6 ms·

>lol Telegram Did I miss something? what's wrong with telegram?

celsoazevedo 2y ago
I assume it's the lack of end-to-end encryption by default on basic features. Good service btw, but not the best from a privacy point of view.
- jckahn 2y ago
  This is exactly it.
- SahAssar 2y ago
  Besides that there it's also them choosing to roll their own crypto instead of using established cyphers and protocols.
  - emptysongglass 2y ago
    And every time someone makes this comment. MTProto 2 uses standard crypto primitives. Besides this, do you know who else rolled their own crypto? Moxie. You don't get to roll your own crypto first and then weaponize this against your opponents but that's exactly what he did along with abusing words like "plaintext" to describe any encryption not E2EE.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - maqp 2y ago
      AES-IGE is not best practice. Neither is this https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/ https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/ The difference is Moxie isn't an amateur when it comes to cryptographic design. Wikipedia actually lists him as a cryptographer. The company has also employed an actual mathematician/cryptographer, Trevor Perrin. Meanwhile, Telegram employed the CEO's brother who's a geometrician, which is not the same. You wouldn't hire a dentist to perform brain surgery even though both studied medicine. Signal protocol's double ratchet is considered best practice by pretty much every competent cryptographer. MTProto's main issues are not the teething issues of the yester-years. It's the fact every chat is sent to the server that can then read the messages. Telegram only has E2EE in internet debates about it's non-existent E2EE in practice.
      - emptysongglass 2y ago
        Are you aware the article you link to technically critiques MTProto 1, including links to web archives of the MTProto 1 docs? > MTProto's main issues are not the teething issues of the yester-years. It's the fact every chat is sent to the server that can then read the messages. Telegram only has E2EE in internet debates about it's non-existent E2EE in practice. Telegram does in fact have E2EE available in the form of Secret Chats, so that's just an incorrect statement from you. Regardless, that wasn't what I was rebutting. If anyone is going to have a reasonable debate about Telegram's problems, at least do so reasonably, without resorting to well-worn and facile language invented by the person who has the most to gain from its use. Moxie is not at all innocent in any of this and I'm glad he's no longer involved with Signal, which I use every day.
        akimbostrawman 2y ago
        Telegram E2EE only 1:1 that is opt-in vs Signal E2EE everything by default. Its clear which is an actually private chat app. Defaults matter
        rlpb 2y ago
        > Telegram does in fact have E2EE available in the form of Secret Chats, so that's just an incorrect statement from you. But if you turn that on, other features turn off.
        maqp 2y ago
        Exactly. I have friends that outright refuse to use secret chats because stickers are so important to them. They literally have said to my face "stickers > human right to privacy".
        maqp 2y ago
        >Are you aware the article you link to technically critiques MTProto 1, including links to web archives of the MTProto 1 docs? Yes, but surely you realize a competent cryptographer wouldn't have implemented a backdoor looking design in the first place? >Telegram does in fact have E2EE available in the form of Secret Chats, so that's just an incorrect statement from you. No it's 100% correct and you just made my point for me. 1. Secret chats are not used by default, meaning most of users don't even know about it. 2. Secret chats are not available for group chats, not even small ones that have reasonable expectation for privacy. 3. Secret chats are not available for desktop chats, so you can not really use them seamlessly. I've spent six hours in front of my computer today. My phone is 30cm from my left hand. And I absolutely can't be arsed to pick it up every time my friend would send me a secret chat. Telegram's backdoor works exactly this way. They know I'm lazy. They make it my fault. Whereas with Signal, I can just alt-tab into the chats and reply there. When I said Telegram only has E2EE in internet debates, that means people like you who love to point out it's technically there, but who also fail to understand what it takes for such feature to be even used on a daily basis. >facile language invented by the person who has the most to gain from its use. I've been criticizing Telegram for over a decade now. You trying to make it sound like it's Moxie who's the devil pulling all the strings and making my arguments for me, makes you look like an astroturfer employed by Telegram: https://tsf.telegram.org/ https://tsf.telegram.org/
- 4cstar 2y ago
  https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-Encrypted-by-Default-08-14 https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-Encrypted-by...
  - celsoazevedo 2y ago
    It's nice to see their reasoning, but the issue remains: Telegram can read most direct messages (because almost no one uses private chats) and everything sent in groups. It's a good service and in some cases it can compete with Matrix, Signal, etc, but most direct chats and all groups have no privacy from Telegram (and anyone with access to their servers).
  - maqp 2y ago
    https://telegra.ph/Why-you-should-stop-reading-Durovs-blog-posts-11-25 https://telegra.ph/Why-you-should-stop-reading-Durovs-blog-p...
  - 9991 2y ago
    What a bizarre explanation. Element does E2EE just fine, with the caveat that you have to record your own encryption keys. But if you want E2EE and backups, what would you expect?
Klonoar 2y ago
