this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2024

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269

All of Telegram's Lies About Privacy (donald.cat)

submitted 10 months ago by columbus@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] Peasley@lemmy.world 65 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (8 children)

Nothing new here. E2E is only available in one on one chats and is disabled by default. Dont use Telegram if privacy is your main concern.

At least it has an open-source client. Very few messaging platforms can say that, and fewer have a decent UX.

It's not perfect, but it's got a good combination of features and multi-platform availability. None of the other messaging apps support all of my devices except Matrix, and ~~Matrix doesn't have stickers~~

Edit: Signal doesn't support all my devices but maybe someday! The network effect is also big. None of my family and friends are on Signal, but most have Telegram. A few have Matrix.

Also Signal is a US-based company.

Edit 2: Matrix does have stickers, i guess I'm switching

[–] candyman337@sh.itjust.works 69 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Signal

[–] anamethatisnt@lemmy.world 32 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, the glaring problem of having to share your phone number is gone too:
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/6712070553754-Phone-Number-Privacy-and-Usernames

[+] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

[deleted]

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

The NSA already has your social map from Apple, Google, Facebook/whatsapp, plus a hundred other sources you've given access to your contacts in the past decade.

Even if you've never used any of those, or given any app access to your contacts, 99% of your contacts have.

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[–] anamethatisnt@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That they do, but your contacts doesn't have to get it anymore.
A self-hosted matrix stack built from source with matrix clients built from source with e2ee implemented that you yourself have the competence to verify the encryption and safety of would be the only secure communication I know of if you don't want to trust a third party.

[+] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Doesn't XMPP tend to use always-active sockets? I looked into switching my number to a VOIP service and considered jmp.chat, but I heard people complain about phone battery life. I'm going to test it out soon, but if I go that route, I may consider hosting my own XMPP server if it can handle both my phone (i.e. answer calls on my computer instead of phone) and regular IM.

And Simplex is awesome, but my issue is having the same account on multiple devices. I want to be able to see and respond to messages on my work laptop, personal laptop, personal desktop, and phone, and it seems Simplex only has basic support for it. I'm still playing with it, and I may end up switching to it, but for now, the experience isn't very user-friendly.

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

I'm way more concerned about the privacy of what I say than who I say it to.

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[–] explore_broaden@midwest.social 6 points 10 months ago (4 children)

They still don’t have backups on iOS which is a deal-breaker for me.

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[–] Peasley@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I couldnt find a working Ubuntu touch app last i tried to use it

[–] michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ubuntu touch is dead. Are there at least native browsers for it?

[–] Peasley@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Is it? I still get regular updates. Yes there are a few, i use Morph

https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/

[–] michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago

For some reason, I thought Ubuntu touch was EOL. Probably because I tried it on a Redmi 5 and it was an unofficial 2018 build. Is the Morph browser still supported? I checked the Github page and the last changes were 3 years ago.

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[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 33 points 10 months ago (2 children)

A platform that values my privacy? Or stickers? Tough choice, I guess, except Signal has both.

[–] reev@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago

Doesn't have unlimited storage though. It's really nice being able to jump to any of the 15,000+ images shared with a single person dating back to like 2015 within a couple seconds. I know that's a privacy concern but nothing comes close to telegram's searchability and the unlimited storage.

[–] Peasley@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It's a messaging app, it's useless if there is nobody to message. I dont have any friends using signal yet.

Also it doesnt work on my phone (Ubuntu touch). There used to be a community app but it's not currently working.

I sincerely wish them success, but it's hard to have faith that a US-based company will actually protect your privacy. Not that Telegram does either. I dont know what information they do even collect.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It's hard to have faith that a US-based company will actually protect your privacy.

You don't have to, though? 1) The E2EE Signal protocol is well-audited to be robust. 2) The app itself is FOSS, and there are a lot of eyes on it. 3) The server code is FOSS. Even if they're lying about what code they use, it doesn't matter because it's E2EE. 4) If you think Signal might be bait-and-switching by building from different source code, you'd be provably wrong. They have reproducible builds, so were they to actually try this, it would be like sending up a flare to the entire security community. 5) Literally every single time OWS has been subpoenaed, the only information they've been able to provide is extremely basic metadata like server connection times.

You have no idea what you're talking about, I'm sorry. There's functionally less "trust" here than any messaging application on the planet. The network effect remark is at least valid and can be debated (although I personally have zero friends who use Telegram and at least several who use Signal). This one is just so, so wrong that it's not even up for debate.

[–] Peasley@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Thanks for the elaboration. I'm not familiar with how Signal works.

[–] Thetimefarm@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

Educating yourself on topic is a good idea BEFORE you plan on arguing about it online.

[–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Matrix does have stickers

[–] r0ertel@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Can you elaborate on your last sentence? Is the US more or less trustworthy than alternatives?

[–] Peasley@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Less than some. The US gov has a history of forcing US-based corporations to disclose private data regardless of their policies or the law.

I can't give you a good alternative though. I'm sure the same thing happens in many countries

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I am enjoying SimpleX chat

[–] viking@infosec.pub 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I tried it, and it looks decent, but there wasn't a single person I know around.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago

I'm not surprised due to my involvement in the Monero community, at least some people I know from previous online chat rooms are there, but I don't know anybody directly in person like from my day-to-day life that uses it.

[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 10 months ago

Stickers are pointless if I have no one to send them to. So I stay in telegram.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago

Problem I have with matrix is that, afaik, does not currently support temporal or self destructing messages. Which is a big no-no for privacy conscious usage.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago

E2E is only available in one on one chats and is disabled by default.

Considering that there's no technical problem with enabling it for all one-on-one chats, this tells a lot.

Also no E2EE on desktops.

I hate TG's UX. It's atrocious. WhatsApp is the closest to something normal, but imperfect too.

At least it has an open-source client.

Chromium is an open-source browser.

OK, more specifically - what matters is that TG's protocol is a big ugly target moving fast. So its official client with released sources is in practice the only one. There are things like libpurple plugin and some python TUI client and an emacs one, but they are all lagging behind. And I think they are all using official tdlib.

This tells something too, that their talk about possibility of alternative clients is of the same kind as their talk about privacy.

About the network effect - bring your family and friends to Signal one by one. Of course it won't happen overnight.

[–] Scolding7300@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Signal didn't work for some back in 2021/2020 and wasn't supported on old devices, now I'm stuck with Telegram.

At least I'm not part of FB's social graph and have some friends that now use something other than WhatsApp

[–] essteeyou@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Who didn't it work for? I switched to Signal in about 2016 or so, and haven't had a problem with it. Admittedly I'm a software developer, and typically use high-end devices, so my knowledge is severely lacking.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago

I used it on lower-end devices around that time, but not bottom-of-the-barrel (Motorola smartphones). I had a Moto x4 then Moto G Power, and Signal worked fine on them. When Signal stopped working for SMS, I stopped using it, but I think I got my SO on board, so I'm back to using it for messaging.