Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
[Matrix/Element]Dead
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Well, except Telegram isn't a good tool for privacy.
There is no E2EE. Simple encryption is only available for 1:1 chats and disabled by default. Telegram doesn't disclose their encryption methods, so there is no way to verify the (in)effectiveness. Telegram is able to block channels from their end, so there is no privacy from their end either.
Well, except Telegram isn’t a good tool for privacy.
That's not the point. The hunting down on tools and their creators (and on our right to privacy) is the issue here. At least, imho.
It has nothing to do with privacy. Telegram is an old-school social network in that it doesn't even require that you register to view the content pages. It's also a social network taken to the extreme of free speech absolutism in that it doesn't mind people talking openly about every kind of crime and their use of its tools to make it easier to obtain the related services. All that with no encryption at all.
Free speech is good. Government regulated speech is bad.
free speech can be good. free speech can also be bad. overall, it’s more good than bad however society seems to agree that free speech has limits - you can’t defame someone, for example
free speech absolutism is fucking dumb; just like most other absolutist stances
this also isn’t even about free speech - this is about someone having access to information requested by investigators to solve crimes, and then refusing to give that information
This is pure nonsense.
Western governments hate Telegram because until now Telegram didn't cooperate with Western intelligence services like American social media companies do. Everything on Meta or Google gets fed into NSA, but Telegram has been uncooperative.
This will likely change after Durov's arrest, but it was nice while it lasted.
Questionable interpretation. Privacy doesn't mean mathematically proven privacy. A changing booth in a store provides privacy but it's only private because the store owner agreed to not monitor it (and in many cases is required by law not to monitor it).
Effectively what you and the original commenter are saying (collectively) is that mathematically proven privacy is the only privacy that matters for the Internet. Operators that do not mathematically provide privacy should just do whatever government officials ask them to do.
We only have the French government's word to go off of right now. Maybe Telegram's refusals are totally unreasonable but maybe they're not.
A smarter route probably would've been to fight through the court system in France on a case by case level rather than ignore prosecutors (assuming the French narrative is the whole story). Still, I think this is all murkier than you'd like to think.
It's a street, not a changing booth. Also, I'm familiar with every charge against Durov and I personally have seen the illegal content I talked about. If it's so easily accessible to the public and persists for years, it has nothing to do with privacy and there is no moderation - though his words also underscore the latter.
Who said it's a street? What makes it a street?
personally have seen the illegal content I talked about.
Did you seek it out? I and nobody I know personally, have ever encountered anything like what was described on that platform and I've been on it for years.
Was it the same "channel" or "group chat" that persisted for years?
What gives them the right or responsibility to moderate a group chat or channel more than say Signal or Threema? Just because their technical back end lets them?
I mean by that argument Signal could do client side scanning on everything (that's an enforcement at the platform level that fits their technical limitations). Is that where we're at? "If you can figure out how to violate privacy in the name of looking for illegal content, you should."
Nothing Telegram offers is equivalent to the algorithmic feeds that require moderation like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, everything you have to seek out.
Make no mistake, I'm not defending the content. The people who used the platform to share that content should be arrested. However, I'm not sure I agree with the moral dichotomy we've gotten ourselves into where e.g., the messenger is legally responsible for refusing service to people doing illegal activity.
I won't go into the specific channels as to not promote them or what they do but we can talk about one known example, which is how Bellingcat got to the FSB officers responsible for the poisoning of Navalny via their mobile phone call logs and airline ticket data. They used the two highly popular bots called H****a and the E** ** G**, which allow to get everything known to the government and other social networks on every citizen of Russia for about $1 to $5. They use the Telegram API and have been there for years. How do you moderate that? You don't. You take it down as the illegal, privacy-violating, and doxing-enabling content that it is.
Edit: "Censored" the names of the bots, as I still don't want to make them even easier to find.
which is how Bellingcat got to the FSB officers responsible for the poisoning of Navalny via their mobile phone call logs and airline ticket data
Was that a bad thing? I've never heard the name Bellingcat before, but it sounds like this would've been partially responsible for the reporting about the Navalny poisoning?
They used the two highly popular bots called Ha and the E ** G, which allow to get everything known to the government and other social networks on every citizen of Russia for about $1 to $5.
Ultimately, that sounds like an issue the Russian government needs to fix. Telegram bots are also trivial to launch and duplicate so ... actually detecting and shutting that down without it being a massive expensive money pit is difficult.