I'll tell you what's right about Telegram: I don't know how they're the only independent app that seems to be able to produce such a well built UI/UX for a chat application in 2025. I maintain that someone should fork their codebase and bolt on a different backend (Signal, Matrix, whatever). It's right there and it's very, very good. (Yes, I know it's not as simple as "bolt on a different backend". You know what I mean.)
- palata 2y ago
  > I don't know how they're the only independent app that seems to be able to produce such a well built UI/UX for a chat application in 2025. Precisely because they don't spend so much effort for privacy. If your server can read all your messages, it's suddenly easier to provide great features. For instance, GMail can add your next hotel stay to your calendar automatically because it has access to your emails. That's great UX, but poor privacy.
  - athenot 2y ago
    This is not entirely true. For example, Calendar.app does the same by locally extracting the .ics out of Mail.app without ever sending anything to Apple. I don't think Telegram's UX is tied to their permissive privacy, but they do seem to start with UX then do what's needed to support it. That does give them an edge. (Instagram has terrible privacy and actively mines information from chat and their UX is only passably good.)
    - palata 2y ago
      > This is not entirely true. My point is that it's generally harder to add those features in a privacy-preserving way. GMail couldn't do it if it couldn't read the content of the emails, period. It doesn't mean that there is no way to have nice features in a privacy-preserving way. I just said it's harder (sometimes impossible). > I don't think Telegram's UX is tied to their permissive privacy Not exclusively, but it is obviously a lot easier! Take a web client: if the server has access to the data, your client can just fetch it. If the server doesn't even know about the existence of the group, that's harder. Why do you think only the "secret chats" are E2EE in Telegram (and those don't support groups)? > then do what's needed to support it What do they do to support privacy? They don't have E2EE except in the secret chats! That hasn't changed in a decade! > Instagram has terrible privacy and actively mines information from chat and their UX is only passably good This keeps getting further from what I said :). Of course, it's possible to do worse than Telegram!
palata 2y ago
I don't understand why you're downvoted for this question. What's wrong with Telegram is the privacy story. It's not end-to-end encrypted, meaning that the server can read the content of your messages. I hear that Telegram has a great UX, which makes it popular. But in terms of security... it's wanting.
- maqp 2y ago
  Telegram is a joke in professional cryptography circles https://x.com/matthew_d_green/status/726428912968982529 https://x.com/matthew_d_green/status/726428912968982529
  - palata 2y ago
    To me it's just not an encrypted messaging app. I don't even get all the discussions about it... It's a bit like if we analysed the E2EE guarantees of email over and over again. Every year, multitudes of people would publish a post explaining how email is "badly encrypted". Well, email is not E2EE, period. If you want E2EE, use a system that has E2EE.
    - maqp 2y ago
      That would be fine unless Telegram 1) Didn't say it was "Heavily encrypted" on its front page. 2) Didn't claim it was more private than WhatsApp which is always end-to-end encrypted with Signal protocol. 3) Didn't claim secret chats were somehow adequate.
  - emptysongglass 2y ago
    You're again linking to old critiques of an old protocol no longer in use. Can you stop doing that, please?
    - maqp 2y ago
      No. I will not stop pointing out the hubris and nepotism in the company. No real changes have been made in who's designing security for Telegram, so their past is their future. Incompetent people doing crap job.
maqp 2y ago
1. It's not end-to-end encrypted by default. 2. No group chat, even a small one between close friends is end-to-end encrypted. 3. Almost all desktop clients support no end-to-end encryption for 1:1 chats, meaning if you use the desktop client as part of your workflow, you're forced to drop using the end-to-end encrypted secret chats. 4. No cryptographers have ever worked in the company. 5. Horrible teething issues for the protocol: Telegram hosted a cracking contest back in 2013. Everyone in the industry know they are bullshit, and this was discussed back in 2013 The Fallacy of Cracking Contests (1998) | Hacker News The tldr is, Moxie issued a counter challenge to Telegram where he presented the same goals with already broken primitives like MD5, to break the encryption. Telegram never proved the challenge could be won even under those conditions. (Also again, given that Telegram’s built in backdoor of “people are lazy” exists, the cracking contest was pointless. It doesn’t matter how good the encryption is if the adversary wears you down to hand over the keys). http://unhandledexpression.com:8081/crypto/general/security/2013/12/17/telegram-stand-back-we-know-maths.html http://unhandledexpression.com:8081/crypto/general/security/... https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20160425091011/http://www.alexrad.me/discourse/a-264-attack-on-telegram-and-why-a-super-villain-doesnt-need-it-to-read-your-telegram-chats.html https://web.archive.org/web/20160425091011/http://www.alexra... https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/ https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/ https://mtpsym.github.io/ https://mtpsym.github.io/ Also this: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2024/08/25/telegram-is-not-really-an-encrypted-messaging-app/ https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2024/08/25/telegram...

