I know Lemmy hates telegram but it should be common knowledge that all platforms process requests from authorities.
The repeated posting of this story the last few days seems artificial.
I think the point is not that Telegram (the company) sucks, it is that Telegram (the app) sucks. A proper messenger like Signal leaves the provider with no information to hand over.
Many people still seem to be under the false impression that Telegram is private, so it’s worth spreading around.
I don’t really have any special hate for Telegram myself, and I never saw it as a secure communication platform. I have more problem with Signal because people treat it like it’s paragon of privacy and security.
I’d be curious to hear your criticisms of Signal! While I haven’t seen anyone describing it as a “paragon of privacy and security” I do think it is a highly accessible SMS replacement that is also open source, end-to-end encrypted, and operated by a nonprofit.
I wrote a longer one here: https://dessalines.github.io/essays/why_not_signal.html
The short version is, that it’s a centralized, US hosted service. All of those are subject to National Security Letters, and so are inherently compromised. Even if we accept that the message content is secure, then signal’s reliance on phone numbers (and in the US, a phone number is connected to your real identity and even current address), means that the US government has social connection graphs: everyone who uses signal, who they talk to, and when.
Man I don’t even have the time to break down all these very clearly wrong insinuations. There’s no reason to believe Signal collects metadata, and every reason to believe they don’t. They’ve been served subpoenas and they shared them, as well as their responses, publicly, and the only thing they included was when the last time the user connected to their server.
Building on this, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on GrapheneOS as a whole. The OS recently bundled a new app “store”/repository, "Accrescent”, along with the usual basic apps like a calculator & camera. On Accrescent, the hardened fork of Signal, Molly, is offered on there. I’ve alsoheard one of the Graphene devs has voiced some chuddy politics.
I’ve still installed & use Molly to chat with my closest friends who I was able to get off of big tech platforms previously used for our group chats, but I have been aware of the RFA/Signal connection for several years (your blog post really ties it together) & I do try to remind these friends about it. Really we just use Signal to shitpost and organize hangouts, so I’m not yet locking myself in a bunker over using it for those purposes, but all this has got me considering building a server & hosting a different secure chat service on it.
I learned about possible Unit 8200 connections with the Matrix protocol within the past year or two, but don’t recall exactly what that entails. I haven’t heard much about Briar, but it being android only would make it a harder sell for getting people to switch over to it, so I suppose that leaves simpleX to proselytize.
I don’t know enough about grapeneOS to comment on it.
Any signal app forks still have to use signals main servers, so they still got your phone number and identity.
Matrix was originally funded by an Israeli company until it spun off, but unlike signal, it’s entirely open source, self-hostable, and can be run in a private manner. Phone numbers and identifiers are not required, so even if you connect to a malicious server, the most they get is your matrix id, and things you’ve explicitly leaked about your identity.
The most we could say is that specific servers are compromised, but its also possible to host it outside a five-eyes country, unlike signal.
You are literally incorrect.
You have provided literally nothing to back up your assertion.
Signal does not know who talks to whom. It’s kind of the main thing about the double ratchet.
Unless you compiled the app yourself from source code that you understand, you don’t really know what the app might be saying to Signal’s servers. Almost everyone just trusts that the pre-compiled app supplied by Apple or Google aren’t compromised. But we know from history that Big Tech and the military-intelligence-industrial complex are in bed with each other.
The most obvious one that has been explained to death here is that Signal collects vast amounts of metadata. It’s also a centralized service that’s operated in the US, and it doesn’t even make reproducible builds for the Android client.
Where did you read that they are collecting vast amounts of metadata? Not challenging your claim just that I have been trying to find more info and came up empty. Signal says “we don’t collect analytics or telemetry data” but that’s about it.
You need a phone number to sign up. Phone numbers are metadata that uniquely identifies people, and this data constitutes a network of connections. If this metadata is shared with the government, then it can be trivially correlated with all the other information collected about people.
I agree it’s a problem, but not for any of the reasons you listed. A phone number is not metadata, it’s just data. In order to be metadata, there would have to be other information connected to that data, which there isn’t (in Signal), other than the last time you connected to their server. They don’t know who you talk to or when, thus no network connections.
In my book a phone number is not “vast amounts of metadata” but I see your point. Again, I have never seen someone describing Signal as a “paragon of privacy and security” 9usually it’s presented as an improvement over SMS) but if they do I will put on my Trilby and correct them.
It’s the volumes of phone numbers collected collectively that constitute vast amounts of metadata. Meanwhile, I’ve seen plenty of people advocate using Signal as the best option for privacy. And any time there is a criticism of Signal then then brigades of people inexplicably appear to vigorously defend it.
And now you know why we’ve been telling you not to use Telegram.
What seems crazy to me is how many people they managed to convince that they were private when they most definitely are not.
Any criminal with half a brain knew what’s up
Brain dead normies lapring edge lord on there were just useful idiots for their handlers
I hear signal is not a good alternative. What is a good one, then?
I would encourage you to think critically about the nonsense being shared here. Do some research and read about people who actually know things about security and you’ll find a common pattern: basically all of them hold Signal up as a gold standard in privacy and security.
Matrix, simplex, xmpp.
Signal is an excellent alternative if you’re looking for an E2E encrypted SMS replacement your grandmother can use.
Where are you hearing this?
Welp then I think we have to sue them to oblivion S/ But really can’t blame most people whose Are Accustomed to using TeleGram And WhatsUp
This is a difficult topic for me. On the one hand, I believe everyone has a right to privacy and we need to fight for that right. On the other hand, I’m enough of an adult to understand that law enforcement needs to be able to effectively investigate criminal activity. There has to be a middle ground there, somewhere. I just don’t know where that is.
giving the pigs and the feds more powers isn’t gonna help anything lol
There’s no middle ground. Either we’ll have privacy or we won’t.
If they actually wanted to do something about child abuse they’d go after the conserative scum who have historically supported it and still do. Its the ones that vote for far right parties, are anti higher-ed, pro homeschooling, anti secularism, pro religious indoctrination, anti feminist, anti age of consent laws, anti sex ed, anti criminalisation of marital rape, anti combating domestic violence, pro child marriages etc instead they are constantly trying to attack human’s right to privacy which only exist on paper.
But isn’t advocating for the privacy of criminals the same as advocating for the crime, itself? Sure, let’s go after the politicians…but are you REALLY okay with letting child molesters, etc. hide their activities from law enforcement online? Like I said, there has to be a middle ground. We just need to find it.
“Child molesters etc” have been online since the internet has existed and very little is done about it. They have also been active offline and very little is done about that too. If they wanted to go after them they would. They don’t, because it is not in their interest to. The threats they will go after are people they disagree with and who their higher ups want targeted. You are always in more danger from authorities than “bad guys” are.
There exist no middle ground.
If able to invade privacy of child abuser, able to invade privacy of any person. Then your “privacy” only is trust in authority to not abuse that not actually have privacy.
How that end you can see in china.
It’s the warrant process and true encryption. If the cops think you’ve done something bad, they go and get a warrant. The provider turns over what they have, which should just be account info and metadata. Then the cops do good old fashioned police work and get a warrant for your personal stuff which they’ll seize and analyze.