It's easy to say "oh they're hosting it, they should just take it down."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/16/postal-service-preferred-shipper-drug-dealers/
Should the US federal government hold themselves liable for delivering illegal drugs via their own postal service? I mean there's serious nuance in what's reasonable liability for a carrier ... and personally holding the CEO criminally liable is a pretty extreme instance of that.
I am going to quote myself here:
The issue I see with Telegram is that they retain a certain control over the content on their platform, as they have blocked channels in the past. That's unlike for example Signal, which only acts as a carrier for the encrypted data.
If they have control over what people are able to share via their platform, the relevant laws should apply, imho.
I am going to quote myself here:
Allow me to quote myself too, then:
That’s not the point.
I do not disagree with your remarks (I do not use Telegram), I simply consider it's not the point or that it should not be.
Obviously, laws should be enforced. What those laws are and how they are used to erode some stuff that were considered fundamental rights not so long ago is the sole issue, once again, im(v)ho ;)
It IS the point. If Telegram was designed and set up as a pure carrier of encrypted information, no one could/should fault them for how the service is used.
However, this is not the case, and they are able to monitor and control the content that is shared. This means they have a moral and legal responsibility to make sure the service is used in accordance with the law.
The point is that if you're going to keep blackmail, you have to share with the government.
The easy answer is to stop keeping blackmail.
Telegram’s “privacy” is fully based on people trusting them not to share their data - to which Telegram has full access - with anyone. Well, apart from the optional E2EE “secret chat” option with non-standard encryption methods that can only be used for one on one conversations. If it were an actual privacy app, like Signal, they could’ve cooperated with authorities without giving away chat contents and nobody would’ve been arrested. I’m a Telegram user myself and I from a usability standpoint I really like it, but let’s be realistic here: for data safety I would pick another option.
Telegram is not a privacy tool.
I mean, if he's convicted for a privacy tool, while it's not a privacy tool, we have a bit of ambiguity.
Arguably advertising something which is not a privacy tool as one is fraud. Maybe even phishing, since TG the company has in plaintext all the chat history of its users.
And this
The meaning of that word “complicity” seems to be revealed by the last three charges: Telegram has been providing users a “cryptology tool” unauthorised by French regulators.
in non-libertarian language means something similar, that is, that something not confirmed to be a privacy tool is being provided as a privacy tool.
I am a libertarian, but in this case they are consistent, if I'm reading this correctly. They are not abusing power, they are doing exactly what they are claiming to be doing.
Also maybe I'm just tired of Telegram. It's engaging, and I have AuDHD, which means lots of energy spent, and I can't drop it completely because work, and also some small communities are available as TG channels. Would be wonderful were they to move at least to WhatsApp, but it is what it is.
Still, ability to easily create a blog (what a TG channel really is for its users) reachable without bullshit is a niche in huge demand. LJ filled that at some point, Facebook did at another, TG does now.
Something like this is desperately needed. I'd say the solution should be complementary to Signal - that is, DMs and small groups should not be its thing. Neither should be privacy of huge chats and channels - they'd be public anyway. However, anonymity with means to counter spam should, so should be metadata of user activity.
The crime is not responding to authorities when obviously illegal content such as CSAM is posted. Don't let the right try to spin this as a free speech thing. It's not.
Other encrypted platforms: we have no data so we can't turn over data
Telegram: we collect it all. No you can't know who is posting child abuse content
It's clearly wrong. Matrix does have non-encrypted channels and honestly most of publicly accessible channels are non-encrypted. Do you consider matrix also on the Dame "bucket" as telegram? In matrix you can created encrypted channels but they work very badly in terms of performance with huge number of people like 1000+
We still don't have a legal definition of "hate speech". Yes it's defined it is what it is, you can't find any international legal definition and it's left to the interpretation of judges. Don't you consider it worrying?
About crime, as far as I know, child abuse and sex content is taken down. Drugs not - there are many countries with very lax drugs policies.
I didn't comment on hate speech. I commented on CSAM, which the sources I've read and listened to (podcasts) say Telegram pretty much never answered when contacted.
Well, I didn't see child pornography on telegram but I saw sex channels being removed. Comparing to Instagram, I didn't see happening this on Instagram. Minor soft pornography is flourishing on Instagram. CSAM or terrorism is always a case brought up to take some unpopular things down
CSAM or terrorism is always a case brought up to take some unpopular things down
I'll concede this point.
Where my piracy groups going to go now?
I'll miss their 2gb upload cap
Honestly this could go to ways. I really hope people more to more secure platforms but it is possible they find something equally as problematic