I assume it's the lack of end-to-end encryption by default on basic features. Good service btw, but not the best from a privacy point of view.

jckahn 2y ago
This is exactly it.
SahAssar 2y ago
Besides that there it's also them choosing to roll their own crypto instead of using established cyphers and protocols.
- emptysongglass 2y ago
  And every time someone makes this comment. MTProto 2 uses standard crypto primitives. Besides this, do you know who else rolled their own crypto? Moxie. You don't get to roll your own crypto first and then weaponize this against your opponents but that's exactly what he did along with abusing words like "plaintext" to describe any encryption not E2EE.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - maqp 2y ago
    AES-IGE is not best practice. Neither is this https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/ https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/ The difference is Moxie isn't an amateur when it comes to cryptographic design. Wikipedia actually lists him as a cryptographer. The company has also employed an actual mathematician/cryptographer, Trevor Perrin. Meanwhile, Telegram employed the CEO's brother who's a geometrician, which is not the same. You wouldn't hire a dentist to perform brain surgery even though both studied medicine. Signal protocol's double ratchet is considered best practice by pretty much every competent cryptographer. MTProto's main issues are not the teething issues of the yester-years. It's the fact every chat is sent to the server that can then read the messages. Telegram only has E2EE in internet debates about it's non-existent E2EE in practice.
    - emptysongglass 2y ago
      Are you aware the article you link to technically critiques MTProto 1, including links to web archives of the MTProto 1 docs? > MTProto's main issues are not the teething issues of the yester-years. It's the fact every chat is sent to the server that can then read the messages. Telegram only has E2EE in internet debates about it's non-existent E2EE in practice. Telegram does in fact have E2EE available in the form of Secret Chats, so that's just an incorrect statement from you. Regardless, that wasn't what I was rebutting. If anyone is going to have a reasonable debate about Telegram's problems, at least do so reasonably, without resorting to well-worn and facile language invented by the person who has the most to gain from its use. Moxie is not at all innocent in any of this and I'm glad he's no longer involved with Signal, which I use every day.
      - akimbostrawman 2y ago
        Telegram E2EE only 1:1 that is opt-in vs Signal E2EE everything by default. Its clear which is an actually private chat app. Defaults matter
      - rlpb 2y ago
        > Telegram does in fact have E2EE available in the form of Secret Chats, so that's just an incorrect statement from you. But if you turn that on, other features turn off.
        maqp 2y ago
        Exactly. I have friends that outright refuse to use secret chats because stickers are so important to them. They literally have said to my face "stickers > human right to privacy".
      - maqp 2y ago
        >Are you aware the article you link to technically critiques MTProto 1, including links to web archives of the MTProto 1 docs? Yes, but surely you realize a competent cryptographer wouldn't have implemented a backdoor looking design in the first place? >Telegram does in fact have E2EE available in the form of Secret Chats, so that's just an incorrect statement from you. No it's 100% correct and you just made my point for me. 1. Secret chats are not used by default, meaning most of users don't even know about it. 2. Secret chats are not available for group chats, not even small ones that have reasonable expectation for privacy. 3. Secret chats are not available for desktop chats, so you can not really use them seamlessly. I've spent six hours in front of my computer today. My phone is 30cm from my left hand. And I absolutely can't be arsed to pick it up every time my friend would send me a secret chat. Telegram's backdoor works exactly this way. They know I'm lazy. They make it my fault. Whereas with Signal, I can just alt-tab into the chats and reply there. When I said Telegram only has E2EE in internet debates, that means people like you who love to point out it's technically there, but who also fail to understand what it takes for such feature to be even used on a daily basis. >facile language invented by the person who has the most to gain from its use. I've been criticizing Telegram for over a decade now. You trying to make it sound like it's Moxie who's the devil pulling all the strings and making my arguments for me, makes you look like an astroturfer employed by Telegram: https://tsf.telegram.org/ https://tsf.telegram.org/
4cstar 2y ago
https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-Encrypted-by-Default-08-14 https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-Encrypted-by...
- celsoazevedo 2y ago
  It's nice to see their reasoning, but the issue remains: Telegram can read most direct messages (because almost no one uses private chats) and everything sent in groups. It's a good service and in some cases it can compete with Matrix, Signal, etc, but most direct chats and all groups have no privacy from Telegram (and anyone with access to their servers).
- maqp 2y ago
  https://telegra.ph/Why-you-should-stop-reading-Durovs-blog-posts-11-25 https://telegra.ph/Why-you-should-stop-reading-Durovs-blog-p...
- 9991 2y ago
  What a bizarre explanation. Element does E2EE just fine, with the caveat that you have to record your own encryption keys. But if you want E2EE and backups, what would you expect?

