104
Telegram CEO calls out rival Signal, claiming it has ties to US government
(www.theregister.com)
this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
104 points (82.1% liked)
Privacy
31856 readers
176 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
Chat rooms
-
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I wouldn’t put a lot of trust in Telegram. Not only is their cryptography off by default, it’s a bespoke hand-rolled non-standard algorithm that might not work as well as they say. Oh, and it’s been potentially backdoored by the FSB (Russia’s CIA) for six years.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/telegram-reportedly-ordered-to-share-encryption-keys-with-fsb/
From the very start rather.
And there's been a few cases where not FSB, but mundane police was reading suspects' messages before arresting them.
Don't trust Telegram, I use it because, eh, most people use either that or VK DMs in Russia as the default IM. But never trust it for something which should be secret.
You can even have "opposition"-themed channels there or call for rebellions, but don't ever expect anything to be secret or even pseudonymous. Even without ill intent regularly flaws are found which allow to get a lot of information, and the code quality is sewer-level.
thats exactely the point lol. Why would you use an algorithm designed and proposed by the US government in a "secure" messenger?
Which algorithm are you referring to exactly?
In general, people are wise to use ciphers and protocols that have been examined by the global cryptography community and have held up to that scrutiny.
The algorithm was neither proposed nor designed by the US government, it was made by (what is now known as) Signal, a 501c nonprofit.
The claims of signal being "state-sponsored" come from assuming how money flows through the OTF - Open Tech Fund - which has gotten grants from government programs before. (IIRC)
It wouldn't make sense for the US Gov. to make such a grant to make a flawed protocol, as any backdoor they introduce for themselves would work for any outside attacker too - it's mathematics. It works for everyone or for no one. Would they really wanna make tools that they themselves use, just to have it backdoored by other state actors?
And again, Durov's claims are entirely assumptions, and that coming from someone that has had [various](https://mtpsym.github.io// different vulnerabilities and weird bugs on their platform