Telegram's "Privacy" is Bullshit (Video)
Telegram's "Privacy" is Bullshit (Video)
Many in the crypto and privacy community mistakenly trust Telegram because it's "end to end encrypted", but there are huge issues including not hiding the metadata, censorship, centralization, and phone numbers.
Send this video to your friend that asks why you won't join:
https://video.simplifiedprivacy.com/why-telegram-sucks/
nobody "trusts" telegram. but at least it s not whatsapp.
You shouldn’t trust anything.
I trust myself sometimes, its occasionally useful.
Can't trust nobody and nothing.
Isn't metadata leakage a problem that this messenger shares with nearly every other messenger out there?
In case you actually want some useful info on that topic: https://www.messenger-matrix.de/
Can we stop doing videos as news and opinion please? They're an inefficient, annoying, and intrusive way to communicate this kind of information. If it doesn't need to be visual, it is in video format only for monetization reasons, which I'd think would be more concerning to this community.
Videos are also much more likely to be out of date.
We have articles as well, SimplifiedPrivacy.com
We have articles as well, SimplifiedPrivacy.com And it's self-hosted. There is no video ad monetization.
A cringe video made by someone selling a Blockchain messaging solution.
We sell self-hosted XMPP services and Session usernames. We did not make Session. What's cringe is your lack of research or knowledge
Wow, not to pick on the narrator, but this comes off like the worst small town used car dealership TV advertisement I've ever seen.
Here's a real rundown I've put together over the years:
Pavel Durov's argument is that there should be a high functioning UI/UX experience for "non-secure" communication, and when you need it there's something much closer to Signal's very secure client-to-client encryption.
Arguably Telegram secret chats are even "close enough" to cloud chats an adversary might not notice you're doing the "super secret things" (making it harder to identify what to target).
MTProto Cloud: https://core.telegram.org/file/811140746/2/CzMyJPVnPo8.81605/c2310d6ede1a5e220f
MTProto Secret (Wrapped in MTProto Cloud): https://core.telegram.org/file/811140633/4/hHw6Zy2DPyQ.109500/cabc10049a7190694f
They also provide verified builds even on iOS (though it's a bit of a hack, not "really" quite the same thing).
The only things that can really be said about Telegram's secret chat crypto are that:
- It's not "the default"
- It's their own crypto (i.e., they broke "rule #1" and "rolled their own")
Ultimately though, it's been just shy of 10 years since Telegram entered the scene, and nobody has actually broken Telegram crypto in any meaningful way -- AFAIK, to this day. Still, there are hypothetical holes in the crypto when scrutinized vs something like signal. So, is it as good as Signal or Threema? Eh, probably not, is it good enough for the average person that isn't target by a nation state? I'd say probably.
I think you missed the most important part: all accounts are tied to a phone number
Except that's not even true... https://www.livemint.com/technology/apps/telegram-brings-new-update-no-phone-number-needed-for-sign-up-more-features-11670403019183.html
And for most people, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't. I'm not even going to argue about that. I personally couldn't care less about instant messaging with anonymity; anonymity and private are completely separate concerns.
Isn't metadata leakage a problem that this messenger shares with nearly every other (popular) messenger out there?
In case you actually want some useful info on that topic: https://www.messenger-matrix.de/
Nice comparison site! I've always referenced the below site. But I'm glad to have another thank you
That's a cool website!
The point is not that it's private, the point is that they are not owned by Facebook, don't collect as much data and give up to law enforcement as Whatsapp does, and it is based outside of the West and the 14 eyes. People say WhatsApp is end to end encrypted but if it is proprietary and owned by the second largest ad driven company in the world, how can you be sure?
Their backups were not encrypted.
and it is based outside of the West and the 14 eyes
It is based in a country that's an ally of several 14 eyes country and you can bet your bottom dollar that it isn't a country that's going to tell the Big eyes of the 14 eyes to go f itself if they come knocking.
You can sure it's end to end encrypted because the client can be analyzed to verify that claim.
Have fun analyzing obfuscated Java code and native binary code.
Stop posting videos and post well written articles.
SimplifiedPrivacy.com Many articles
Thats why Element(Matrix) is the way. Ideally selfhosted+federated, but even the default matrix.org is much better than most other chat apps.
It may be once sliding sync and proper key handling of room history for new members get implemented.
Right now sync is very slow, the apps are heavy weight too (as I know at least partly because of how sync works today), and if a new member joins an encrypted room, they will not see the history even if you set it that way, because the clients that know the keys won't send to theirs.
Why Matrix and not XMPP? XMPP is also flawed, but much less bloated, easier to selfhost and doesn't have so many people being on central instance like matrix.org (there are other arguments as well).
The only thing Telegram has going for itself is that it's Non-Meta and Non-Western.
Anyone who has a closer look at Telegram's reputation knows that their privacy claims are dubious. If you want end to end encryption, even WhatsApp is better. But these things depend on your individual threat model.
If you want end to end encryption
You use Signal.
Yeah, end to end encryption in a closed source app can't be proven outside of the company and the company can't be held accountable by the public even if it gets a third party audit at some point because it can always just change the source.
Open source, client side, end to end encryption is the only serious standard.
Telegram can be E2E, no reason to switch to Meta's app for it
The only reason telegram was unbanned in Russia is because they started collecting and handing over identifiable data about Russian users.
I try to explain that to people all the time, they only use E2E for so called secret chats and comply with every country as soon as a ban is on the table, there are even reports about a case in Dheli where they did so for Audiobook piracy!
Who thinks in the privacy community that Telegram is end to end encrypted? They were largely mislead. That's an option, that even prevents sync of the chat between your devices.
The thing is, Telegram has some shady things, but until Matrix becomes usable this is one of the very few usable options. And until then, use Telegram FOSS from F-droid.
How is matrix not usable?
- Huge resource usage by clients
- Huge sync times (not just first time, but also if the client was offline for a few weeks)
- New room members in encrypted rooms can't read old messages even if you have set it up that way
Fortunately they are working on all of these, and as I just found out recently, they also have an alpha version app now that makes use of the new efficient sync, which I expect to fix 2 of the above (the resource usage is partly because of how sync works now)
Why isn't this video uploaded to peertube instead of some dude's personal bog?
Because its just that. All it is a personal blog. It is not a valid source
I like mixing it up, even mid conversation, between Threema, Signal and Session. Put the puzzle together feds xD
Indeed it is. Use Threema 😉
Just Yeserday I joined Telegram I think it's privacy focused.
@sag @ShadowRebel uhhhmmmm!
I think it is quite well known that only Telegram Secret Chats are true E2EE. That said, Telegram is still not in the business of selling metadata actively like Whatsapp/Facebook/Meta are. As far as plain features go, Telegram is streets ahead of Whatsapp. But if I needed real "secret chat" I'd probably use Threema, SimpleX, Nostr, Jami, etc where I'm not tied to my mobile phone number or e-mail address.
You use telegram for privacy
I use it for its UX
We are not the same
Everyone here is a c/privacy die hard
Telegram's UX is basically the best on every platform it's on. Plus large uncompressed file supports
Same argument for fruit based products.
Made.by Russia automatically makes it "sus".
It's... Not made by Russia, it's made by a former Russian (that no longer has a citizenship there) with Ukrainian roots and a French and UAE dual citizenship.
Remember folks, Albert Einstein was German born but he sure as heck wasn't a Nazi.
Fair enough.