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Actually, this is exactly what Pavel Durov (Mark Zuckerberg’s counterpart and founder of the Russian Facebook vkontakte) did when Russian authorities asked him

by EGreg 4y ago

Actually, this is exactly what Pavel Durov (Mark Zuckerberg’s counterpart and founder of the Russian Facebook vkontakte) did when Russian authorities asked him to reveal who helped organize the Maidan protests in 2013/2014 https://globalvoices.org/2014/02/22/pro-maidan-video-goes-viral-thanks-to-pavel-durov-russias-zuckerberg/ https://globalvoices.org/2014/02/22/pro-maidan-video-goes-vi... https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1146789-durov1 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1146789-durov1 (Besides these guys I mean: https://www.ndi.org/eurasia/ukraine https://www.ndi.org/eurasia/ukraine) And he just posted the middle finger on his site. Pretty soon he started receiving the standard “tax evader” treatment (i.e. offices being ransacked, veiled personal threats etc.), his shareholders pushed him out and he and his brother fled the country and started Telegram. Pavel is a true libertarian who’s stood for his beliefs against his own government, and lost control of his company as a result. Unlike Moxie Marlinspike (founder of WhatsApp and also Signal) who claims he is an “anarchist”, Pavel walked the walk. When he started Telegram, he pissed off his US investor who got heat for Telegram being used by ISIS to communicate. The investors were pissed off that they never made a profit on Telegram and was mentally associated with helping ISIS. Although Pavel eventually did take action: https://www.wsj.com/articles/telegram-app-tackles-islamic-state-online-propaganda-11574789617 https://www.wsj.com/articles/telegram-app-tackles-islamic-st... Pavel also claims his team was approached by the CIA multiple times and they successfully resisted it. Telegram offices are nowhere to be found in Dubai: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg8mWJUM7x4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg8mWJUM7x4 That is how you run a free speech absolutist social network that governments all want to control. Telegram is probably the most secure and trusted centralized social network (with Signal a distant second). But that is insane. We don’t have to trust Pavel or Moxie to be our “last line of defense.” Why do we rely on giant, centralized corporations to host all our private conversations? This was my response to Moxie’s critique of Web3 and decentralization: https://community.intercoin.app/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram-and-why-decentralization-matters/ https://community.intercoin.app/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram...

sgjohnson 4y ago
So why the fuck Telegram is not e2e encrypted by default, and why are group chats not e2e encrypted? Not to mention that even when chats are e2e encrypted, they are encrypted using their proprietary algorithm?
- EGreg 4y ago
  That’s like Mehdi Hassan nitpicking small factual inaccuracies in the Twitter filea last week and ignoring the main discussion with Matt Taibbi about government censorship around the world. Look, if people want to encrypt their chats on Telegram, they start a secret chat. That’s how it should be. Why should it be the default? Because you think people are idiots? If I make a secret chat on Telegram, I trust it more than a default chat on Signal. Both are good, but one company is much harder to pressure than another. And this is all a moot point - like arguing which homeless person is richer. If you want real privacy and control — simply communicate without using the infrastructure and software provided by centralized corporations!
  - robryk 4y ago
    > Look, if people want to encrypt their chats on Telegram, they start a secret chat. That’s how it should be. Why should it be the default? Because you think people are idiots? Because everyone is an idiot once in a while (just after waking up, when drunk, when stressed, when sick, ...). Also, because the very presence of a secret chat is something that can be observed and can be enough to raise suspicion.
    - EGreg 4y ago
      I know this is a bit of a cop-out but even writing in a non-secret chat and having Telegram know, then totally deleting a message on Telegram with no visual trace to the counterpart, is less worrying for me than doing the same on the “e2e encrypted” WhatsApp which shows “Message deleted” and if I failed to do it, prevents me from deleting the message after a while. Telegram lets me delete everyone’s messages and even the entire chat anytime. That shows where their head is at. That said, you are right that not-on-by-default-for-everyone makes the encrypted chats more suspicious. I have to say that I have a nuanced view on encryption, which isn’t matching the orthodoxy on HN: https://community.qbix.com/t/balancing-privacy-and-accountability/ https://community.qbix.com/t/balancing-privacy-and-accountab...
      - robryk 4y ago

by EGreg 4y ago

sgjohnson 4y ago

So why the fuck Telegram is not e2e encrypted by default, and why are group chats not e2e encrypted? Not to mention that even when chats are e2e encrypted, they are encrypted using their proprietary algorithm?

EGreg 4y ago
That’s like Mehdi Hassan nitpicking small factual inaccuracies in the Twitter filea last week and ignoring the main discussion with Matt Taibbi about government censorship around the world. Look, if people want to encrypt their chats on Telegram, they start a secret chat. That’s how it should be. Why should it be the default? Because you think people are idiots? If I make a secret chat on Telegram, I trust it more than a default chat on Signal. Both are good, but one company is much harder to pressure than another. And this is all a moot point - like arguing which homeless person is richer. If you want real privacy and control — simply communicate without using the infrastructure and software provided by centralized corporations!
- robryk 4y ago
  > Look, if people want to encrypt their chats on Telegram, they start a secret chat. That’s how it should be. Why should it be the default? Because you think people are idiots? Because everyone is an idiot once in a while (just after waking up, when drunk, when stressed, when sick, ...). Also, because the very presence of a secret chat is something that can be observed and can be enough to raise suspicion.
  - EGreg 4y ago
    I know this is a bit of a cop-out but even writing in a non-secret chat and having Telegram know, then totally deleting a message on Telegram with no visual trace to the counterpart, is less worrying for me than doing the same on the “e2e encrypted” WhatsApp which shows “Message deleted” and if I failed to do it, prevents me from deleting the message after a while. Telegram lets me delete everyone’s messages and even the entire chat anytime. That shows where their head is at. That said, you are right that not-on-by-default-for-everyone makes the encrypted chats more suspicious. I have to say that I have a nuanced view on encryption, which isn’t matching the orthodoxy on HN: https://community.qbix.com/t/balancing-privacy-and-accountability/ https://community.qbix.com/t/balancing-privacy-and-accountab...
    - robryk 4y ago