That is the thousand dollar question. How would we know Telegram isn't an FSB front

* The CEO isn't a developer

* We know practically nothing about their developers, they're all anonymous

* The server has access to overwhelming majority of messages (among fellow CS students only ~10% said they use secret chats, and most likely even they don't do that for every 1:1 chat. Furthermore, groups can not be E2EE at all, and neither can Win/Linux desktop chats)

* Journalists that went to see Telegram's offices at Dubai found an empty office, and their office neighbors said they've never seen Telegram developers let alone anyone enter the offices https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg8mWJUM7x4 They did speculate Telegram might be using Dubai for tax evasion.

* That being said, we know absolutely nothing about Telegram's financials, nothing official has ever been reported by the company. Yet the system manages to stay afloat year after year with 600M+ users.

I'd love to be able to give good reasons why Telegram can't possibly be an op, but hand-waved opt-in E2EE for some clients, is the only one I can find, and that encryption has been most effective in online debates defending Telegram's bad security model.

> How would we know Telegram isn't an FSB front

As a Canadian talking to Canadians in Canada, I hope it’s an FSB front. They seem like my most secure option.

If you think like that, you might as well use Chinese messengers. You know the state has access, but they probably don't care about you, and you can be pretty sure that western agencies don't have built-in access.

> If you think like that, you might as well use Chinese messengers.

True, but I don't really "get" Chinese style UI.

As a Canadian, I think the Chinese have more interest in me than Russia.

It isn't "the KGB" anymore. In Russia it is now "the FSB". There are other KGBs in other countries such as Belarus but these aren't the KGB. (KGB is Russian for "Committee for State Security".)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Security_Committee_of_th...

"Along with its counterparts in Transnistria and South Ossetia,[1] it is one of the few intelligence agencies that kept the Russian name "KGB" after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, albeit it is lost in translation when written in Belarusian (becoming KDB rather than KGB)."

Thanks for the correction. The point stands.

Telegram moved out of Russia precisely so they wouldn't be under their influence, so that's wild speculation. If the argument is that the KGB (or is it FSB now?) might go and just put a gun to their head: they could do that to literally anyone anywhere, so it doesn't matter.

Telegram was in Berlin for a while but moved out of Germany for privacy/legal reasons as well (good call, considering that Germany is discussing trying to outlaw them) and moved to Dubai iirc.

>Telegram moved out of Russia precisely so they wouldn't be under their influence

Yes, because if you're an FSB operation, the rule #1 is to operate from Russia, that way nobody suspects you.

>moved to Dubai

Yet journalists who went there only found an empty office https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg8mWJUM7x4

Telegram is influenced by FB of Russian VK (something like that). And VK has KGB tights. This is from Ukraine activists point of view just FYI. So your choices is Signal or Wire. Signal sever is in US, and Wire may or may not be in US. So there you go.

The grandparent comment was already hearsay but yours really scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Durov was forced out of VK on threat of violence: there are no ties to VK.

No, there are ties, even though Durov was forced out. Durov sold his VK stake to a Russian oligarch with extensive government ties, such that they now control the majority of the company.

https://www.reuters.com/article/russia-vkontakte-idUSL5N0KY3...

You're probably right. Still, that doesn't make up for the fact Durov made his fortune with VKontakte that has the exact same toxic business model as Facebook. He began by exploiting tens of millions of VKontatke users. Now he's suddenly turned on his heels and "he's using his money for the good" by deploying tool he knows activists use, but that doesn't provide E2EE even for the small activist groups.

I gave Durov a benefit of the doubt in 2013, but as I saw their E2EE stayed as a bolted-on gimmick, as opposed to forming a solid foundation, that image of a philanthropist fighting against surveillance capitalism disappeared real quick. Telegram's security model is indistinguishable from Facebook: Parent company gets everything except opt-in E2EE messages, and neither company encourages their use.

I repeat, for clarity, there are no ties between Telegram and VK.

Okay, I agree with that.