It uses a homebrew encryption scheme and does not have E2E encryption (yes, you can enable E2E for individual chats, but nobody uses it because it breaks most features).
Not to mention the weird corporate structure, lack of transparency, failed crypto token launch, dishonest marketing...
If yes, then you are connected to it somehow and is astroturfing. If not, then you're just astroturfing. By your last sentence it is clear
1. https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram
2. https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS
I also would like to point out how your false dichotomy leaves no legitimate position when arguing against NSA-approved encryption mechanisms for the general public.
From a security perspective, I don't care if open source is solving the backdoor problem - the use of NSA-approved algorithms is the problem, not the source code availability.
From a civics perspective, I find potentially insecure algorithms that can be broken into by more local governments a lot more problematic than insecure algorithms that have a backdoor for governments far removed from, and ideally antagonistic to, my own if my own government cannot read it. The government of China or Russia is unlikely to abduct me in the night to put me into a black site. My own, or their American "friends", are a lot more likely to do so.
If you have a counter-argument other than another ad hominem, I'm happy to hear it.
Telegram sits firmly within the western legal system and somehow manages to stay online. Their privacy policy references the British Virgin Islands.
Please stop with that. At some point every encryption scheme was "homebrew" (or rather, new). MTProto 1.0 had flaws, which were addressed in 2.0. The latter has been independently formally verified to be secure[0].
> Telegram is the least secure.
Against who? What is your threat model? Such absolutist blanket statements are useless by design.
> of all the major messengers
Which are Messenger, Whatsapp, and SMS/RCS around here. Signal shows up from time to time, and Matrix doesn't even register above statistical noise so I won't count them as "major" (Signal, being, in a stroke of optimism, at best a challenger)
Of these, SMS/RCS is a total clusterfuck, and the remainder is owned by Meta. Yes, Meta is high on my list of adversaries, and given their track record should probably be for anyone out there caring about their privacy. No, WhatsApp's E2E is not to be trusted[1][2].
So is Telegram the least secure of major messengers? definitely not.
Is Telegram perfect security, certainly not either, because that doesn't exist[6], but their E2E is solid, even without E2E, extra steps are taken to thwart certain adversaries[3][4], they have reproducible builds for their client binary builds[5], and as can be observed so far their actions are veering on the complete opposite side of Meta's.
Is Telegram an opportunity to convince non-{privacy,security}-minded random joes and janes to jump out of a bunch of terrible chat platform for a better (or less worse if you want) chat platform? I'd say probably. I mean, it really really looks like they're trying hard to get the job done.
[0]: https://github.com/miculan/telegram-mtproto2-verification
[1]: https://twitter.com/Shiftreduce/status/1347546599384346624
[2]: Meta controls the Es in this "E2E", and I won't trust that, ever.
[3]: https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests
[4]: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/238562/how-does...
For example, if you travel internationally with a different SIM card, iMessage doesn’t allow your main phone number to be used for iMessage any more.
Another terrible “feature” is that to have a complete history of your chats, you need to back up to iCloud. Even for plaintext messages. And uploading photos will quickly blow through your iCloud storage.
Telegram, on the other hand, maintains your complete searchable message history including media for free, and when your phone number changes, it just asks “hey did your phone number change?” You press no, and the experience is completely identical.
Whereas when your phone number goes away on iMessage, you’ll have to fiddle around with settings to get something else working, your contacts will be fucked, and people will have issues sending you messages, etc.
In telegram, the model is that my messages are associated with me. In iMessage, the model is that my messages are associated with my device and SIM card. I think the latter model is boneheaded for a personal messaging app. Which means that iMessage is fundamentally problematic.
Sorry for my iMessage rant, but I do love telegram :)
Indeed, it is. I did not mention it because it's Apple ecosystem only, leaving a lot of people out. It appears to do many things very right, some lacking, and a few "wrong".
AIUI, with Messages backups in iCloud disabled, each device has its own key. Each message sent gets E2E encrypted with the key to each destination device and sent once for each device. So if the recipient has three devices, that's three encryptions and three messages sent. (That's how I recall someone describing it back in the day, I'm not sure today and I can't find the source of that anymore)
> Another terrible “feature” is that to have a complete history of your chats, you need to back up to iCloud.
The above means that a newly added device doesn't get access to the message history. This actually implements perfect forward secrecy! An attacker who manages to convince someone in some way to add a new device would a) be name to decrypt any old message intercepted and b) only be able to see new messages.
In that setup the only thing really lacking is being able to jointly check a contact (sender or recipient) key via a secondary channel and maybe TOFU it and displaying a warning when a contact key is added, changed, or revoked. You do get a warning for new devices added to your account but it could also apply to already added devices who unexpectedly get a new key.
Enabling backups in iCloud breaks perfect forward secrecy somewhat since the goal is being able to obtain the whole history, so an attacker managing to enroll a new device would presumably get the history. That said I also hear that this iCloud backup isn't zero-trust encrypted (technically it could be, think borg backup) but I'm really not sure about that.
