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> Changes in WhatsApp’s privacy policy had directed users to use Telegram. This is quite ironic. Telegram managed to sell itself as a more private Whatsapp whi

by giords 4y ago

> Changes in WhatsApp’s privacy policy had directed users to use Telegram. This is quite ironic. Telegram managed to sell itself as a more private Whatsapp while in reality it is WAY worse in this area. Amazing and sad.

juanani 4y ago
brobinson 4y ago
This might kill that sentiment entirely if it turns out to be true and not a LARP: https://twitter.com/adyingnobody/status/1534021154674966529 https://twitter.com/adyingnobody/status/1534021154674966529
- RektBoy 4y ago
  Looks like fun times, nice.
mgbmtl 4y ago
Both are equally bad, for different reasons. As a user, one might be more worried of having their identity tied to their Facebook account (and therefore advertising/tracking), than about their government spying on them. Having worked with people in totalitarian countries, it's surprising how much protesting people can do in plain sight. Until the regime decides they went too far, and it won't matter what proofs or chats they have on their devices, they'll just randomly arrest a bunch of people and release them after a week of horrible prison conditions. It's usually good enough to scare everyone. I use Signal 95% of the time, but I understand the appeal of Telegram. The UX is better, it allows pseudonyms, has huge communities in group chats. In a sense, it feels more private than Signal because of the pseudonyms. And for people in non-Western countries, well, Telegram might seem like the only option.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
  signal and telegram are a no brainer when it comes to totalitarian regimes. i live in Kashmir which has historically and continues to hunt down dissidents with agility. i cannot imagine being tied to my "mobile number" when the government has that data by law, tying a telegram/signal account to it is a gone case by that point. people who go with signal call it "better whatsapp without facebook tracking" but just like telegram, its Achilles heel is mobile number requirement. matrix has that from the start so its better in that respect. sure, matrix does not have "social graph" out of the box but in a "totalitarian regime", that is precisely what you want. besides, you can set up your own matrix server, something whatsapp/telegram/signal simply cannot do so its 100% more secure in that sense
  - ikt 4y ago
    I think the bigger question is anti-spam in anonymous chatrooms, even with the mobile phone requirements spammers (in particular from Nigeria, why does this country have so many scammers in particular?) are everywhere and spamming all the time, I'm in 5 or so groups and every day 2-3 spam messages have to be deleted. There are millions of fake channels and I wouldn't be surprised if up to or over 10% of telegrams messages sent are spam/scams. What does matrix do to prevent the tidal wave of spam hitting it?
    - ancientsofmumu 4y ago
      I would say it's the same question as "what does IRC do?" as the general design is the same - maybe a bit more friction signing up with Matrix than IRC but at the end of the road they operate on the same trust model. The Matrix team blogged about a spambot attack last year on this very question: https://matrix.org/blog/2021/06/30/security-update-synapse-1-37-1-released https://matrix.org/blog/2021/06/30/security-update-synapse-1... Side comment: because my mobile number was leaked (breached) by T-Mobile which included my name, I get way, way way more spam via it than anything else. Lots of political spam, 95% or greater from the right/repub end of the spectrum. Edit, side comment #2: I ported my secondary Google Voice number out to Tello (a low cost MVNO in the US) with a SIM in a spare phone, and all the spam I was getting every day to that number simply stopped instantly. I'm a little amazed to be honest, it's very interesting.
cookiengineer 4y ago
For people looking for privacy: Briar is where it's at. A bit clunky UI (e.g. inviting someone isn't easy) but otherwise really well built client, and top notch network protocol and cryptographic features. [1] https://briarproject.org/ https://briarproject.org/
- easrng 4y ago
  I've also heard good things about https://cwtch.im/ https://cwtch.im/
  - h4waii 4y ago
    I hate to say it, but if the product/service name immediately evokes a "how do I pronounce this" feel, and actually has an entry in the FAQ about it, its facing an uphill battle with mass adoption.
- emptysongglass 4y ago
  I want to like Briar and Cwtch but neither of them have iOS clients which really breaks the whole friendly to people who use other platforms covenant. If a client doesn't have apps for both of the big mobile platforms I'd say it's very unfriendly because you by omission are creating exclusionary silos. There's Session, which is iOS and Android friendly and doesn't burn down your battery as messages are privately routed through zero-knowledge nodes: https://getsession.org https://getsession.org
EGreg 4y ago
How is it worse? Besides chats beung unencrypted by default
generationP 4y ago
Telegram has a great thing working in its favor: it is mostly free of censorship, particularly of the kind that reacts to Western do-gooder sensibilities. I have learnt more about the Ukraine war from Telegram channels (Gruz 200, Truha, some local ones) than from all of the Western press combined. Analysts like Bellingcat, CIT and ISW keep citing Telegram channels as sources. Both DNR/LNR "separatists" and Ukrainian regular and irregular fighters are putting out a lot of unfiltered info on TG. The idea that Telegram is in any way safer than the other platforms, I really don't see much to speak for it. It's similar to ProtonMail: you get it as a backup in case you get locked out of your googlemail; you don't get it to conspire.
- pyrryh 4y ago
  That's not because of its policies, it's just that Telegram is very popular in Eastern Europe/post-USSR land, network effects and such.
  - generationP 4y ago
    Twitter and Youtube are a censorship minefield as it comes to war footage. Russian trolls have been known to mass-report pro-Ukrainian accounts for posting "NSFL" material (and much of the interesting material from the front is NSFL). If you are famous and know the right people in the West, you can get unbanned through your connections, but this is a lot harder for the local sources.
abcd_f 4y ago
Anything Facebook-made and “privacy” doesn’t belong in the same sentence. And yet it’s top comment at the moment in the HN of all places. Talk about irony.
fer 4y ago
It's not worse, aside from chats being unencrypted by default. I've had suggestions on Instagram of people who I never got in touch with, only because my wife, who has no FB account, is in the same WhatsApp group as these people. They mixed in a bunch of other "you may know" people to make it less obvious, but when comparing her groupchat and my suggestions, it's clear they made links via IPs and phone numbers. At least Telegram isn't big enough (not yet, anyway) to cross correlate data to ID users like that to create such privacy concerns. FB? No, thanks.
- emilsedgh 4y ago
  > It's not worse, aside from chats being unencrypted by default. That is not a side point though. It's a major, major difference.
  - d0mine 4y ago
    Chats are encrypted. The question who can decrypt them by default. It is a trade-off between security and usability. By default, you get usability (e.g., you can chat across devices easily). But you think it is worth the cost, you can make encryption keys unavailable without corresponding devices (create secret chat). My guess, most telegram users prefer usability or don't care/ignorant. It would be a mistake to make the experience worse (that people would notice ignorant or not).
    - brnt 4y ago
      > Chats are encrypted. Not end to end. Let's not sell SSL connections as encryption please.
      - d0mine 4y ago
        It is false that chats are "unencrypted" (I know, it is repeated on every submission about Telegram here but it does not make it true whatever Goebbels said). Here's a quote from the FAQ: "The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data." https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests

by giords 4y ago

juanani 4y ago

brobinson 4y ago

This might kill that sentiment entirely if it turns out to be true and not a LARP: https://twitter.com/adyingnobody/status/1534021154674966529 https://twitter.com/adyingnobody/status/1534021154674966529

RektBoy 4y ago
Looks like fun times, nice.

mgbmtl 4y ago

Both are equally bad, for different reasons. As a user, one might be more worried of having their identity tied to their Facebook account (and therefore advertising/tracking), than about their government spying on them. Having worked with people in totalitarian countries, it's surprising how much protesting people can do in plain sight. Until the regime decides they went too far, and it won't matter what proofs or chats they have on their devices, they'll just randomly arrest a bunch of people and release them after a week of horrible prison conditions. It's usually good enough to scare everyone. I use Signal 95% of the time, but I understand the appeal of Telegram. The UX is better, it allows pseudonyms, has huge communities in group chats. In a sense, it feels more private than Signal because of the pseudonyms. And for people in non-Western countries, well, Telegram might seem like the only option.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago
signal and telegram are a no brainer when it comes to totalitarian regimes. i live in Kashmir which has historically and continues to hunt down dissidents with agility. i cannot imagine being tied to my "mobile number" when the government has that data by law, tying a telegram/signal account to it is a gone case by that point. people who go with signal call it "better whatsapp without facebook tracking" but just like telegram, its Achilles heel is mobile number requirement. matrix has that from the start so its better in that respect. sure, matrix does not have "social graph" out of the box but in a "totalitarian regime", that is precisely what you want. besides, you can set up your own matrix server, something whatsapp/telegram/signal simply cannot do so its 100% more secure in that sense
- ikt 4y ago
  I think the bigger question is anti-spam in anonymous chatrooms, even with the mobile phone requirements spammers (in particular from Nigeria, why does this country have so many scammers in particular?) are everywhere and spamming all the time, I'm in 5 or so groups and every day 2-3 spam messages have to be deleted. There are millions of fake channels and I wouldn't be surprised if up to or over 10% of telegrams messages sent are spam/scams. What does matrix do to prevent the tidal wave of spam hitting it?
  - ancientsofmumu 4y ago
    I would say it's the same question as "what does IRC do?" as the general design is the same - maybe a bit more friction signing up with Matrix than IRC but at the end of the road they operate on the same trust model. The Matrix team blogged about a spambot attack last year on this very question: https://matrix.org/blog/2021/06/30/security-update-synapse-1-37-1-released https://matrix.org/blog/2021/06/30/security-update-synapse-1... Side comment: because my mobile number was leaked (breached) by T-Mobile which included my name, I get way, way way more spam via it than anything else. Lots of political spam, 95% or greater from the right/repub end of the spectrum. Edit, side comment #2: I ported my secondary Google Voice number out to Tello (a low cost MVNO in the US) with a SIM in a spare phone, and all the spam I was getting every day to that number simply stopped instantly. I'm a little amazed to be honest, it's very interesting.

