people that just got caught doing something illegal.
- teddyh 4y ago
  “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” — Commonly attributed to H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
  - throw457 4y ago
    Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. – Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994)
    - teddyh 4y ago
      That argument, even if correct, can be used to target any and all viewpoints. It’s just a matter of who gets to decide what is and isn’t “rational”, “deceptive” or indeed “intolerant”. Shift the definitions ever so slightly in your favor and you have an iron-clad tool to suppress, with good conscience, your adversaries, no matter which side you are on.
that_guy_iain 4y ago
I'm pretty sure Germany while having a reputation for being very privacy focus makes more data requests per captia than any goverment.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Why are you pretty sure about that? All I hear about is the US doing that every day that they can mandate the parties into silence.... so how would you even know.
  - that_guy_iain 4y ago
    Lots of companies openly state how many requests they get from each country. I think I saw a report where someone tallied all the requests from all the major sites that report on the requests they get and Germany was at the top. For example, https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/ https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/ Germany is at 11+k while the UK which is of similar size is at 2+k
    - guerrilla 4y ago
      > Lots of companies openly state how many requests they get from each country. As I said, the US can stop you from making such disclosures and they do, which we know because some such embargoes have ended in individual cases. We have no idea how many are still in place.
      - that_guy_iain 4y ago
        The US can stop you making disclosures for very specific cases - aka the Patriot act which is a federal law. But majority of requests are done by other people. Quite simply saying "We have no idea how many are still in place" actually, we have an idea. That idea is not many. It's simply FUD to talk about the US' ability to stop disclosures when talking about who is making the most requests. Especially when the US is still pretty near the top for countries making requests.
d0mine 4y ago
So, what I'm hearing that unlike all the other sufficiently popular apps to matter, Telegram doesn't provide unlimited access to their user data.
- tapoxi 4y ago
  WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted for all messages by default, so Telegram is worse by having full access to the plaintext for the vast majority of messages on the service.
  - 0des 4y ago
    I have doubts, given their owner is Facebook.
    - kasey_junk 4y ago
      You can of course go verify it. Or you could trust the many many people who have. Or you can spread FUD on the internet…
      - sodality2 4y ago
        How can this be verified? WhatsApp isn't open source.
        dcsommer 4y ago
        You could use a network traffic analyzer, Frida, or trust third party security audits that WhatsApp publishes like https://research.nccgroup.com/2021/10/27/public-report-whatsapp-end-to-end-encrypted-backups-security-assessment/ https://research.nccgroup.com/2021/10/27/public-report-whats...
        sodality2 4y ago
        What if it acts normal for a vast majority of users, but a user which is secretly flagged on Facebook's back end will secretly report plaintext? Or a certain list of conditions will trigger more snooping? Network traffic works for proving that the app, right now, in this exact circumstance and time and date and location etc, probably isn't snooping on me. There's lots of sneaky ways to exfiltrate data that you wouldn't notice. Imagine encoding data through the timing of requests made or the exact ordering of simultaneous requests.
impetus1 4y ago
Lesson learned, don't close your API. Maybe your users will trust you more.
bsnal 4y ago
- frozencell 4y ago
  Does Germany have digital wallet for finance, health, etc?
traveler01 4y ago
> The NGO CeMAS monitors 3,000 German-language channels & groups for "disinformation, antisemitism, and right-wing extremism." So groups and channels that were already public in the first case... No private chat data, no backdoors? I'm fine with that.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  I think the idea is that CeMAS is monitoring those channels and associates potential crimes with accounts. They can make a criminal referral to the police that a crime may have been committed, but they may not be able to find out the person's actual name or persona from their account or other public information. But it would be easy for Telegram to just hand out the telephone number, and in the majority of cases, the number would be registered to the offender. We're mostly talking about unsophisticated offenders here, people agitating for hate, neonazis, unsophisticated child abusers...
