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Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by Sakos on Saturday May 25, 2024 @03:24AM (#40473254)
Stop with the astroturfing. Telegram is significantly worse in all of these points and is run by a thoroughly untrustworthy company. We literally have no idea who makes Telegram or what their credentials are that make them qualified to make a chat app where encryption is supposed to be the "core" feature.

Signal is secure. Telegram isn't. Stop trying to muddy the waters.

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by hulitu on Saturday May 25, 2024 @04:00AM (#40473414)
> We literally have no idea who makes [insert your favourite chat program here] or what their credentials are that make them qualified to make a chat app where encryption is supposed to be the "core" feature

It is the same for all.

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by teruakohatu on Saturday May 25, 2024 @03:28AM (#40473274)
> Stop with the astroturfing. Telegram is significantly worse in all of these points and is run by a thoroughly untrustworthy company.

I didn’t mention Telegram or any other client. Please read HN guidelines:

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by ohmyiv on Saturday May 25, 2024 @04:25AM (#40473532)
And this one too:

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email [email protected] and we'll look at the data.

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by dclowd9901 on Saturday May 25, 2024 @03:52AM (#40473378)
TBF, I’ve just read multiple pages of bio and I’m still unsure what qualifications Whittaker has to be president of Signal (or previously such a senior position at Google), apart from a firebrand approach to tech issues.

She has a bachelor’s degree in “rhetoric” and a few papers whose titles read like buzzfeed articles.

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by not_me_ever on Saturday May 25, 2024 @03:34AM (#40473294)
We don't know if telegram is secure or not.

We do know that signal is lying: - About it's code being open source - About it's protocol being open - About it's funding - About it's massive white washing campaigns in forums - About smear campaigns against and harassment of journalists who dare to look into them

We do know that signal is probably insecure if(!) - It is actually based on the original white paper - It is actually using any of the code they released ages ago

There have been major security incidents with apps using the signal protocol, e.g. WhatsApp.

Who is the one doing the astroturfing?

You might not like the facts, but that doesn't change them.

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by lou1306 on Saturday May 25, 2024 @03:42AM (#40473332)
> We don't know if telegram is secure or not.

I don't have anything against Telegram personally, but that sentence is by all intents and purposes equivalent to "Telegram is not secure".

Meanwhile, every person I have met at my past affiliations who did research in security was using Signal as their main IM app. Blind trust is always bad, but I don't think that crowd was using it just for cargo-culting.

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by jolux on Saturday May 25, 2024 @03:39AM (#40473316)
Signal apps and server are all on GitHub and frequently updated, for what it's worth: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS.
Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by hulitu on Saturday May 25, 2024 @04:02AM (#40473425)
Frequent updates are not a sign of security. They are more like: Move fast, break things.
Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by jolux on Saturday May 25, 2024 @04:52AM (#40473677)
I was responding to

> code they released ages ago

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by not_me_ever on Sunday May 26, 2024 @10:50AM (#40482592)
And none of that code can be converted to something that is even close to the published app. They might as well just release the source code for the firmware of a fridge.
Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by palata on Saturday May 25, 2024 @03:42AM (#40473331)
> We don't know if telegram is secure or not.

Last time I checked, everything but the secret chats was not E2EE. So for the most part, it's effectively not secure. For the secret chats you're right, we don't know.

> signal is lying: - About it's code being open source

I compile and run Signal from the sources...

> About it's protocol being open

Are you talking about the Signal protocol here?

> We do know that signal is probably insecure if(!) - It is actually based on the original white paper

Can you elaborate on that?

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by not_me_ever on Sunday May 26, 2024 @11:00AM (#40482679)
"We don't know if telegram is secure or not."

The point was: This is a discussion about Signal, not Telegram.

But by now we have gotten pretty used to deflecting every discussion about "is Signal secure" to "look behind you, a three headed monkey" or rather to "but telegram is not secure, because all Russians are stupid".

"I compile and run Signal from the sources..." Yes, so you get a messaging app that might be secure, while 99.999% of users use the one from the store which very likely comes from a completely different source.

"The original whitepaper" Just use you favourite search engine, we have been over this dozens of times by now. If you understand security I would start here: https://cs.nyu.edu/~afb383/publication/uc_signal/uc_signal.p... If not -- it probably takes 15-25 years to teach you.

Very rough, and simplified: "Double Ratchet has some very strong preconditions which have never been addressed by signal, and probably never been implemented by anybody." (Please, don't quote me on that, it's very dumbed down.)

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by palata on Sunday May 26, 2024 @05:18PM (#40485472)
> "We don't know if telegram is secure or not."

I did not write that, were you answering to me?

> Yes, so you get a messaging app that might be secure

I was answering to... well to what I quoted: "signal is lying: - About it's code being open source". So it is obviously open source enough that I can compile it from sources.

> "The original whitepaper"

I did not write this either, were you answering to me? I am a little confused.

Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by quadhome on Saturday May 25, 2024 @03:36AM (#40473301)
What major security incidents?
Re:Signal's Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash by asmor on Saturday May 25, 2024 @03:44AM (#40473339)
We definitely know Telegram is not secure, because it doesn't encrypt chats by default, and I have never seen anyone turn the encryption on.

Doesn't help the encryption is very badly designed, possibly on purpose: https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/