cookiengineer 4y ago

For people looking for privacy: Briar is where it's at. A bit clunky UI (e.g. inviting someone isn't easy) but otherwise really well built client, and top notch network protocol and cryptographic features. [1] https://briarproject.org/ https://briarproject.org/

easrng 4y ago
I've also heard good things about https://cwtch.im/ https://cwtch.im/
- h4waii 4y ago
  I hate to say it, but if the product/service name immediately evokes a "how do I pronounce this" feel, and actually has an entry in the FAQ about it, its facing an uphill battle with mass adoption.
emptysongglass 4y ago
I want to like Briar and Cwtch but neither of them have iOS clients which really breaks the whole friendly to people who use other platforms covenant. If a client doesn't have apps for both of the big mobile platforms I'd say it's very unfriendly because you by omission are creating exclusionary silos. There's Session, which is iOS and Android friendly and doesn't burn down your battery as messages are privately routed through zero-knowledge nodes: https://getsession.org https://getsession.org

EGreg 4y ago

How is it worse? Besides chats beung unencrypted by default

generationP 4y ago

Telegram has a great thing working in its favor: it is mostly free of censorship, particularly of the kind that reacts to Western do-gooder sensibilities. I have learnt more about the Ukraine war from Telegram channels (Gruz 200, Truha, some local ones) than from all of the Western press combined. Analysts like Bellingcat, CIT and ISW keep citing Telegram channels as sources. Both DNR/LNR "separatists" and Ukrainian regular and irregular fighters are putting out a lot of unfiltered info on TG. The idea that Telegram is in any way safer than the other platforms, I really don't see much to speak for it. It's similar to ProtonMail: you get it as a backup in case you get locked out of your googlemail; you don't get it to conspire.

pyrryh 4y ago
That's not because of its policies, it's just that Telegram is very popular in Eastern Europe/post-USSR land, network effects and such.
- generationP 4y ago
  Twitter and Youtube are a censorship minefield as it comes to war footage. Russian trolls have been known to mass-report pro-Ukrainian accounts for posting "NSFL" material (and much of the interesting material from the front is NSFL). If you are famous and know the right people in the West, you can get unbanned through your connections, but this is a lot harder for the local sources.

abcd_f 4y ago

Anything Facebook-made and “privacy” doesn’t belong in the same sentence. And yet it’s top comment at the moment in the HN of all places. Talk about irony.

fer 4y ago

It's not worse, aside from chats being unencrypted by default. I've had suggestions on Instagram of people who I never got in touch with, only because my wife, who has no FB account, is in the same WhatsApp group as these people. They mixed in a bunch of other "you may know" people to make it less obvious, but when comparing her groupchat and my suggestions, it's clear they made links via IPs and phone numbers. At least Telegram isn't big enough (not yet, anyway) to cross correlate data to ID users like that to create such privacy concerns. FB? No, thanks.

emilsedgh 4y ago
> It's not worse, aside from chats being unencrypted by default. That is not a side point though. It's a major, major difference.
- d0mine 4y ago
  Chats are encrypted. The question who can decrypt them by default. It is a trade-off between security and usability. By default, you get usability (e.g., you can chat across devices easily). But you think it is worth the cost, you can make encryption keys unavailable without corresponding devices (create secret chat). My guess, most telegram users prefer usability or don't care/ignorant. It would be a mistake to make the experience worse (that people would notice ignorant or not).
  - brnt 4y ago
    > Chats are encrypted. Not end to end. Let's not sell SSL connections as encryption please.
    - d0mine 4y ago
      It is false that chats are "unencrypted" (I know, it is repeated on every submission about Telegram here but it does not make it true whatever Goebbels said). Here's a quote from the FAQ: "The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data." https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests