Will you stick with Whatsapp?

[TonySS]

He may take a selfie in lizard form, cant have that.

 

[bwana]

I bet the people who move to telegram on their own accord tape up webcams on their laptops...right?

After getting blackmailed the fourth or fifth time I figured I had to do something...

 

[pinball wizard]

I bet the people who move to telegram on their own accord tape up webcams on their laptops...right?

Some of us did that long ago, and we moved to Signal along with Lord Snowden.

 

[Rickster]

After getting blackmailed the fourth or fifth time

You jest?

 

[Cius]

Not too worried but I suspect I will slowly migrate to something else. Already having family encourage other platforms.

So over the weekend both family groups I am on moved over the telegraph. No noise on the various security and work groups yet though so will see. I am now fairly certain I want to reduce dependence on Whatsapp and start encouraging the move though. The wife shared some of the ways Whatsapp and Facebook have been working together and I am not sure I am entirely happy with how they are doing that.

 

[sandwitch]

I bet the people who move to telegram on their own accord tape up webcams on their laptops...right?

Unashamedly, yes! I double tape it and disable it. And I disable my mic.
And my phone's camera.

 

[medicnick83]

I've installed Telegram and have already asked my friends etc to move on.

I've told them I'll keep Whatsapp on for a month or so, after that - boom, gone!

 

[Kola_CT]

You jest?

Happens all the time.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I'm not sure what those terms mean, I've not seen them used before. Data is encrypted in transit of course, but that's industry standard these days.

But unless you turn on the "secret chat" feature, the chats are not end-to-end encrypted. And group chats are never end-to-and encrypted. So sure, if your traffic is intercepted by your ISP then it's safe, it's an SSL connection from you to Telegram HQ, but Telegram HQ can read the content of your group chats if they want.

Encrypting group chats properly is hard, and once the group gets large, you'll take a real performance hit if you want to keep it encrypted. Signal explains it here:

Private Group Messaging

One of the major features we introduced in the TextSecure v2 release was private group chat. We believe that group chat is an important feature for encrypted communications projects, so we wanted to try to summarize some of the existing work in this area, as well as how TextSecure’s group chat pr...

signal.org

The fact that Telegram groups can get so large sets it apart I guess, but then you must understand that it comes at the expense of E2EE.

This lack of E2EE plus the "feature" of storing your messages on their servers (unlike WhatsApp or Signal which store only long enough to deliver the message) has led to Telegram being the subject of a number of hacks where user data and messages were exposed. So their record is a bit patchy as far as security is concerned...

Edit: I went and read through Telegram's own documentation, and ok, I now realise a bit more what you meant. They store their "cloud messages" encrypted, but they also have the keys to decrypt them. Ok, they are on a different server in a different jurisdiction, so that makes it a bit more secure against random hacks or state data demands, but it still gives Telegram themselves the ability to read your conversations if they wanted to.

Durov writes about how their system is better than the E2EE choice made by Whatsapp / Signal. His points make sense. If you agree with his reasoning, then Telegram might be suitable for you. I personally disagree, but that's just me.


Yeah ok that's fair, I went and did some reading and I learn now that while Durov also founded VK, it was sold to mail.ru before Telegram was started, so there's no link between the two. I was under the impression that a similar link exists as between WhatsApp and Facebook currently. In that I was mistaken.

Still, while Durov claims that Telegram is not-for-profit... it's incorporated as a normal LLC, and not an NPO as say the Signal Foundation is. Which makes me more than a little bit suspicious.

None of the hacks happened against their servers. It’s always been at compromised devices and that will happen with any E2E solution too.

And all the reasons you mention for groups and the features Telegram offers related to them wouldn’t be possible if it didn’t use servers in the middle.

It’s not all that different from trusting AWS or Azure with your data or any cloud provider for that matter.

****

Ironically many of the overnight FB security experts still have no Pin or a stupid 12345 pin on their phones so what the point of end to end encryption is beats me.

 

[newby_investor]

None of the hacks happened against their servers. It’s always been at compromised devices and that will happen with any E2E solution too.

Fair point.

And all the reasons you mention for groups and the features Telegram offers related to them wouldn’t be possible if it didn’t use servers in the middle.

And that's also fair, but then the user must understand the compromise that is made. It depends on how you want to use Telegram I guess.

It’s not all that different from trusting AWS or Azure with your data or any cloud provider for that matter.

