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Telegram is not governed by VCs or large corporations with ambiguous ties to government. Its code is open-source. It hasn't needed to spend money to make itself

by m52go 11y ago

Telegram is not governed by VCs or large corporations with ambiguous ties to government. Its code is open-source. It hasn't needed to spend money to make itself popular...its users did it for them. Which you could really say about all the services you mentioned. The difference is in who's footing the bill for all the other costs. The founder of Telegram is a privacy and civil liberties activist who has publicly committed to keeping Telegram as secure as possible, and that until a revenue model is determined that honors that standard, he'll continue funding it on his own (he's loaded from equity in VKontakte). What else are you looking for?

castratikron 11y ago
Just thought I would mention that only the client is libre; the server is still closed.
maxerickson 11y ago
The default protocol is share everything with the server: https://telegram.org/faq#q-how-secure-is-telegram https://telegram.org/faq#q-how-secure-is-telegram That is clearly prioritizing user convenience over "as secure as possible".
- shawabawa3 11y ago
  Without prioritising user convenience you do get the best security, mainly because you have zero users to protect Yes, it could be better, but it's still better than whatsapp, facebook messenger and sms (I'm a telegram user, and wouldn't be if it didn't sync across devices)
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    When security is important, users are far better off not using anything than they are using something that they have misunderstood to be secure. So the share with server by default, brag about security approach is really bad, especially in the instances where the need for security is very clear. It also seems to be the case that Telegram is not making users aware enough of the importance of verifying the keys used to establish the secret chats (see the link here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9538879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9538879 , users are sharing channel keys over the channel they are trying to establish). So there is a second level of traps that a user has to avoid to even have a chance of using Telegram securely.
deleted 11y ago
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by m52go 11y ago

castratikron 11y ago

Just thought I would mention that only the client is libre; the server is still closed.

maxerickson 11y ago

The default protocol is share everything with the server: https://telegram.org/faq#q-how-secure-is-telegram https://telegram.org/faq#q-how-secure-is-telegram That is clearly prioritizing user convenience over "as secure as possible".

shawabawa3 11y ago
Without prioritising user convenience you do get the best security, mainly because you have zero users to protect Yes, it could be better, but it's still better than whatsapp, facebook messenger and sms (I'm a telegram user, and wouldn't be if it didn't sync across devices)
- maxerickson 11y ago
  When security is important, users are far better off not using anything than they are using something that they have misunderstood to be secure. So the share with server by default, brag about security approach is really bad, especially in the instances where the need for security is very clear. It also seems to be the case that Telegram is not making users aware enough of the importance of verifying the keys used to establish the secret chats (see the link here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9538879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9538879 , users are sharing channel keys over the channel they are trying to establish). So there is a second level of traps that a user has to avoid to even have a chance of using Telegram securely.

deleted 11y ago

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