> Then, say, Telegram in non-secret message mode, is just as secure, in the sense that you have to trust a third party. Not clearly informing the user of this t

> Then, say, Telegram in non-secret message mode, is just as secure, in the sense that you have to trust a third party. Not clearly informing the user of this trust is dishonest. The difference is that if Telegram was intercepting messages, there would never be any indication to users. If Signal did it there would be evidence on the client side, in the form of tampered safety numbers. We can worry that a user is very unlikely to notice bad safety numbers, but "very unlikely" is much different from "impossible" when it comes to mass surveillance. All it takes is a single public scandal where Signal provably tampered with safety numbers for the whole service to be thrown into question. Not to mention the dramatic surge in user interest in "safety numbers" that would result from such attacks being detected in the wild.