- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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As long as the keys are handled via a closed source app and server system, e2ee is potentially broken.
Even if you generated the key, keep the private part locally and submitted only the public part to your communication partner, you can never be sure that the intransparent app does keep your private key private.
With WhatsApp I’m quite sure that they somehow can retrieve the private key. Certain events point to that. But I see no reason to consider signal or telegram any more trustworthy - they are all prone to governmental influence.
And as open source and closed app infrastructure are incompatible, I would not handle anything important on an Android or Apple device.
Better than WhatsApp at least
As in “with WhatsApp we know, with others we cannot exclude the possibility”?
Security doesn’t equal private.
I try not to be repetitive with the astronaut meme, but they don’t help. Here we go:
Tried to sign up once, but it wanted my real phone number and a fake one from a temp SMS site wouldn’t work. Private messaging? Sure, Jan.
More people need to understand this, Telegram was never trustworthy to begin with.
In the same class as any app store based communication software.
They spent years lying about their encryption algorithms too acting like they’re more secure than Signal when they never were
Signal cares so much about your privacy that they need your phone number.
Privacy ≠ anonominity.
Supposedly to combat spam (which makes sense) and some BS about bringing your social network.
But let’s think about this logically. What can they do with your phone number when they don’t know who you are?
Let’s say they receive a subpoena from a government law enforcement entity. That would have to include your phone number and even then what can they give that entity? The date you registered the number and the last time your account was active?
At best my guess is that you and others who bring this up are worried about the information that you can buy from data brokers that would include a phone number and allow someone with the phone number to link it to a person.
But at that point law enforcement already knows the number, already has likely used to same services to link that number to a human, and since most people haven’t de-googled or use an iPhone they likely know what apps are installed. Including signal.
What is the threat profile that should be worried about this?
Please note that I don’t think they should need to require a phone number and if you don’t want that you can use a different service.
But I’d like someone to elaborate on their reasons for objecting to this.
I ended up wanting an online pseudonymous identity as well as an offline real-life identity, which leads to needing multiple phone numbers when things are tied to said number. That’s extremely annoying to manage, especially with Signal’s current activity and update policies that essentially require you to keep a phone in a drawer, charge it and log into it every so often or risk losing your entire account due to inactivity, as only the mobile device counts for that purpose (this might supposedly be changing).
In that particular scenario, I don’t really care if my least-favorite three-letter-agency or law enforcement can link my identities. It’s a nice bonus if they can’t, but not an absolutely required feature. The main worry is the person on the other end trivially learning it. But the person on the other end might have a different set of worries that makes Signal one of the few available options for them.
That said, Telegram also requires a phone number and has exactly the same issue, so this is a rather weird thread to bring that up.
Every since the CEO of Telegram was basically lured to Paris, arrested, then read the riot act for Telegram’s non-cooperation with French authorities, the company has been responding to warrants and downplaying its “E2EE” features. Expect them to have a fully accessible backdoor for LE.
By the way, don’t forget about that Bitlocker backdoor that “mysteriously” doesn’t affect Windows 10.
The EU and US digital surveillance states have been tightening their grip on encryption and online anonymity for years now. “Age verification” is just the latest push.
I can only assume there’s a different backdoor for 10 that just hasn’t been published. Even if there isn’t, Windows defaults to backing the key up to the attached Microsoft account. You think they’d ever tell intelligence agencies to come back with a warrant for that?
Just use Veracrypt folks.
Why not mention that “Secret Chats” aren’t that safe either?
Just like any app-store based software.
Signal (assuming you live in a country that hasn’t blacklisted them for refusing to install backdoors).
Signal still doesn’t support bots and is shit for bigger groups
Good for 1-10 friends and 1on1 chats tho
Matrix, Session, SimpleX chat, Tox chat, Jami… and so on.
Session EoL this July.
Clash of Clans
it is not hosted in the US or a country affiliated with the US, which makes it infinitepy more secure from the point of view of sovereign risk
The Telegram servers are in Miami, Amsterdam, and Singapore, so some data is still stored in the U.S.
In any case, it wouldn’t be any better to have data stored in a country like China or Russia.
Chinese and Russian authorities can’t steal me from my home and imprison and torture me for the rest of my life
No, but they do that to plenty of their own citizens.
Better something from a non-authoritarian country that doesn’t also happen to be in the Five Eyes intelligence network.
Oh, you mean the guys who were obviously such criminals they were run out of Russia and Europe and had to settle on being headquarted in Dubai?
Oh the guys who instead of doing something thoughtful like Mullvad and having RAM only servers with no logs, they just hide all their datacenters behind shell companies to avoid complying with legal subpoenas? That’s not completely shady at all, nope.
I mean, it’s not like Matrix or SimpleX chat or others that actually are secure (-ish, even Matrix leaks metadata!) and thoughtfully designed and open source that you can self host or don’t need servers or are incorporated in Europe (like Telegram tried to incorporate initially before settling on Dubai).
Oh and don’t forget France had very good reasons to arrest Pavel Durov, co-creator of Telegram. He went on Tucker Carlson to defend himself, which says it all, really.
