4 ms·

The opposite is true - of all the major messengers, Telegram is the least secure. It uses a homebrew encryption scheme and does not have E2E encryption (yes, y

by lima 4y ago

The opposite is true - of all the major messengers, Telegram is the least secure. It uses a homebrew encryption scheme and does not have E2E encryption (yes, you can enable E2E for individual chats, but nobody uses it because it breaks most features). Not to mention the weird corporate structure, lack of transparency, failed crypto token launch, dishonest marketing...

DocTomoe 4y ago
A non-standardized, homebrew encryption scheme does not necessarily have to be worse than a standardized algorithm - even though it often is. But if implemented correctly and by someone who knows what they are doing, I'd trust a homebrew algo more than one which has been approved by the west's codebreakers for general use.
- worewood 4y ago
  - fullstop 4y ago
    The source for the clients is available. 1. https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram 2. https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS 3. https://github.com/overtake/TelegramSwift https://github.com/overtake/TelegramSwift 4. https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop
  - DocTomoe 4y ago
    I feel you are unnecessarily combative in your approach. I was making a general observation on the merits of different sourced encryption algorithms. I also would like to point out how your false dichotomy leaves no legitimate position when arguing against NSA-approved encryption mechanisms for the general public. From a security perspective, I don't care if open source is solving the backdoor problem - the use of NSA-approved algorithms is the problem, not the source code availability. From a civics perspective, I find potentially insecure algorithms that can be broken into by more local governments a lot more problematic than insecure algorithms that have a backdoor for governments far removed from, and ideally antagonistic to, my own if my own government cannot read it. The government of China or Russia is unlikely to abduct me in the night to put me into a black site. My own, or their American "friends", are a lot more likely to do so. If you have a counter-argument other than another ad hominem, I'm happy to hear it.
    - phatfish 4y ago
      If you are worried about being dragged to a "black site" Telegram is giving you a false sense of security. The corporation (and the owners i assume) are long gone from Russia, ironically because it could not operate there and was in danger of being censored or appropriated by the Kremlin (they never do things like that...). Telegram sits firmly within the western legal system and somehow manages to stay online. Their privacy policy references the British Virgin Islands.
lloeki 4y ago
> It uses a homebrew encryption scheme Please stop with that. At some point every encryption scheme was "homebrew" (or rather, new). MTProto 1.0 had flaws, which were addressed in 2.0. The latter has been independently formally verified to be secure[0]. > Telegram is the least secure. Against who? What is your threat model? Such absolutist blanket statements are useless by design. > of all the major messengers Which are Messenger, Whatsapp, and SMS/RCS around here. Signal shows up from time to time, and Matrix doesn't even register above statistical noise so I won't count them as "major" (Signal, being, in a stroke of optimism, at best a challenger) Of these, SMS/RCS is a total clusterfuck, and the remainder is owned by Meta. Yes, Meta is high on my list of adversaries, and given their track record should probably be for anyone out there caring about their privacy. No, WhatsApp's E2E is not to be trusted[1][2]. So is Telegram the least secure of major messengers? definitely not. Is Telegram perfect security, certainly not either, because that doesn't exist[6], but their E2E is solid, even without E2E, extra steps are taken to thwart certain adversaries[3][4], they have reproducible builds for their client binary builds[5], and as can be observed so far their actions are veering on the complete opposite side of Meta's. Is Telegram an opportunity to convince non-{privacy,security}-minded random joes and janes to jump out of a bunch of terrible chat platform for a better (or less worse if you want) chat platform? I'd say probably. I mean, it really really looks like they're trying hard to get the job done. [0]: https://github.com/miculan/telegram-mtproto2-verification https://github.com/miculan/telegram-mtproto2-verification [1]: https://twitter.com/Shiftreduce/status/1347546599384346624 https://twitter.com/Shiftreduce/status/1347546599384346624 [2]: Meta controls the Es in this "E2E", and I won't trust that, ever. [3]: https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests [4]: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/238562/how-does-telegrams-secret-splitting-scheme-work https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/238562/how-does... [5]: https://core.telegram.org/reproducible-builds https://core.telegram.org/reproducible-builds [6]: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358198.358210 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358198.358210
- noahtallen 4y ago
  The other contender here is iMessage, which is likely more secure, but has such a terrible UX it’s not worth using. Their architecture is really poorly thought out and imitates SMS when it doesn’t need to. For example, if you travel internationally with a different SIM card, iMessage doesn’t allow your main phone number to be used for iMessage any more. Another terrible “feature” is that to have a complete history of your chats, you need to back up to iCloud. Even for plaintext messages. And uploading photos will quickly blow through your iCloud storage. Telegram, on the other hand, maintains your complete searchable message history including media for free, and when your phone number changes, it just asks “hey did your phone number change?” You press no, and the experience is completely identical. Whereas when your phone number goes away on iMessage, you’ll have to fiddle around with settings to get something else working, your contacts will be fucked, and people will have issues sending you messages, etc. In telegram, the model is that my messages are associated with me. In iMessage, the model is that my messages are associated with my device and SIM card. I think the latter model is boneheaded for a personal messaging app. Which means that iMessage is fundamentally problematic. Sorry for my iMessage rant, but I do love telegram :)

by lima 4y ago

DocTomoe 4y ago

A non-standardized, homebrew encryption scheme does not necessarily have to be worse than a standardized algorithm - even though it often is. But if implemented correctly and by someone who knows what they are doing, I'd trust a homebrew algo more than one which has been approved by the west's codebreakers for general use.

