6 ms·

Chat apps are hard, this doesn't strike me as a proof of bad quality as many competitors had such bugs. And Telegram has been so far the most reliable, feature

Chat apps are hard, this doesn't strike me as a proof of bad quality as many competitors had such bugs. And Telegram has been so far the most reliable, feature full and easy to use chat app I have had to use.

lxgr 2y ago
Which other chat app has displayed messages to the wrong users? That seems like one of the worst things a chat app could possibly ever do.
- asddubs 2y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27950763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27950763
  - EGreg 2y ago
    Wow, touche And in an Apples-to-Apples comparison, WhatsApp fared far worse than Telegram on privacy, and not to mention its parent company. The only benefit I can think of WhatsApp has is claiming to be encrypted by default. So I dont need to press an extra button. I just have to take their word for it.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      > And in an Apples-to-Apples comparison, WhatsApp fared far worse than Telegram on privacy, and not to mention its parent company. I'd like to see that comparison. Considering that WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, and Telegram persistently stores almost all of their users' messages on their backend in a way that lets them read them, I find that very hard to believe. > So I dont need to press an extra button. Nobody presses an extra button, especially not one that opts you out of multi-device support.
      - BiteCode_dev 2y ago
        Whatsapp is not open source and facebook was part of the PRISM program. I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to actually be e2e encrypted. Espacially since Zuckerberg has many years of poor track record for privacy, and made the famous quote "they trust me the dumb fucks"
        EGreg 2y ago
        Exactly! Good points. Facebook’s been caught spying on you with audio, video, contacts, cameras you name it. What makes the true believers so sure their WhatsApp chats are really E2E encrypted and FB cant decrypt them and isnt scanning at the edge? LMAO
        lxgr 2y ago
        > Facebook’s been caught spying on you with audio, video, contacts, cameras you name it. For contacts: I have no expectations of any contact privacy on WhatsApp. It's known and documented [1] that they upload your entire phone book for contact matching. Private set intersection would be better, but I don't see anything sneaky going on. Audio, video, cameras: What are you referring to? > What makes the true believers so sure their WhatsApp chats are really E2E encrypted and FB cant decrypt them and isnt scanning at the edge? The amount of scrutiny they're under from security researchers worldwide, and the fact that many governments are currently throwing a fit about not being able to gain access to the data either. [1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/1191526044909364 https://faq.whatsapp.com/1191526044909364
        EGreg 2y ago
        See, FB gets away with it because everyone mostly forgets. 2016 Audio: they listened to what you did through your microphone until they got caught https://www.nbc4i.com/news/spying-secrets-is-facebook-eavesdropping-on-your-phone-conversations/ https://www.nbc4i.com/news/spying-secrets-is-facebook-eavesd... 2019: Facebook caught activating camera without permission, to spy on you https://www.pcmag.com/news/facebook-app-caught-activating-phone-camera-without-permission https://www.pcmag.com/news/facebook-app-caught-activating-ph... 2020: Facebook a year later still secretly using your camera to spy on you, this time through Instagram https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514433 This is the company you are now trusting with the mere claim that WhatsApp is end-to-end secured. 2018: Facebook, not satisfied with getting its own users’ data only, bought and hijacked a VPN app in order to — wait for it — bypass encryption that millions of people trusted for ALL SITES ON THE INTERNET in order to analyze traffic and be able to get the dirt on its competitors! https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/facebook-violates-apples-data-gathering-rules-pulls-vpn-from-app-store/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/facebook-violate... Now about WhatsApp… Oh yeah… it’s already sending a lot of telemetry to Facebook: https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-instagram-facebook-data/ https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-instagram-facebook-data... And has been since 2016: https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-facebook-data-share-notification/ https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-facebook-data-share-not... Oh, but at least the content of your messages is not analyzed by FB? Well, as far as we know that might be true, but if the other user flags your convo, it is in fact sent to Facebook: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-facebook-undermines-privacy-protections-for-its-2-billion-whatsapp-users https://www.propublica.org/article/how-facebook-undermines-p... But wait, there’s more. Sometimes the mask slips due to People You May Know, which is the carefully guarded mix of “secret” algorithms that has helped Facebook aggressively grow beyond 100 million