Comment on Telegram will now hand over your phone number and IP if you’re a criminal suspect
teolan@lemmy.world 2 months agoTelegram’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.
rdri@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Use for what? Are there alternatives that aggregate news, have bot support, non-electron clients and immediately sync between desktop and mobile?
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Yes? You aren’t going to find a one to one telegram clone. A replacement isn’t a clone
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.
rdri@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That’s wrong. There is no plaintext transfer. While a lot of stuff can potentially happen on server every second as you said, it doesn’t happen according to them. I don’t trust that fully either but that’s their argument. You can look up encryption schemes in their faq.
teolan@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I didn’t say that there was any network plaintext transfer. I said the server needs to have access to the plaintext at some point.
That’s not actually what they say, because it would be the cryptographic equivalent of claiming they invented a new color.
They talk about encryption at rest without mentioning the rest of their infrastructure to confuse the hell out of people that don’t understand encryption. Given your comments it seems to work.