In principle yes, except that Amazon or Microsoft are large industry players with teams of experts. Telegram is just two Russian guys who don't seem to have a fixed address for their company's headquarters. (I exaggerate, but you get the picture.)

One could very legitimately claim that the Brothers Durov are more trustworthy, I guess, given what we know about big tech companies.

Ironically many of the overnight FB security experts still have no Pin or a stupid 12345 pin on their phones so what the point of end to end encryption is beats me.

A lot of this insistence E2EE was in response to Snowden's leaks and PRISM. Sure, if you leave your phone on your desk unlocked, then one of your opportunistic colleagues can take a sneak peek at your saucy messages with your girlfriend.

E2EE protects against mass collection of data by the big internet companies in behalf of national governments, the scale of which was (and probably still is) beyond the KGB's wildest wet dreams.

Telegram seems to have defended themselves against this by spreading things over multiple jurisdictions, making it very difficult either for a hacker to access or any given government to demand their user data. After having given it a bit more thought, I think this is a very reasonable compromise, depending on whether you trust the Durovs more than the US government.

I must hand it to you, you've made me reconsider my assumptions and change my mind a bit.
I still don't really feel bothered to install Telegram, I still like Signal better. I want a secure way to talk to people, that's it, can't be bothered with all these other stupid features.
But I won't judge anyone who decides to use Telegram anymore.

Edit: after having thought about this a bit more, you really need to decide whether your use case warrants a bit more protection. Telegram hasn't been properly hacked or handed data over *yet*. If you're an activist, a whistleblower, a political figure... do you trust them? OTOH with something like Signal, you needn't trust them, because they keep no data to hand over, there's nothing to be breached.

The Durovs seem to work with the assumption that most folks are not whistleblowers, activists or undercover police or whatever, and that their model will be just fine, and there's a lot of merit in that. For a slight compromise in whistleblower safety, they do add a lot of great functionality.

The danger with this, is that if only activists and whistleblowers use Signal, then it makes them stick out like a sore thumb. The ideal situation for them to be more secure is if a lot more people use Signal (or something like it), then this provides more ability for those who need the cover to blend in.

 

[Azbubu]

Hi guys

Please join my #Imstaying groups. You can find them on FB and Telegram.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Fair point.


And that's also fair, but then the user must understand the compromise that is made. It depends on how you want to use Telegram I guess.


In principle yes, except that Amazon or Microsoft are large industry players with teams of experts. Telegram is just two Russian guys who don't seem to have a fixed address for their company's headquarters. (I exaggerate, but you get the picture.)

One could very legitimately claim that the Brothers Durov are more trustworthy, I guess, given what we know about big tech companies.


A lot of this insistence E2EE was in response to Snowden's leaks and PRISM. Sure, if you leave your phone on your desk unlocked, then one of your opportunistic colleagues can take a sneak peek at your saucy messages with your girlfriend.

E2EE protects against mass collection of data by the big internet companies in behalf of national governments, the scale of which was (and probably still is) beyond the KGB's wildest wet dreams.

Telegram seems to have defended themselves against this by spreading things over multiple jurisdictions, making it very difficult either for a hacker to access or any given government to demand their user data. After having given it a bit more thought, I think this is a very reasonable compromise, depending on whether you trust the Durovs more than the US government.

I must hand it to you, you've made me reconsider my assumptions and change my mind a bit.
I still don't really feel bothered to install Telegram, I still like Signal better. I want a secure way to talk to people, that's it, can't be bothered with all these other stupid features.
But I won't judge anyone who decides to use Telegram anymore.

Edit: after having thought about this a bit more, you really need to decide whether your use case warrants a bit more protection. Telegram hasn't been properly hacked or handed data over *yet*. If you're an activist, a whistleblower, a political figure... do you trust them? OTOH with something like Signal, you needn't trust them, because they keep no data to hand over, there's nothing to be breached.

The Durovs seem to work with the assumption that most folks are not whistleblowers, activists or undercover police or whatever, and that their model will be just fine, and there's a lot of merit in that. For a slight compromise in whistleblower safety, they do add a lot of great functionality.

The danger with this, is that if only activists and whistleblowers use Signal, then it makes them stick out like a sore thumb. The ideal situation for them to be more secure is if a lot more people use Signal (or something like it), then this provides more ability for those who need the cover to blend in.

Signal just doesn’t work for me to brutally honest.

Like literally the MacOS version didn’t have any chats loading this morning and threw errors into the Note to Self box instead.