Klonoar 2y ago

I'll tell you what's right about Telegram: I don't know how they're the only independent app that seems to be able to produce such a well built UI/UX for a chat application in 2025. I maintain that someone should fork their codebase and bolt on a different backend (Signal, Matrix, whatever). It's right there and it's very, very good. (Yes, I know it's not as simple as "bolt on a different backend". You know what I mean.)

palata 2y ago
> I don't know how they're the only independent app that seems to be able to produce such a well built UI/UX for a chat application in 2025. Precisely because they don't spend so much effort for privacy. If your server can read all your messages, it's suddenly easier to provide great features. For instance, GMail can add your next hotel stay to your calendar automatically because it has access to your emails. That's great UX, but poor privacy.
- athenot 2y ago
  This is not entirely true. For example, Calendar.app does the same by locally extracting the .ics out of Mail.app without ever sending anything to Apple. I don't think Telegram's UX is tied to their permissive privacy, but they do seem to start with UX then do what's needed to support it. That does give them an edge. (Instagram has terrible privacy and actively mines information from chat and their UX is only passably good.)
  - palata 2y ago
    > This is not entirely true. My point is that it's generally harder to add those features in a privacy-preserving way. GMail couldn't do it if it couldn't read the content of the emails, period. It doesn't mean that there is no way to have nice features in a privacy-preserving way. I just said it's harder (sometimes impossible). > I don't think Telegram's UX is tied to their permissive privacy Not exclusively, but it is obviously a lot easier! Take a web client: if the server has access to the data, your client can just fetch it. If the server doesn't even know about the existence of the group, that's harder. Why do you think only the "secret chats" are E2EE in Telegram (and those don't support groups)? > then do what's needed to support it What do they do to support privacy? They don't have E2EE except in the secret chats! That hasn't changed in a decade! > Instagram has terrible privacy and actively mines information from chat and their UX is only passably good This keeps getting further from what I said :). Of course, it's possible to do worse than Telegram!

palata 2y ago

I don't understand why you're downvoted for this question. What's wrong with Telegram is the privacy story. It's not end-to-end encrypted, meaning that the server can read the content of your messages. I hear that Telegram has a great UX, which makes it popular. But in terms of security... it's wanting.

maqp 2y ago
Telegram is a joke in professional cryptography circles https://x.com/matthew_d_green/status/726428912968982529 https://x.com/matthew_d_green/status/726428912968982529
- palata 2y ago
  To me it's just not an encrypted messaging app. I don't even get all the discussions about it... It's a bit like if we analysed the E2EE guarantees of email over and over again. Every year, multitudes of people would publish a post explaining how email is "badly encrypted". Well, email is not E2EE, period. If you want E2EE, use a system that has E2EE.
  - maqp 2y ago
    That would be fine unless Telegram 1) Didn't say it was "Heavily encrypted" on its front page. 2) Didn't claim it was more private than WhatsApp which is always end-to-end encrypted with Signal protocol. 3) Didn't claim secret chats were somehow adequate.
- emptysongglass 2y ago
  You're again linking to old critiques of an old protocol no longer in use. Can you stop doing that, please?
  - maqp 2y ago
    No. I will not stop pointing out the hubris and nepotism in the company. No real changes have been made in who's designing security for Telegram, so their past is their future. Incompetent people doing crap job.

maqp 2y ago

1. It's not end-to-end encrypted by default. 2. No group chat, even a small one between close friends is end-to-end encrypted. 3. Almost all desktop clients support no end-to-end encryption for 1:1 chats, meaning if you use the desktop client as part of your workflow, you're forced to drop using the end-to-end encrypted secret chats. 4. No cryptographers have ever worked in the company. 5. Horrible teething issues for the protocol: Telegram hosted a cracking contest back in 2013. Everyone in the industry know they are bullshit, and this was discussed back in 2013 The Fallacy of Cracking Contests (1998) | Hacker News The tldr is, Moxie issued a counter challenge to Telegram where he presented the same goals with already broken primitives like MD5, to break the encryption. Telegram never proved the challenge could be won even under those conditions. (Also again, given that Telegram’s built in backdoor of “people are lazy” exists, the cracking contest was pointless. It doesn’t matter how good the encryption is if the adversary wears you down to hand over the keys). http://unhandledexpression.com:8081/crypto/general/security/2013/12/17/telegram-stand-back-we-know-maths.html http://unhandledexpression.com:8081/crypto/general/security/... https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20160425091011/http://www.alexrad.me/discourse/a-264-attack-on-telegram-and-why-a-super-villain-doesnt-need-it-to-read-your-telegram-chats.html https://web.archive.org/web/20160425091011/http://www.alexra... https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/ https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/ https://mtpsym.github.io/ https://mtpsym.github.io/ Also this: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2024/08/25/telegram-is-not-really-an-encrypted-messaging-app/ https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2024/08/25/telegram...