Comment on Telegram will now hand over your phone number and IP if you’re a criminal suspect
onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 months ago
Does anybody really use Telegram for “privacy”? People can’t seriously believe that thing is secure. Their FAQ indirectly states that group chats aren’t encrypted and explicitly states that “secret chats” are.
We support two layers of secure encryption. Server-client encryption is used in Cloud Chats (private and group chats), Secret Chats use an additional layer of client-client encryption. All data, regardless of type, is encrypted in the same way — be it text, media or files.
I have never recommended Telegram to anybody. It’s just like another facebook, AOL, ICQ, or whatever messenger. I actually don’t personally know a single telegram user who uses secret chats. They are quite useless. They don’t sync across devices.
rdri@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Oh believe me, group chats are encrypted. Problem is, most of them are public, so that’s only to protect them from being exposed to dump/search server side. And yeah, their encryption is not e2e. That’s encryption nonetheless.
teolan@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Telegram’s “encryption” does not protect in any way against dump/search server side (outside of secrets chats).
Telegram’s “encryption” only protects from your ISP spying, and it’s the kind of encryption that everyone implements. Any website that does not implement such encryption would show a big red “Not secure” warning in your browser.
rdri@lemmy.world 2 months ago
When they explained it it was specifically stated that it should be either impossible or too difficult. Keeping keys and content separately, that’s what it’s about iirc. Either way the point of telegram is not in privacy for everyone. You trade protection for convenience (cloud data and great clients), and if you want you can use secret chats. That’s it. Seeing their user base, it suits most people. We’ll see if their server data gets leaked or something, though it didn’t happen yet.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Just use something that isn’t a child abuse Russian chat app. There are so many better options.
teolan@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That’s not what their marketing says.
Most people have zero idea what kind of security telegram provides.
teolan@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They’re lying? Encryption at rest does not protect at all against the server snooping around. When you send or receive a message, the server has to see it in plaintext unless you have E2EE. So there is a way for them to access the plaintext of any message you receive, and it happens automatically billions of times per day. It’s pretty easy.
onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 months ago
Are you talking about encryption at rest? Regardless, encryption by the server is worthless. It’s exactly why admins can delete content in chat rooms.
Anti Commercial-AI license
rdri@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You’re still missing the fact that public chats can’t be adequately protected.
FWIW when they said that the “e2e” boom has yet to happen.
onlinepersona@programming.dev 2 months ago
Depends what you mean by “adequately” 🤔 With perfect forward secrecy (which matrix and signal have), seeing past messages isn’t possible. Seizing the servers is also not very useful unless people are connecting directly to the server. Anonymous public chats running on overlay networks like I2P and TOR might not even need encryption (although I wouldn’t trust a server that didn’t).
Anti Commercial-AI license
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Maybe client to server but that’s not saying much