worewood 4y ago
- fullstop 4y ago
  The source for the clients is available. 1. https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram 2. https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS 3. https://github.com/overtake/TelegramSwift https://github.com/overtake/TelegramSwift 4. https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  I feel you are unnecessarily combative in your approach. I was making a general observation on the merits of different sourced encryption algorithms. I also would like to point out how your false dichotomy leaves no legitimate position when arguing against NSA-approved encryption mechanisms for the general public. From a security perspective, I don't care if open source is solving the backdoor problem - the use of NSA-approved algorithms is the problem, not the source code availability. From a civics perspective, I find potentially insecure algorithms that can be broken into by more local governments a lot more problematic than insecure algorithms that have a backdoor for governments far removed from, and ideally antagonistic to, my own if my own government cannot read it. The government of China or Russia is unlikely to abduct me in the night to put me into a black site. My own, or their American "friends", are a lot more likely to do so. If you have a counter-argument other than another ad hominem, I'm happy to hear it.
  - phatfish 4y ago
    If you are worried about being dragged to a "black site" Telegram is giving you a false sense of security. The corporation (and the owners i assume) are long gone from Russia, ironically because it could not operate there and was in danger of being censored or appropriated by the Kremlin (they never do things like that...). Telegram sits firmly within the western legal system and somehow manages to stay online. Their privacy policy references the British Virgin Islands.

lloeki 4y ago

> It uses a homebrew encryption scheme Please stop with that. At some point every encryption scheme was "homebrew" (or rather, new). MTProto 1.0 had flaws, which were addressed in 2.0. The latter has been independently formally verified to be secure[0]. > Telegram is the least secure. Against who? What is your threat model? Such absolutist blanket statements are useless by design. > of all the major messengers Which are Messenger, Whatsapp, and SMS/RCS around here. Signal shows up from time to time, and Matrix doesn't even register above statistical noise so I won't count them as "major" (Signal, being, in a stroke of optimism, at best a challenger) Of these, SMS/RCS is a total clusterfuck, and the remainder is owned by Meta. Yes, Meta is high on my list of adversaries, and given their track record should probably be for anyone out there caring about their privacy. No, WhatsApp's E2E is not to be trusted[1][2]. So is Telegram the least secure of major messengers? definitely not. Is Telegram perfect security, certainly not either, because that doesn't exist[6], but their E2E is solid, even without E2E, extra steps are taken to thwart certain adversaries[3][4], they have reproducible builds for their client binary builds[5], and as can be observed so far their actions are veering on the complete opposite side of Meta's. Is Telegram an opportunity to convince non-{privacy,security}-minded random joes and janes to jump out of a bunch of terrible chat platform for a better (or less worse if you want) chat platform? I'd say probably. I mean, it really really looks like they're trying hard to get the job done. [0]: https://github.com/miculan/telegram-mtproto2-verification https://github.com/miculan/telegram-mtproto2-verification [1]: https://twitter.com/Shiftreduce/status/1347546599384346624 https://twitter.com/Shiftreduce/status/1347546599384346624 [2]: Meta controls the Es in this "E2E", and I won't trust that, ever. [3]: https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests [4]: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/238562/how-does-telegrams-secret-splitting-scheme-work https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/238562/how-does... [5]: https://core.telegram.org/reproducible-builds https://core.telegram.org/reproducible-builds [6]: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358198.358210 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358198.358210

noahtallen 4y ago
The other contender here is iMessage, which is likely more secure, but has such a terrible UX it’s not worth using. Their architecture is really poorly thought out and imitates SMS when it doesn’t need to. For example, if you travel internationally with a different SIM card, iMessage doesn’t allow your main phone number to be used for iMessage any more. Another terrible “feature” is that to have a complete history of your chats, you need to back up to iCloud. Even for plaintext messages. And uploading photos will quickly blow through your iCloud storage. Telegram, on the other hand, maintains your complete searchable message history including media for free, and when your phone number changes, it just asks “hey did your phone number change?” You press no, and the experience is completely identical. Whereas when your phone number goes away on iMessage, you’ll have to fiddle around with settings to get something else working, your contacts will be fucked, and people will have issues sending you messages, etc. In telegram, the model is that my messages are associated with me. In iMessage, the model is that my messages are associated with my device and SIM card. I think the latter model is boneheaded for a personal messaging app. Which means that iMessage is fundamentally problematic. Sorry for my iMessage rant, but I do love telegram :)