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
Honest question because I don’t understand most of the comments on this submission: what’s supposed to be the issue with cooperating with law enforcement? I personally find mass dragnet-like unsupervised surveillance extremely worrying especially in the US where federal authorities like to abuse gag orders. But that’s not what we are talking about here. In this case we are speaking about judicially supervised data gathering in the context of an ongoing investigation. I have no issue with this as long as there is proper limits and supervisions in place.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- perfecthjrjth 4y ago
  It all starts out with "judicially supervised data gathering", a few years later these companies just create a portal for the law enforcement to search for whatever the latter want without any warrants whatsoever.
- loeg 4y ago
  It’s not a problem, it’s just directly contrary to Telegram’s and Telegram’s supporters’ previously stated privacy/security arguments.
- alaricus 4y ago
  > Honest question because I don’t understand most of the comments on this submission: what’s supposed to be the issue with cooperating with law enforcement? Depends on the laws they are enforcing. There is a very thin line between law enforcement and outright spying and authoritarian opression.
juanani 4y ago
Havoc 4y ago
hmm. The offending claim is certainly still there https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests >To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments.
- ffpip 4y ago
  > 0 bytes Such a weird way of saying they haven't disclosed data. They might say they disclosed the data by writing the user's details on a piece of paper and submitting that to the government.
  - nicce 4y ago
    Information on paper can still be measured on bytes.. so maybe maybe
- asldjajlfkj 4y ago
  I think Spiegel and Telegram use different definitions of "user data" here: Telegram says with the E2E chats they had no data to share, but that only refers to the content of the chats, obviously not the IP address or the linked phone number, which Telegram says it can also share with governments. When they mention later in the paragraph that they didn't share any data from unencrypted chats, that's with the caveat. That Telegram has shared _more_ than just metadata I think is unlikely.
realitsflat 4y ago
Does it not seem reasonable that if a chat group has, lets say, more than 1000 participants, whatever is said should be considered said in public?
leobg 4y ago
In many cases, the way they authorities get your chat logs is by simply confiscating the phones. Either yours or that of the other party. In those cases, they don’t even have to bother with Telegram, Facebook, or whatever. They just screenshot the hell out of everything - messenger apps, email, sms, calendar, todo apps.
UltraViolence 4y ago
Why is Telegram making allowances for CP and terrorism related crimes? Why is child abuse being tagged as worse than, say, drugs-related offenses or murder?
UltraViolence 4y ago
People, the only safe (textual) chat app is TorChat. Everything else is merely smoke and mirrors.
wly_cdgr 4y ago
The only reason companies like Telegram care about customer privacy is because that's how they sell their product and make money. They'll happily snitch on any of their users if doing so is more big-picture profitable than not snitching. You can never trust a for profit company bro, when will people learn this lol
LightG 4y ago
This is such a shame because, from a user and fun point of view, Telegram is light years ahead of Whatsapp. And I was just starting to get traction in terms of bringing my network over from Whatssap. And that is huge as it was almost impossible before. Has been a sea change for me over the last year or two.
olliej 4y ago
I'm unfamiliar with German law, and haven't really paid much attention to telegram in a long time. But what do you expect? A company can say "we don't share with the government" but if you get served a warrant (or subpoena?) telling them to provide X data, you don't simply get to say "no". You /could/ send your lawyer to a courthouse and have them argue the warrant/whatever is unlawful, or what have you, but if the court says it's valid then failing to comply is a unlawful. The only way you can not provide data to law enforcement is if you never have it. But companies want data for all sorts of reasons. My assumption would be that even if you say "we don't keep data" you could be served documents telling you to store that data. Of course IANAL, but this is all basic "function in a society" stuff.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
What about deleted messages, do they get deleted from servers too?

217 points by CHEF-KOCH 4y ago

CHEF-KOCH 4y ago

Telegram has released user data to the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany in several cases

IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
Yes, you already mentioned that.

gerikson 4y ago

Isn't this simply in line with the Data Retention Directive?

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Telegram doesn't care about EU law that much...

jeroenhd 4y ago

Did anyone expect otherwise? Telegram is a mostly unencrypted chat application, of course it's going to cooperate if local law enforcement comes knocking on their door with a warrant. If you don't want your chats to end up in the hands of law enforcement then you should consider using an end-to-end-encrypted messenger application. Signal will hand over your data too if the police show up, but they don't have any data to hand over.

WilTimSon 4y ago
> Telegram is a mostly unencrypted chat application That's just plain incorrect. > if local law enforcement comes knocking on their door with a warrant How is German law enforcement relevant to an app HQ'd in Dubai? They've been openly criticised before for not cooperating with law enforcement.
- andreskytt 4y ago
  Hq location can be quite irrelevant. Legal intercept laws can be quite old-fashioned and might make a case than two German citizens having a conversation while on German soil makes the conversation fall under German jurisdiction. There can be a surprisingly large number of ways the jurisdiction can be determined, for all parties involved and, without analysis of German law, I would not readily make assumptions as to if they have a legal basis to talk to Signal or not. And if they do, I’m sure Signal is a law-abiding company.
- miohtama 4y ago
  > That's just plain incorrect All chats are unencrypted by default.
  - WilTimSon 4y ago
    That's what the other user said and it is still incorrect. [0] People either don't read the basic FAQ or conflate E2EE to being the only encryption in the world, which is ridiculous. [0]: https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data
    - cassianoleal 4y ago
      Honest question. Can you clarify this? I read the FAQ and even skimmed the MTProto 2.0 docs but from where I stand this Server-Client encryption sounds like encryption in transit but the server still has the ability to decrypt. This, from a privacy against law enforcement perspective (which is what the article and comments are about), is more or less the same as no encryption. Edit: s/transport/transit/, add "perspective" to the last paragraph.
      - AnonC 4y ago
        It’s true that Telegram only uses encryption for data in transit for normal person-to-person chats and group chats. Data at rest is stored in a way the server can read. That’s one of the things that makes Telegram search so fast. The encryption part [1] is covered in the FAQ, along with more details. Also see the question and answer on “Fo you process data requests?” [2] Telegram has a feature called secret chats, which are only person-to-person. That uses end-to-end encryption. [1]: https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data [2]: https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests
hitovst 4y ago
Everyone will likely hand over whatever they can... which means the most decentralized options which leave as little to hand over as possible are best.
- buro9 4y ago
  Most encrypted. Centralised or decentralised means little compared to a lack of encryption. You can't give up that which you don't have access to.
  - kornhole 4y ago
    Both are important. When governments mandate back doors such as in EU chat control or US Earn it act, centralized services can be targeted much more easily than the thousands of xmpp and matrix servers running around the world.
    - sodality2 4y ago
      Isn't that federated rather than decentralized?
      - kornhole 4y ago
        What distinction do you mean? Federation allows for interoperable decentralization. Without federation, we would have thousands of chat/mail/social media servers that can't talk to each other. Some may choose not to federate, but most want to federate to create a useful protocol.
        sodality2 4y ago
        I always believed decentralized was if each user doubled as a server and required no external setup (example: scuttlebutt). Whereas federated was a plurality of servers with users communicated with each other but no central authority (email, mastodon, matrix, etc). However, reading some peer to peer literature like that 1500 page behemoth of a book, "Handbook of Peer-to-Peer Networking", it seems they are used relatively interchangeably..
BelleOfTheBall 4y ago
The app famous for not cooperating will cooperate? https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/05/exclusive-telegram-to-temporarily-refuse-data-requests-from-hong-kong-courts-amid-security-law-terrorism-row/ https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/05/exclusive-telegram-to-temp...
- legalcorrection 4y ago
  It’s easy to refuse requests from Chinese law enforcement if you don’t have offices, employees, or assets in China. Meanwhile, European countries recognize the legitimacy of each other’s court systems and will enforce judgments and orders across borders.
- dgellow 4y ago
  > Telegram to temporarily refuse data requests from Hong Kong courts amid security law The headline you linked makes it clear it was temporary. Which mean they do of course cooperate in normal situation. Otherwise they would be blocked everywhere, you cannot maintain a service such as a chat application without cooperating with governments. There is no story here, Telegram shared information with BKA in cases of terrorism and child abuse, as every service operating in Germany would and should do.
  - tzumby 4y ago
    I agree that they should, the story is that they can. Err, not a story, it’s a known fact that they don’t encrypt communication.
saos 4y ago
The app does have E2E encryption. It's just not the default. My one wish is they would change this.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  I know, and I agree. MTProtov1 criticisms aside, the E2EE system Telegram uses is perfectly safe. It's just disabled by default, unavailable in group chats or channels, and enabling it reduces usability (i.e. you can't use multiple devices to chat if you enable E2EE). Telegram as a chat app has the best UX of any chat app out there in my opinion, so the lack of proper E2EE is simply disappointing. I don't really trust either, but I consider WhatsApp more secure than Telegram, despite Meta mining my metadata.
  - saos 4y ago
    > but I consider WhatsApp more secure than Telegram, despite Meta mining my metadata Ha, I still prefer Telegram. I just use secret chats by default and enjoy the awesome UX
    - prophesi 4y ago
      Yes, Secret Chat's awesome UX of requiring both recipients to be online and the inability to use it on desktop.
      - stereoradonc 4y ago
        Try Unigram to start "secret chats" though it will not sync with other clients. Unigram works in Windows Desktop.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    the E2EE system Telegram uses is perfectly safe Is it? How would you go about confirming that?]
  - alaricus 4y ago
    > WhatsApp more secure than Telegram Why is that? With WhatsApp client being closed source, we simply don't know if it really is doing E2EE at all.
cabirum 4y ago
These days, any popular messaging app that won't cooperate with local law (by choice or by design in case of e2e) would just be banned/ removed from stores in Germany or most other countries. Strong encryption for wide audience cannot exist today.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Signal works fine in Germany, doesn't it?
  - ce4 4y ago
    They also have the user's phone number and in most cases their phone's adress book. It's not really about breaking e2e encryption but rather "reveal the identities of following users please". That could be due to all sorts of illegal activities (eg. hate speech, sale of banned substances, terrorism, child abuse, etc.)
    - tptacek 4y ago
      Signal cannot in fact provide your address book to German (or any other) authorities. The whole point of Signal's design, and the reason it's less featureful than things like Telegram, is that it's designed not to collect serverside metadata about who's talking to who.
      - ce4 4y ago
        Thanks for correcting!
      - chopin 4y ago
        The client has access to the address book and it is hard to verify what the client does in reality. I receive updates of the client every other day and who knows what it brings with it.
        niel 4y ago
bayesian_horse 4y ago
Unfortunately, Telegram doesn't cooperate with German authorities in the majority of cases, because it operates out of the jurisdiction. Telegram probably figured if they don't at least share information on child abuse and terrorism, they'll just motivate regulatory action.
- svnpenn 4y ago
  > Unfortunately Why is that unfortunate? If I patronize a company, I want to be damn sure they are only giving up info to LEO when it's absolutely necessary.
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    If I'm a decent Human being I'd rather no company helps criminals do crime stuff. The standards to turn over such information should not be decided by a private entity but by democratically enacted and enforced laws. Is enforcement of child porn prosecution "absolutely necessary"? Are death threats ok? Where's the line? I don't think a private company sitting in an unaccountable jurisdiction should make that decision. I trust German courts a lot more in that regard.
    - Zak 4y ago
      I'm inclined to agree, partly. If companies have the information, they should not have the last word about whether law enforcement gets access. That said, I do consider properly secure communication tools desirable and am very concerned about ongoing attempts to ban them. The uncomfortable truth is that if a communication method isn't secure for child molesters and terrorists, it isn't really secure for anyone.
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago
        In the case of Telegram they do require you to use a mobile phone number to sign up and use their service. Mainly so they can be sure you don't abuse THEM, mostly. So the safety of criminals from law enforcement does come from Telegram refusing to give up information they have. And this concerns an area of crimes were the perpetrators don't very actively evade detection. There are other means to do so. And in the case of Germany, openly and publicly criticizing against the state is no problem as long as you don't propose to violently overthrow the state.
gsich 4y ago
This is unrelated to encryption. Telegram is still encrypted, otherwise you wouldn't need to ask them.
- UltraViolence 4y ago
  It's not end-to-end encrypted. Of course the communication between the client app and the server is encrypted using TLS. But this allows Telegram itself to see the content of the conversation when it arrives on their servers. This has piked the interest of LEA, who want continuous, real-time access to that information.
mr_mitm 4y ago
> Did anyone expect otherwise? In a sense, yes. In case you don't speak German, the article [0] touches on this: > Dass Telegram überhaupt Auskunft über Nutzer an Behörden erteilt, markiert zumindest eine vorsichtige Kehrtwende im Kurs des 2013 gegründeten Unternehmens. Lange bekamen deutsche Ermittler keinerlei Antworten, wenn sie wissen wollten, wer hinter Telegram-Konten steckt, die strafbare Inhalte im Netz verbreiten. Die Betreiber erklären auf ihrer Seite weiterhin: »Bis zum heutigen Tag haben wir 0 Byte Nutzerdaten an Dritte weitergegeben, einschließlich aller Regierungen.« In a nutshell, this is considered a turning point because Telegram's official stance is (even today) that they don't share data, not even with any government. And now they did, apparently. So yes, this definitely news, if not a bit surprising. The German government has even made hints that they will seek to ban Telegram from app stores if they continue to refuse to comply with law enforcement [1] [0] https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/telegram-gibt-nutzerdaten-an-das-bundeskriminalamt-a-0e4d3fcb-8081-4b87-b062-db412bbc294b https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/telegram-gibt-nutzerdat... [1] https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/faeser-will-telegram-aus-den-app-stores-werfen-lassen-a-30f191c7-ecb6-4d2c-997d-cfceadd2eb60 https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/faeser-will-tele...
- anony999 4y ago
  >> In a nutshell, this is considered a turning point because Telegram's official stance is (even today) that they don't share data, not even with any government. If you care about your privacy the "official stance" alone is close to worthless. That includes governments and corporations as well. I think we already learned that. Just like on security you need in defense in depth on privacy(i.e. hardware, software, and "official policy" as well).
- BelleOfTheBall 4y ago
  Their stance has always been that they don't protect terrorism suspects, they even had a channel where they reported how many ISIS groups/channels got shut down.
- jjav 4y ago
  > Telegram's official stance[...] ... doesn't really matter. This is something I find surprisingly difficult to get through to people at both a personal and professional level (as I often work in security-related projects). People speak of whether they trust this or that entity. Reality is that it's an irrelevant discussion. Trusting an organization is always misplaced, no matter who they are. If you hand over data to an organization, you must immediately assume that data is compromised. Yes, that's all SaaS and all cloud providers, for example. Any party who could see the data in unencryted form, you need to assume they have it and can potentially at some point abuse it. This has nothing to do with the ethics of whoever is running the given organization at the moment. There are many points in time in various organizations where they truly protect the data. I thank you. But it's not a stable situation. Things can change. Less ethical management can come in during a reorg and suddenly everything is fair game and the consumer won't know until it is too late. And always there is the threat of governments demanding the data, at which point no matter how ethical the organization may be, nothing matters since there is nothing they can do. For any data that could at any level be potentially sensitive, you must make sure it is either not sent through third parties at all, or be encrypted with keys that only you control. Otherwise, assume it is compromised and sold to every bidder.
wruza 4y ago
is a mostly unencrypted … of course it's going to cooperate if local law enforcement comes knocking on their door with a warrant I don’t see how these are connected. All messengers will hand over all metadata they have to comply. The chatgroups in focus themselves are mostly public groups, you don’t have to play james bond to read what’s there. LEAs are arriving to the scene from that vector, not the other way round. “The NGO CeMAS monitors 3,000 German-language channels & groups for "disinformation, antisemitism, and right-wing extremism." - it’s literally in the tweet, man. Metadata logging is unrelated to encryption, not sure what’s the sensation is without comparing what messengers will actually have on hands in case of a warrant, minus publicly accessible info.
arpanetus 4y ago
It really doesn't matter, or in general you can never be sure that any app that stores any data won't ever meet requests of any officials or any people with guns. Especially the case of Telegram was quite simple, since SEC filed a complaint we could clearly see who are the main investors. It's not necessarily about the country or investors either. You can choose only the place where things are stored and expect the company to act according to local laws (for e.g. Protonmail doing its proton things in Swiss judiciary). And, I guess, a thing we have to teach people is something vague and unclear like post-privacy scene, like how one has to operate knowing that pigeon mails can always be spoofed, no matter how encrypted the conversation is.
ahmedk92 4y ago
Honest question, how do you prove you don't own user data?
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> If you don't want your chats to end up in the hands of law enforcement don't use chats meet in person like all respectable criminals do Anyway it would still mean that you're being investigated for something and the court authorized the request Now imagine what would happen if US law enforcement got hands on the chats of the Texas shooter. Truth is they didn't do anything even though he posted publicly about what he was going to do. https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/texas-school-shooting-uvalde-facebook-messages/#app https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/texas-school-shooting-u... So maybe the idea that anyone is spied and controlled by law enforcement or governments is not exactly true.
- TimeBearingDown 4y ago
  Don’t worry, it’s worse. They collect everything, illegally and without any ethics. Then they’re incompetent as well, so action doesn’t happen when it should. Instead we get capricious, haphazard enforcement, and a dark future with all of this stored in permanent record to be retrieved using the search tools of 2040 and weaponized later when we later make nuisances of ourselves in response to future legislation.

WilTimSon 4y ago

What a weird article, unless Google Translate really messed up for me. Spiegel basically references itself as the source, cites some minister who says she has pressure on the app and then explains that they plan to fine Telegram for not cooperating. So they claim that Telegram cooperates... and then claim it does not cooperate. This is ridiculously vague. Not to mention that the article doesn't clear up if it's data or metadata. Weird, poor journalism.

ju-st 4y ago
I think you missed the first paragraph: The operators of the messenger app Telegram have handed over user data to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in several cases - contrary to what has been publicly reported so far. According to SPIEGEL information, this involved data on suspects in the areas of child abuse and terrorism. In the case of violations of other criminal offences, it is still difficult for German investigators to obtain information from Telegram, according to security circles. (Translated with www.DeepL.com)
lavela 4y ago
> references itself as a source This might be a 'germanism'. The article says 'according to SPIEGEL information' which translates to 'according to undisclosed sources that gave us information' > cooperating and not cooperating Recently there was a huge controversy about Telegram in Germany about them not disclosing personal information about accounts spreading illegal information according to German law. There were claims about banning Telegram in Germany, but after pressuring the app stores, Telegram seems to have given in slightly. So they are still not disclosing as much information as the authorities want them to, but it seems like they started to cooperate a bit. >data or metadata 'Nutzerdaten' in my understanding means mostly personal Data(real name, ip, address) but you are right, it is quite vague.
orangeoxidation 4y ago
They claim to have learned Telegram gave up IP-Addresses and/or telephone numbers > on suspects in the areas of child abuse and terrorism. In the case of violations of other criminal offenses, it remains difficult for German investigators to obtain information from Telegram, according to security circles. So Telegram is not giving free access or follows German law, but did help out in some specific cases. Telegram claims otherwise and says it never responded to requests. Yes, they are protecting their source(s), so you have to take them on faith. Der Spiegel has, however, an excellent reputation and good track record.