people: https://medium.com/hackernoon/facebook-is-reading-my-encrypted-whatsapp-conversations-375d2eba0c18 https://medium.com/hackernoon/facebook-is-reading-my-encrypt... https://gizmodo.com/people-you-may-know-a-controversial-facebook-features-1827981959 https://gizmodo.com/people-you-may-know-a-controversial-face... Mark Z knows what’s up: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuckerberg-tape-webcam-microphone-facebook https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuck... https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/17/facebook-people-first-ever-mark-zuckerberg-harvard https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/17/facebook-... Telegram has NEVER tried to do any of these types of things. So, given a choice, would I trust Zuck and co, or a guy who literally had to flee Russia because at great personal cost he had refused disclose the identities of the Maidan protestors, and losing his company to their Mail.ru conglomerate? https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/ https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/ https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Pavel-Durov-so-careless-in-his-selection-of-investors-for-Telegram/answer/Mary-Ginsburg-6 https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Pavel-Durov-so-careless-in-his... https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/europe/pavel-durov-telegram-encryption/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/europe/pavel-durov-telegram-e... The answer is: neither (although Pavel Durov is like 1000x more trustworthy in my opinion). https://itc.ua/en/news/durov-boasts-that-telegram-employs-about-30-engineers-security-experts-call-this-a-red-flag-for-users/ https://itc.ua/en/news/durov-boasts-that-telegram-employs-ab... I prefer open source software https://community.intercoin.app/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram-and-why-decentralization-matters/2230 https://community.intercoin.app/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram... And here’s why: https://community.qbix.com/t/the-global-war-on-end-to-end-encryption/214 https://community.qbix.com/t/the-global-war-on-end-to-end-en...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- BiteCode_dev 2y ago
  Also whatsapp: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/18eikrz/whatsapp_sending_messages_to_wrong_people/ https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/18eikrz/whatsapp_... Discord: https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/18dfmiw/discord_is_sending_a_picrure_to_the_wrong_person/ https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/18dfmiw/discord...
  - lxgr 2y ago
    That's a single point of anecdata from Reddit, as far as I can tell at least for the WhatsApp one. The Signal one somebody has posted in the adjacent thread was definitely real and horrible though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27950763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27950763 The fact that at least two heavily-used messengers got one of the most essential things in instant messaging wrong is nightmare fuel I didn't need to have in my life :(
    - BiteCode_dev 2y ago
      We just had the xz crisis and that surprises you? IT is just a series of security breaches.
      - lxgr 2y ago
        Don't shift goal posts, please. A supply chain attack and a service sending private messages to the wrong recipient are very different issues.
        BiteCode_dev 2y ago
        I don't shift goal post, I'm answering to: > is nightmare fuel I didn't need to have in my life :( It's a weird reaction. All software have always been like that as far as I remember.
        lxgr 2y ago
        These two things are as different as you can get in terms of software bugs. xz: A sophisticated supply chain attack. These are known, scary, and we don't have great ways to prevent them yet. Apparently half of all popular instant messengers at some point making the same kind of trivial but catastrophic off-by-one error: Not rocket science to prevent. I was hoping at least high-stakes apps would have better QA.
- gsa 2y ago
  Google: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/26/google-privacy-bug-sent-chats-to-the-wrong-people https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/26/google-pr...
  - lxgr 2y ago
    Wow, I'm truly baffled! Is this a rite of passage for instant messenger developers!?
    - BiteCode_dev 2y ago
      Or OS developers. Video codec developers. Network stack developer. Driver developers. Web browser developers. Web service developers. Office suite developers. And if you are a developer and your software is used in any decent scale, you are unlikely to be the exception.
- xeromal 2y ago
  Funny enough, I experienced this in Android in the 2010s. Several times I would text one of my buddies using vulgar language and the texts would go to random people. My grandparents, my pastor, etc. It was horrible. lol
PhasmaFelis 2y ago
Delivering messages to the intended recipients (and no one else) is the single fundamental purpose of chat. If many chat apps have failed at this, then many chat apps have sucked.
- BiteCode_dev 2y ago
  Yes, but in that case, no single chat app ever conceived match your criteria. They all had some kind of similar major bug at some point. Even the big names.

