I lost my Telegram account when I lost my phone number so it’s difficult to take the argument about backups and message histories seriously. Apps like Telegram seem nice until you realize you’re at the whims of your phone company when it comes to a third-party app’s sensitive data.
I’ve also used Signal in OSL and HEL without trouble, pretty sure I’ve used it in other international airports too. (However, HEL’s wifi blocked my bank, which was a bit stressful when I discovered I had left “regional blocking” on for my credit card and couldn’t pay for the train ticket!)
Instead, we rely on our own distributed cross-jurisdictional encrypted cloud storage which we believe is much more protected than what megacorporations like Google and Apple can offer.
Presumably Telegram has a couple of orders of magnitude less resources to protect against hackers than Google or Apple. So even though they may be able to protect against requests from agencies, they’re probably also vulnerable to being hacked and message histories leaked (probably much more vulnerable than Google/Apple, although maybe they’re also a proportionally less valuable target).
IANAL, but does it really follow that because they distribute data between data centres in multiple countries that they’re exempt from complying with law enforcement requests from any single country? According to Wikipedia(*) they have both English and US legal entities. Doesn’t that mean that law enforcement in those countries can ask them for things that they have access to? How does that kind of thing work?
I don’t see any good reason one would use closed-source advertiser-controlled insecure-by-default messenger apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Fbm for new chats. We have multiple excellent secure-by-default apps run by at least somewhat trustworthy parties, like Wire and Signal.
Telegram’s client-side code is open-source software but contains binary blobs, and the source code for recent versions is not always immediately published, whereas its server-side code is closed-source and proprietary.
I lost my Telegram account when I lost my phone number so it’s difficult to take the argument about backups and message histories seriously. Apps like Telegram seem nice until you realize you’re at the whims of your phone company when it comes to a third-party app’s sensitive data.
Side note: If you relying on this class of messaging apps…. international airports seem to be blocking them on all wifi hotspots.
Odd. I don’t use Telegram, but I’ve used Signal in a bunch of international airports (in Asia & Europe) this year.
I wonder what exactly is being blocked? Uncommon TCP ports?
I’ve also used Signal in OSL and HEL without trouble, pretty sure I’ve used it in other international airports too. (However, HEL’s wifi blocked my bank, which was a bit stressful when I discovered I had left “regional blocking” on for my credit card and couldn’t pay for the train ticket!)
Do you have any sources? I use Telegram quite a lot and would like know if I travel somewhere where it is blocked
Presumably Telegram has a couple of orders of magnitude less resources to protect against hackers than Google or Apple. So even though they may be able to protect against requests from agencies, they’re probably also vulnerable to being hacked and message histories leaked (probably much more vulnerable than Google/Apple, although maybe they’re also a proportionally less valuable target).
IANAL, but does it really follow that because they distribute data between data centres in multiple countries that they’re exempt from complying with law enforcement requests from any single country? According to Wikipedia(*) they have both English and US legal entities. Doesn’t that mean that law enforcement in those countries can ask them for things that they have access to? How does that kind of thing work?
(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(messaging_service)#Development
I don’t see any good reason one would use closed-source advertiser-controlled insecure-by-default messenger apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Fbm for new chats. We have multiple excellent secure-by-default apps run by at least somewhat trustworthy parties, like Wire and Signal.
Legitimately curious here: isn’t telegram open source and not backed by an advertiser? Or did something change that recently?
According to Wiki,
Is it true WA, using Axolotl and all that, ends up storing unencrypted backups? This should be easily verifiable to someone in the know-how.
Does anyone have more on this?
via WhatsApp FAQ
At least they’re not backed up on Facebook, but dumping an unencrypted copy does still severely negate the point of encryption.
Unfortunately nobody I know uses Telegram so I’m stuck with whatsapp.