throw457 4y ago

The privacy movement should really distance itself from criminals it always looks sketchy when the most vocal advocates are people that just got caught doing something illegal.

teddyh 4y ago
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.” — Commonly attributed to H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
- throw457 4y ago
  Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. – Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994)
  - teddyh 4y ago
    That argument, even if correct, can be used to target any and all viewpoints. It’s just a matter of who gets to decide what is and isn’t “rational”, “deceptive” or indeed “intolerant”. Shift the definitions ever so slightly in your favor and you have an iron-clad tool to suppress, with good conscience, your adversaries, no matter which side you are on.

that_guy_iain 4y ago

I'm pretty sure Germany while having a reputation for being very privacy focus makes more data requests per captia than any goverment.

guerrilla 4y ago
Why are you pretty sure about that? All I hear about is the US doing that every day that they can mandate the parties into silence.... so how would you even know.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  Lots of companies openly state how many requests they get from each country. I think I saw a report where someone tallied all the requests from all the major sites that report on the requests they get and Germany was at the top. For example, https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/ https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/ Germany is at 11+k while the UK which is of similar size is at 2+k
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    > Lots of companies openly state how many requests they get from each country. As I said, the US can stop you from making such disclosures and they do, which we know because some such embargoes have ended in individual cases. We have no idea how many are still in place.
    - that_guy_iain 4y ago
      The US can stop you making disclosures for very specific cases - aka the Patriot act which is a federal law. But majority of requests are done by other people. Quite simply saying "We have no idea how many are still in place" actually, we have an idea. That idea is not many. It's simply FUD to talk about the US' ability to stop disclosures when talking about who is making the most requests. Especially when the US is still pretty near the top for countries making requests.

d0mine 4y ago

So, what I'm hearing that unlike all the other sufficiently popular apps to matter, Telegram doesn't provide unlimited access to their user data.

tapoxi 4y ago
WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted for all messages by default, so Telegram is worse by having full access to the plaintext for the vast majority of messages on the service.
- 0des 4y ago
  I have doubts, given their owner is Facebook.
  - kasey_junk 4y ago
    You can of course go verify it. Or you could trust the many many people who have. Or you can spread FUD on the internet…
    - sodality2 4y ago
      How can this be verified? WhatsApp isn't open source.
      - dcsommer 4y ago
        You could use a network traffic analyzer, Frida, or trust third party security audits that WhatsApp publishes like https://research.nccgroup.com/2021/10/27/public-report-whatsapp-end-to-end-encrypted-backups-security-assessment/ https://research.nccgroup.com/2021/10/27/public-report-whats...
        sodality2 4y ago
        What if it acts normal for a vast majority of users, but a user which is secretly flagged on Facebook's back end will secretly report plaintext? Or a certain list of conditions will trigger more snooping? Network traffic works for proving that the app, right now, in this exact circumstance and time and date and location etc, probably isn't snooping on me. There's lots of sneaky ways to exfiltrate data that you wouldn't notice. Imagine encoding data through the timing of requests made or the exact ordering of simultaneous requests.

impetus1 4y ago

Lesson learned, don't close your API. Maybe your users will trust you more.

bsnal 4y ago

frozencell 4y ago
Does Germany have digital wallet for finance, health, etc?

traveler01 4y ago

> The NGO CeMAS monitors 3,000 German-language channels & groups for "disinformation, antisemitism, and right-wing extremism." So groups and channels that were already public in the first case... No private chat data, no backdoors? I'm fine with that.

bayesian_horse 4y ago
I think the idea is that CeMAS is monitoring those channels and associates potential crimes with accounts. They can make a criminal referral to the police that a crime may have been committed, but they may not be able to find out the person's actual name or persona from their account or other public information. But it would be easy for Telegram to just hand out the telephone number, and in the majority of cases, the number would be registered to the offender. We're mostly talking about unsophisticated offenders here, people agitating for hate, neonazis, unsophisticated child abusers...