lxgr 2y ago

Which other chat app has displayed messages to the wrong users? That seems like one of the worst things a chat app could possibly ever do.

asddubs 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27950763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27950763
- EGreg 2y ago
  Wow, touche And in an Apples-to-Apples comparison, WhatsApp fared far worse than Telegram on privacy, and not to mention its parent company. The only benefit I can think of WhatsApp has is claiming to be encrypted by default. So I dont need to press an extra button. I just have to take their word for it.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    > And in an Apples-to-Apples comparison, WhatsApp fared far worse than Telegram on privacy, and not to mention its parent company. I'd like to see that comparison. Considering that WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, and Telegram persistently stores almost all of their users' messages on their backend in a way that lets them read them, I find that very hard to believe. > So I dont need to press an extra button. Nobody presses an extra button, especially not one that opts you out of multi-device support.
    - BiteCode_dev 2y ago
      Whatsapp is not open source and facebook was part of the PRISM program. I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to actually be e2e encrypted. Espacially since Zuckerberg has many years of poor track record for privacy, and made the famous quote "they trust me the dumb fucks"
      - EGreg 2y ago
        Exactly! Good points. Facebook’s been caught spying on you with audio, video, contacts, cameras you name it. What makes the true believers so sure their WhatsApp chats are really E2E encrypted and FB cant decrypt them and isnt scanning at the edge? LMAO
        lxgr 2y ago
        > Facebook’s been caught spying on you with audio, video, contacts, cameras you name it. For contacts: I have no expectations of any contact privacy on WhatsApp. It's known and documented [1] that they upload your entire phone book for contact matching. Private set intersection would be better, but I don't see anything sneaky going on. Audio, video, cameras: What are you referring to? > What makes the true believers so sure their WhatsApp chats are really E2E encrypted and FB cant decrypt them and isnt scanning at the edge? The amount of scrutiny they're under from security researchers worldwide, and the fact that many governments are currently throwing a fit about not being able to gain access to the data either. [1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/1191526044909364 https://faq.whatsapp.com/1191526044909364
        EGreg 2y ago
        See, FB gets away with it because everyone mostly forgets. 2016 Audio: they listened to what you did through your microphone until they got caught https://www.nbc4i.com/news/spying-secrets-is-facebook-eavesdropping-on-your-phone-conversations/ https://www.nbc4i.com/news/spying-secrets-is-facebook-eavesd... 2019: Facebook caught activating camera without permission, to spy on you https://www.pcmag.com/news/facebook-app-caught-activating-phone-camera-without-permission https://www.pcmag.com/news/facebook-app-caught-activating-ph... 2020: Facebook a year later still secretly using your camera to spy on you, this time through Instagram https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24514433 This is the company you are now trusting with the mere claim that WhatsApp is end-to-end secured. 2018: Facebook, not satisfied with getting its own users’ data only, bought and hijacked a VPN app in order to — wait for it — bypass encryption that millions of people trusted for ALL SITES ON THE INTERNET in order to analyze traffic and be able to get the dirt on its competitors! https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/facebook-violates-apples-data-gathering-rules-pulls-vpn-from-app-store/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/facebook-violate... Now about WhatsApp… Oh yeah… it’s already sending a lot of telemetry to Facebook: https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-instagram-facebook-data/ https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-instagram-facebook-data... And has been since 2016: https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-facebook-data-share-notification/ https://www.wired.com/story/whatsapp-facebook-data-share-not... Oh, but at least the content of your messages is not analyzed by FB? Well, as far as we know that might be true, but if the other user flags your convo, it is in fact sent to Facebook: https://www.propublica.org/article/how-facebook-undermines-privacy-protections-for-its-2-billion-whatsapp-users https://www.propublica.org/article/how-facebook-undermines-p... But wait, there’s more. Sometimes the mask slips due to People You May Know, which is the carefully guarded mix of “secret” algorithms that has helped Facebook aggressively grow beyond 100 million people: https://medium.com/hackernoon/facebook-is-reading-my-encrypted-whatsapp-conversations-375d2eba0c18 https://medium.com/hackernoon/facebook-is-reading-my-encrypt... https://gizmodo.com/people-you-may-know-a-controversial-facebook-features-1827981959 