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Re:Telegram’s Cryptanalysis Contest by xerophtye on Friday December 20, 2013 @04:59AM (#6940704)
With all the publicity TextSecure is getting from all this Telegram Debacle, I am beginning to suspect telegram isn't even a real company, and just a very elaborate publicity stunt by Moxie and the rest of the TextSecure team!! :P
Re:Telegram’s Cryptanalysis Contest by vitalyny on Friday December 20, 2013 @09:00AM (#6941365)
By the comments it seems that most of the active haters of Telegram are TextSecure team. Yes, they want publicity and funding - and who doesn't?
Re:Telegram’s Cryptanalysis Contest by chris_wot on Friday December 20, 2013 @09:16AM (#6941466)
"Haters" is a very emotive term. There is no real hate I can detect form the TextSecure team. They have just pointed out flaws and why they feel that the solution is flawed.

You wouldn't be associated with Telegram, by any chance?

Re:Telegram’s Cryptanalysis Contest by vitalyny on Friday December 20, 2013 @09:38AM (#6941548)
Alright, haters is probaby a too strong term. TextSecure team pointed out flaws in the first topic about Telegram on HN and these flaws were answered by Telegram team: they updated FAQ, they commented in twitter and here on HN. Every post with Telegram's flaws explicitly mentions TextSecure as an alternative, and that is suspicious - they seem to find it a great way to get publicity.
Re:Telegram’s Cryptanalysis Contest by jaxb on Friday December 20, 2013 @09:51AM (#6941603)
So are you associated with telegram, just to be clear?
Re:Telegram’s Cryptanalysis Contest by vitalyny on Friday December 20, 2013 @10:09AM (#6941693)
Sorry I didn't respond to that. No, I'm not associated with Telegram in any way. And I'm not crypto professional :)

I totally understand what Telegram critics are saying, but in every article there's always a note "Please use TextSecure, don't use Telegram". By how it looks, it seems to be a way to market TextSecure and not to discover Telegram's security flaws. And critics rarely respond to Telegram team's comments where they say that the claims are wrong.

Re:Telegram’s Cryptanalysis Contest by B-Con on Friday December 20, 2013 @12:24PM (#6942576)
> but in every article there's always a note "Please use TextSecure, don't use Telegram".

This is very common in the security field.

Good crypto/security software is often not very straight-forward for the public to find. They're usually run by competent developers doing the work for free and don't tend to have big PR budgets or do a lot of advertising. The product is findable, but they can be overshadowed by snake-oil products that focus on the business aspects.

Whenever a security project or service is attacked as insecure, the natural question is "what do you use instead?", particularly if the functionality was niche or unique. It's just a part of the community that an alternative good one is recommended. We try to avoid saying "don't use X" and instead say "don't use X, but do use Y".

Yes, it helps Y piggie-back a bit off the popularity of X, but that's Y's fault being being bad enough to be disparaged. It isn't just the TextSecure team doing this, it's everyone who cares about this type of service.

Re:Telegram’s Cryptanalysis Contest by xerophtye on Monday December 23, 2013 @12:48AM (#6953252)
>Yes, it helps Y piggie-back a bit off the popularity of X, but that's Y's fault being being bad enough to be disparaged.

Correction: Yes, it helps Y piggie-back a bit off the popularity (or notoriety) of X, but that's X's fault being being bad enough to be disparaged.

Re:Telegram’s Cryptanalysis Contest by girvo on Friday December 20, 2013 @12:09PM (#6942453)
TextSecure is in my (and that of crypto professionals who opinions I respect immensely) opinion the best secure messaging app on the market today -- and what they've achieved is a very difficult thing to do, as Telegram sort of shows. It's not about "hating" one or the other, this is maths and trust. TextSecure has proven maths and has spent a lot of time and effort (and open sourced their code) to build that trust and address all the issues these types of apps face.

When you're dealing with a market that can have literal life or death consequences, you go with something proven. That's why everyone touts it instead.

Re:Telegram’s Cryptanalysis Contest by onedev on Friday December 20, 2013 @10:03AM (#6941654)
#teamtelegram #teamtextsecure

Come on guys we can make this a thing...like the Twilight series.