> And uploading photos will quickly blow through your iCloud storage.
Not just that, it seems to do an absolutely terrible job at clearing the local cache, eating space like crazy and with no easy option to clear it: the settings app storage section is hopeless in that regard, Telegram's way of handling that manually plus the automated ones are muuuch more clear.
> For example, if you travel internationally with a different SIM card, iMessage doesn’t allow your main phone number to be used for iMessage any more.
I did not witness that when swapping SIM cards with new numbers: Messages popped up a dialog or something asking "keep using +XXXXXX" || "use +YYYYYY". I seem to recall I could even have both numbers for some time (IIRC there was a 2 week - or was it one month? - delay before a number is forcefully dropped out if you don't pop the SIM with that number back in). It was annoying the hell out of me as it was a short-lived number that was temporarily assigned while my real number was transferred between operators. My mistake though for tapping the wrong answer, but admittedly something there could use some improvement.
That was with local numbers though, the international story might be different? I would not expect that though as it would be truly an awful experience for international travelers that swap SIMs on non-multiSIM (eSIM+tray) iPhones.
And finally there's trust... it's completely closed and very hard to audit, but then again Apple owns the OS and hardware, so one could audit the app all they want, they have a much more potent vector for exfiltration.
[0] https://www.whatsapp.com/security/WhatsApp-Security-Whitepap...
That said, WhatsApp using the E2E Signal protocol is immaterial if they exfilter the locally stored private keys out to their servers, which is what the redaction of that line in the whitepaper we both linked (you directly, me via that Twitter link highlighting the diff) alludes to:
> At no time does the WhatsApp server has access to any of the client's private key.
Unless one checks every update of the client's code and the matching published reproducible binary output one can't be sure that keys (or any other data for that matter, since it has full access to anything decrypted) are not exfiltrated.
Now, that line deletion could be a subtle canary because law enforcement/state actor, or that could be Meta being nefarious following the cofounders departure, or anything in between. Either way I find it a worrisome signal that this specific line has been removed.
They don't do that.
Biggest issue with WA is the backup mechanism. You can encrypt it with a passphrase nowadays but AFAIK that's off by default, rendering E2E moot if either party backs it up to their Google Drive.
Also, being based in the UAE doesn't inspire confidence on the privacy and security front... Nor the fact they promised to release yearly transparency reports and then never did so... Or the fact Der Spiegel claims they have evidence of Telegram handing over user chats to authorities despite the fact telegrams FAQ claims they have never done so...
> Also, being based in the UAE doesn't inspire confidence on the privacy and security front...
Well the 5 eyes do not inspire confidence either, and that's where whatsapp is based.
And Apple has plans to automatically inform law enforcement from device scans. At least telegram client is open source so that is unlikely to happen on the client side directly.
You also lose talking to more than 1 person at the same time.
Also AFAIK Telegram has access to the plain text data from stickers so when they are downloaded by a person on a secret chat, everybody with server access can also figure a bit of the context of the conversation.
And everyone from all companies to which Telegram will sell the data once they figure that there is a good money to be made from it.
If they have the plain text data they can do whatever they want with it.
Seems legit, I see no reason whatsoever not to trust them completely at their word. No company has ever lied to anyone before after all.
factual statement is made by said company
doesn't elaborate
gigachad.jpg
No. Most people can't do that (because not everyone is a software developer).
Good luck trying to convince the general population that “the UX is bad but theoretically anyone can improve it” is better than what you get out of the box with other messengers.
Just do the change yourself. Help those people close to you to install Element alongside whatever they are using now. Even if just because they are using to talk with you, it's better than nothing.
You don't get to migrate things that are on huge network effects in one go. But we can help the growth of one network organically until it reaches critical mass.
I am not asking them to delete the other app, I am not asking them to join a religion. I am just asking them (and helping if necessary) to install an app and set up an account on my server.
I don't use either so I don't really care. I just don't expect a consumer service with subpar UI to win market share solely on technical merits.
That you don't care about open source and your freedoms is a good data point to help explain why open source projects lag behind proprietary ones.
Checking the box of ideals doesn't mean that open source software is off the hook in having to compete on features. Regular users do not give a rat's ass about source code being open; it's an extremely abstract concept if you're not in the field. All they care about is free as in beer. Matrix can either target the niche demographic of the highly technical, or it needs to level up on usability to reach a wide audience.
The number of people who have tried LibreOffice, Gimp, etc is probably orders of magnitude higher than the number of actual daily users. If these software applications were businesses, their exec teams would have been fired many times over for the atrocious churn. Free as in beer is an excellent foot in the door, but it's wasted time and again by huffy developers who don't know how to create good UX and who won't open the door to good product people who want to help out.
No one said that.
> Regular users do not give a rat's ass about source code being open
Open source or not, they should care about reliability, avoiding lock-in, abusive practices from monopolistic players, privacy...
> If these software applications were businesses, their exec teams would have been fired many times over for the atrocious churn.