https://gizmodo.com/people-you-may-know-a-controversial-face... Mark Z knows what’s up: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuckerberg-tape-webcam-microphone-facebook https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuck... https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/17/facebook-people-first-ever-mark-zuckerberg-harvard https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/17/facebook-... Telegram has NEVER tried to do any of these types of things. So, given a choice, would I trust Zuck and co, or a guy who literally had to flee Russia because at great personal cost he had refused disclose the identities of the Maidan protestors, and losing his company to their Mail.ru conglomerate? https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/ https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/ https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Pavel-Durov-so-careless-in-his-selection-of-investors-for-Telegram/answer/Mary-Ginsburg-6 https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Pavel-Durov-so-careless-in-his... https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/europe/pavel-durov-telegram-encryption/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/europe/pavel-durov-telegram-e... The answer is: neither (although Pavel Durov is like 1000x more trustworthy in my opinion). https://itc.ua/en/news/durov-boasts-that-telegram-employs-about-30-engineers-security-experts-call-this-a-red-flag-for-users/ https://itc.ua/en/news/durov-boasts-that-telegram-employs-ab... I prefer open source software https://community.intercoin.app/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram-and-why-decentralization-matters/2230 https://community.intercoin.app/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram... And here’s why: https://community.qbix.com/t/the-global-war-on-end-to-end-encryption/214 https://community.qbix.com/t/the-global-war-on-end-to-end-en...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
BiteCode_dev 2y ago
Also whatsapp: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/18eikrz/whatsapp_sending_messages_to_wrong_people/ https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/18eikrz/whatsapp_... Discord: https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/18dfmiw/discord_is_sending_a_picrure_to_the_wrong_person/ https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/18dfmiw/discord...
- lxgr 2y ago
  That's a single point of anecdata from Reddit, as far as I can tell at least for the WhatsApp one. The Signal one somebody has posted in the adjacent thread was definitely real and horrible though: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27950763 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27950763 The fact that at least two heavily-used messengers got one of the most essential things in instant messaging wrong is nightmare fuel I didn't need to have in my life :(
  - BiteCode_dev 2y ago
    We just had the xz crisis and that surprises you? IT is just a series of security breaches.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      Don't shift goal posts, please. A supply chain attack and a service sending private messages to the wrong recipient are very different issues.
      - BiteCode_dev 2y ago
        I don't shift goal post, I'm answering to: > is nightmare fuel I didn't need to have in my life :( It's a weird reaction. All software have always been like that as far as I remember.
        lxgr 2y ago
        These two things are as different as you can get in terms of software bugs. xz: A sophisticated supply chain attack. These are known, scary, and we don't have great ways to prevent them yet. Apparently half of all popular instant messengers at some point making the same kind of trivial but catastrophic off-by-one error: Not rocket science to prevent. I was hoping at least high-stakes apps would have better QA.
gsa 2y ago
Google: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/26/google-privacy-bug-sent-chats-to-the-wrong-people https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/26/google-pr...
- lxgr 2y ago
  Wow, I'm truly baffled! Is this a rite of passage for instant messenger developers!?
  - BiteCode_dev 2y ago
    Or OS developers. Video codec developers. Network stack developer. Driver developers. Web browser developers. Web service developers. Office suite developers. And if you are a developer and your software is used in any decent scale, you are unlikely to be the exception.
xeromal 2y ago
Funny enough, I experienced this in Android in the 2010s. Several times I would text one of my buddies using vulgar language and the texts would go to random people. My grandparents, my pastor, etc. It was horrible. lol

PhasmaFelis 2y ago

Delivering messages to the intended recipients (and no one else) is the single fundamental purpose of chat. If many chat apps have failed at this, then many chat apps have sucked.

BiteCode_dev 2y ago
Yes, but in that case, no single chat app ever conceived match your criteria. They all had some kind of similar major bug at some point. Even the big names.