WastingMyTime89 4y ago

Honest question because I don’t understand most of the comments on this submission: what’s supposed to be the issue with cooperating with law enforcement? I personally find mass dragnet-like unsupervised surveillance extremely worrying especially in the US where federal authorities like to abuse gag orders. But that’s not what we are talking about here. In this case we are speaking about judicially supervised data gathering in the context of an ongoing investigation. I have no issue with this as long as there is proper limits and supervisions in place.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
perfecthjrjth 4y ago
It all starts out with "judicially supervised data gathering", a few years later these companies just create a portal for the law enforcement to search for whatever the latter want without any warrants whatsoever.
loeg 4y ago
It’s not a problem, it’s just directly contrary to Telegram’s and Telegram’s supporters’ previously stated privacy/security arguments.
alaricus 4y ago
> Honest question because I don’t understand most of the comments on this submission: what’s supposed to be the issue with cooperating with law enforcement? Depends on the laws they are enforcing. There is a very thin line between law enforcement and outright spying and authoritarian opression.

juanani 4y ago

Havoc 4y ago

hmm. The offending claim is certainly still there https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests >To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments.

ffpip 4y ago
> 0 bytes Such a weird way of saying they haven't disclosed data. They might say they disclosed the data by writing the user's details on a piece of paper and submitting that to the government.
- nicce 4y ago
  Information on paper can still be measured on bytes.. so maybe maybe
asldjajlfkj 4y ago
I think Spiegel and Telegram use different definitions of "user data" here: Telegram says with the E2E chats they had no data to share, but that only refers to the content of the chats, obviously not the IP address or the linked phone number, which Telegram says it can also share with governments. When they mention later in the paragraph that they didn't share any data from unencrypted chats, that's with the caveat. That Telegram has shared _more_ than just metadata I think is unlikely.

realitsflat 4y ago

Does it not seem reasonable that if a chat group has, lets say, more than 1000 participants, whatever is said should be considered said in public?

leobg 4y ago

In many cases, the way they authorities get your chat logs is by simply confiscating the phones. Either yours or that of the other party. In those cases, they don’t even have to bother with Telegram, Facebook, or whatever. They just screenshot the hell out of everything - messenger apps, email, sms, calendar, todo apps.

UltraViolence 4y ago

Why is Telegram making allowances for CP and terrorism related crimes? Why is child abuse being tagged as worse than, say, drugs-related offenses or murder?

UltraViolence 4y ago

People, the only safe (textual) chat app is TorChat. Everything else is merely smoke and mirrors.

wly_cdgr 4y ago

The only reason companies like Telegram care about customer privacy is because that's how they sell their product and make money. They'll happily snitch on any of their users if doing so is more big-picture profitable than not snitching. You can never trust a for profit company bro, when will people learn this lol

LightG 4y ago

This is such a shame because, from a user and fun point of view, Telegram is light years ahead of Whatsapp. And I was just starting to get traction in terms of bringing my network over from Whatssap. And that is huge as it was almost impossible before. Has been a sea change for me over the last year or two.

olliej 4y ago

I'm unfamiliar with German law, and haven't really paid much attention to telegram in a long time. But what do you expect? A company can say "we don't share with the government" but if you get served a warrant (or subpoena?) telling them to provide X data, you don't simply get to say "no". You /could/ send your lawyer to a courthouse and have them argue the warrant/whatever is unlawful, or what have you, but if the court says it's valid then failing to comply is a unlawful. The only way you can not provide data to law enforcement is if you never have it. But companies want data for all sorts of reasons. My assumption would be that even if you say "we don't keep data" you could be served documents telling you to store that data. Of course IANAL, but this is all basic "function in a society" stuff.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago

What about deleted messages, do they get deleted from servers too?