Later it suddenly pushed through a hundred messages and then seemed alright, but it still just feels like a very immature system.

Also the simple things like not being able to split group and individual notifications blows my mind. How is it even in production like this? Now I need to turn all notifications off or go mute groups individually.

Either which way I’ll keep it installed and use it for the people who insist on using it, I may just not remember to open it and check.

Simply put I’ll go from Telegram + WhatsApp to Telegram + Signal, very little changes in my life.

I’ll still have the slightly kakker app as a secondary because people insist on using it, because they see themselves as spies/revolutionaries.

 

[newby_investor]

Signal just doesn’t work for me to brutally honest.

Like literally the MacOS version didn’t have any chats loading this morning and threw errors into the Note to Self box instead.

Later it suddenly pushed through a hundred messages and then seemed alright, but it still just feels like a very immature system.

Also the simple things like not being able to split group and individual notifications blows my mind. How is it even in production like this? Now I need to turn all notifications off or go mute groups individually.

Either which way I’ll keep it installed and use it for the people who insist on using it, I may just not remember to open it and check.

Simply put I’ll go from Telegram + WhatsApp to Telegram + Signal, very little changes in my life.

I’ll still have the slightly kakker app as a secondary because people insist on using it, because they see themselves as spies/revolutionaries.

And that's also a compromise that people should understand, I guess. There's always a trade-off. Signal is written by security experts, not UI experts. Telegram's much larger user-base will have provided much more feedback i.t.o. what the users actually want.

I don't see myself as a spy / revolutionary, Signal just fits better with my ideology. I'm a nerd who is comfortable with vim and the command line, so the clunky user interface doesn't bug me that much. I haven't tried the Mac client, the Windows one works well enough, but I mostly use it on mobile. It's worked well enough so far. In contrast, for the two weeks or so that I was using Telegram about five years ago, I decided that I didn't like it, the interface was confusing. Probably it has gotten better since then.

On a related note, I have just been trying out Threema, convinced a few like-minded contacts to pay the R52 required to install it on Google Play. The model is quite like Signal (open source, e2ee everything) but it's a Swiss company running it instead of an American NPO. And it shows, the experience is much better. Video call quality was really good compared with Signal, and even compared with WhatsApp. (Haven't tried this functionality in Telegram so I can't really comment.)

 

[SauRoNZA]

And that's also a compromise that people should understand, I guess. There's always a trade-off. Signal is written by security experts, not UI experts. Telegram's much larger user-base will have provided much more feedback i.t.o. what the users actually want.

I don't see myself as a spy / revolutionary, Signal just fits better with my ideology. I'm a nerd who is comfortable with vim and the command line, so the clunky user interface doesn't bug me that much. I haven't tried the Mac client, the Windows one works well enough, but I mostly use it on mobile. It's worked well enough so far. In contrast, for the two weeks or so that I was using Telegram about five years ago, I decided that I didn't like it, the interface was confusing. Probably it has gotten better since then.

On the contrary I find Signal has a nicer and cleaner “in chat” interface, directly lifted from
iMessage mind you, than Telegram.

It’s just too basic as a whole, and this coming specifically from someone also very well versed in Vim and the command line.

Signal is like nano; Telegram is the vim in this equation.

You may want to update you opinion every year or so, rather than running with ancient information.

 

[newby_investor]

On the contrary I find Signal has a nicer and cleaner “in chat” interface, directly lifted from
iMessage mind you, than Telegram.

It’s just too basic as a whole, and this coming specifically from someone also very well versed in Vim and the command line.

Signal is like nano; Telegram is the vim in this equation.

You may want to update you opinion every year or so, rather than running with ancient information.

Fair point but that would mean admitting that my opinion might be wrong ;-)

And sometimes you're tired of vim, nano is all you need!

 

[s0lar]

Fair point but that would mean admitting that my opinion might be wrong ;-)

And sometimes you're tired of vim, nano is all you need!

Friends don’t let friend use nano. Sies.

 

[Tabac]

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[Maciej]

Moving to Telegram

 

[nicc777]

When. Fakebook acquired Whatsapp I adopted a "wait and see" attitude. Well, now I saw. Dropping Whatsapp. Using both Telegram and Signal. although it seems the bulk of my contacts are on Telegram.

 

[W.Salie]

Yes everyone is saying that the collecting your data has come a lot time ago but the issue for me is not only that but why does whatsapp want to collect my purchases and financial info data?