this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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Privacy
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Not third but another one out of many. Incidents that don't really mean the app is not secure.
You can see from the article that Telegram would have to give up on a basic feature expected from similar apps in order to fix that "issue" with public groups.
Again, it's the public communication features that lead to such issues, and I expect any other app to have very same "issues" if they introduce similar features and make them useful enough for protesters to try to rely on them when fighting against oppressive governments.
You can't expect messengers like these to be a proper instrument for protesters that makes them safe. These public groups need to grow to become effective, and apps specifically aimed for protesters would not have enough user base. Still, Telegram is the most used app by protesters from what I see, and it does provide adequate level of protection if you use it correctly (if you understand how it works).
So it doesn't like to be open enough for others to do what they want with it. Still, one shouldn't expect it to work anyway. If you make your client open source, there will be forks that allow communicating with your servers. You'd have to introduce a black box, and open source community won't like that.
Signal seems to do quite enough of useless stuff. People rate it more secure than Telegram. One of reasons for that is that it supports e2e encryption in group chats. But it's useless when comparing to all the issues with Telegram, already because it's always about public groups. Let me see how Signal would protect people in such groups while staying in scope of private communication app.
Nah, actually: "if a public service uses servers, then it is never secure". Any service will handle all the data they have if pressured. Servers have to know your IP address (though you can always use proxies) and phone number at least to provide service at all. You can't really blame owners of public service. You could blame them if their service was serverless though, because that would mean they store something they shouldn't need to operate.
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Contacts sync.
What? No. It just didn't tell them they have to use their own servers to use their forks.
No, it speaks to how no big developer can do anything to prevent their apps from being banned by oppressive governments. Hence why opposition resorted to 3rd party forks.
Telegram has experience of trying to protect people when they oppose governments. Signal is not interested in getting any similar experience. It will remain useless to opposition it seems.
Signal would have to store the same data to allow users participate in public groups.
I don't think Telegram ever disclosed anything like that. Public groups are open for everyone including governments. Any service that is not serverless will store the same amount of metadata, otherwise it won't work.
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This is useless when groups are public.
And when groups are not public, there is no ground for any action from the service.
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This argument will have some weight if you can provide examples where telegram shared some information about private groups with someone unauthorized.
I'm not shilling. Just pointing out obvious differences in products' features that one has to take into account when judging about app developer's "wrongdoings".
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It is you who refuses to take logical steps to agree that every single app with the same feature set will be vulnerable to governments' decisions. Signal is not a subject of that only because it does not provide such features and therefore is not used by protesters.
Yes, telegram knows all your private groups. But you are missing everything by assuming it is bad for you. You will be arrested not because telegram will disclose your private groups. You will be arrested because some person will join your private group and leak your presence there. That person will not need to get any information from Telegram for that. This is not an issue a service could solve by any encryption.
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Could you prove that? More specifically, I need proof that it allows public groups for protesters to gain mass and protect their identifies adequately at all times.
It does need that. Signal stores this information too. Just because it's encrypted doesn't mean it will not be handled to someone against your will.
I don't know, maybe because I can't imagine why even the most insane government would come up with laws that would allow it to ask internet services something like "hey there is this person, please provide some data of their activity on your service" instead of just capturing that person and making them spill out everything themselves. If you are at the point where your groups are disclosed this won't be the result of government's requests to some service. It'll be the starting point for those.
I wouldn't.
Signal's way to "not have problems" is to avoid users who could bring them.
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And why should I accept your reframing when you try to compare signal to telegram?
I see, signal wants to keep its servers free from content. Cool. This automatically means groups can't accept new members and allow them seeing all the previously posted content. This is what protests use to grow. So signal can't be used to grow protest groups. Only fixed groups would use it to do stuff they want, and "making more people join the protest" would not be on list. They will need to resort to other methods to spread infornation if they wanted to grow. Protesters groups that don't want to grow are not what I could consider a real protest.
Protest is a public movement. It will not be effective when it's private or wants to keep its members anonymous. This is basically what oppressive governments are fine with, so signal helps them in a way.
What led to telegram's "wrongdoings" would not be possible if it did not provide public communication. Signal doesn't provide it either so they'd have to use a different platform. That would lead to the same consequences.
Affected people could use private groups in telegram to avoid issues. But then it would not be what they wanted, and their actions would not be impactful enough (without other platform capable of public communication) for government to get interested in them.
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Up until you allow to join that one member that will leak every single thing you wanted to keep private.
Not sure my English skill is enough to understand this sentence.
Who exactly gave anyone first class access to anything?
This is like saying that an email provider has access to your emails. Not even trying to argue with the rest of implications. So what? You're still avoiding the point. No service can protect you from the real world. You must avoid real world issues yourself. By either using private features of apps, or by not participating in public communication, or by using apps that prevent you from participating in public communication etc.
Someone cut a hand with a saw when cutting a board. You saw that and thought "that saw manufacturer is at fault, I'd better use a saw from another manufacturer". What's happening really is you choosing a knife over a saw. Also it's very probable that people like you are not ever going to try to cut a board. That's what choosing signal looks like to me. I'm not judging you for choosing a knife or for avoiding boards, but it's worth it to understand the differences.