If these applications were business, you'd also have to look at Cost of Customer Acquisition, at how much is being spent on marketing, you'd also have to see how much your developer team is being compensated, how much they are getting in shares, etc.
If the investment is zero, the ROI from FOSS will be by definition infinitely superior to closed solutions.
What I am trying to say is: TANSTAAFL. OP's seems to not care about his freedoms, so he is willing (like many others) to trade it away for the convenience brought by closed solutions. So it is no surprise that a FOSS project (which has no way to monetize the user to finance its development) will lag behind. This will only change when people start covering some of this difference and start supporting FOSS projects directly.
And there's your problem. Regular users do not give a rat's ass about your shoulds. In addition, for example, I've never seen any serious UX bugs in Telegram, and I've seen many in Element. Regular users care waaay more about that than some vague notion of "reliability".
They are not mine.
It's not my data that is being mined and it's not my business that can disappear if WhatsApp goes offline.
Yeah, I'm fully aware that people generally don't care about any of that. Lots of people also don't care about their eating habits, the effects of their economic actions, etc, etc. But if they don't want to face the bad consequences of their choices, they should.
I have no control over what others do. The only power I have is over my own choices.
> But at least you get to feel like you did the right thing, right?
I am more concerned about not doing the wrong thing (if I can avoid it) then any display of righteousness.
In the case, no one is forcing me to use WhatsApp, so if I can avoid being a participant in something that I believe to be hurtful to me and others, I will. The inconvenience is a small price to pay.
But it doesn't.
Your shoulds look an awful lot like a tribal affectation which the FOSS community uses to exclude non-technical users.
It doesn't matter if the exclusion is conscious (I suspect it isn't) or deliberate (likewise.)
The point is the exclusion happens. Self-evidently and empirically. Outside of the technical community FOSS might as well not exist.
If you actually want people to use FOSS you need to stop shoulding potential users and start making software that satisfies their needs in obvious and delightful ways.
Security and privacy are important but secondary features.
And access to source code trails at the end of the list. It's of zero interest - and even less use - to non-technical users.
Sorry, that is bullshit. Any FOSS enthusiast will gladly help other people, when there is a clear path to make the change. When I told my friends and family "I am not going to use WhatsApp anymore, but there is this program that we use instead", I went to help all of them that were interested. I didn't force them to choose between Element or WhatsApp, I just said "here is one alternative."
> Just as FOSS should produce high quality, usable, popular, free software.
I can bet FOSS beats proprietary solutions on any class on a dollar-per-unit-of-quality and even dollar-per-user-acquired metric.
> If you actually want people to use FOSS you need to stop shoulding potential users and start making software that satisfies their needs in obvious and delightful ways.
Everyone wants an unicorn. No one wants to pay for it. If we want developers to work on FOSS projects, we need to foment a marketplace that rewards FOSS developers.
"Oh, but I don't care about FOSS. I care about getting things done, or less inconveniences, etc"
Fine, then enjoy your shit sandwich that is called "Big Tech".
I'm not a marketing person, but for example, take advantage of these kind of events to let people know that Matrix's network is impossible to go down like this because it works like e-mail.
Reiterate the point that Whatsapp is part of Facebook's network. So, your Whatsapp account is under Facebook's control just like your Facebook account. Matrix accounts work like e-mail addresses. You choose a provider for your account, and you can always choose a different one without losing access to the network.
Present these kinds of talking points to the actual mainstream. Advertise on Youtube, go on TV... maybe people care less about the UX than we think.
That makes sense for unfunded projects because most developers are not good designers, and designers don't have a culture of contributing to open source, but for a project that pays (some of) its developers, it's their choice how much to pay developers vs designers vs managers, and they are responsible for the way in which they allocate their limited resources.
I recently had to move my open source project's chat from Gitter to Discord, not because we like Discord or "don't care about open source" but because everyone is so damn tired of Gitter's terrible UX that it became the overriding concern.
Matrix bought Gitter two years ago, and I kept waiting, hoping that they would improve it, but they did literally nothing to it except connect it to Matrix within a couple months – and even that doesn't work well, with Matrix users still unable to respond in threads.
I assume there is a good reason for that. I'm not here to judge, only to point out that this "good reason", whether it's lack of funding or priorities or whatever – won't change anytime soon, so I won't be holding my breath anymore.
We spelt out the good reason in the original blog post: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/09/30/welcoming-gitter-to-matri...
> However: in the medium/long term, it’s simply not going to be efficient for the combined Element/Gitter team to split our efforts maintaining two high-profile Matrix clients. Our plan is instead to merge Gitter’s features into Element (or next generations of Element) itself and then - if and only if Element has achieved parity with Gitter based on the above list - we expect to upgrade the deployment on gitter.im to a Gitter-customised version of Element. The inevitable side-effect is that we’ll be adding new features to Element rather than Gitter going forwards.
We’re almost at the point of being able to switch Gitter over to being a branded Element.
Apparently, that has not been a priority in many years.
Matrix/Element is so far behind usability/features that it's really only used by people that favor decentralization/openess at the expense of actual users.