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Is Telegram really an encrypted messaging app?
(blog.cryptographyengineering.com)
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this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2024
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If Telegram is considered an encrypted messenger, then FB messenger should be too. Works exactly the same. I don’t know about you, but being the same level as FB messenger should speak volumes to whether Telegram is “encrypted” or not 🙄
Facebook licensed Signal's encryption: https://signal.org/blog/facebook-messenger/
Yeah, the fact that FB messenger uses Signal protocol, means the encryption is better recognized than the one used in Telegram. But the lack of on-by-default or the need to drill in a few options before enabling secret chats.. I mean it’s even named the same thing as Telegram.
MTProto 2 has not been cracked. MTProto 1 had a weakness and Telegram addressed it. That was many years ago. I'm not aware that MTProto 2 has ever been cracked in all these years. Telegram's unwillingness to cooperate with governments is an additional security layer.
In my OP, I was merely referring to how FB Messenger and Telegram functions the same.
Speaking to the protocol used for encryption is a moot point… because even if MTProto 2 was better, it’s still not enabled by default in both messengers.
What's important is that it hasn't been confirmed good by actual normal cryptographers. It's science, not school debates.
No person ever instructed in security would say something this childishly asinine!
Why not?
I dunno. It's just not.
Shows like "we have a reward to crack it, nobody's done this, so we're very cool" are not sufficient.
It doesn't matter what Facebook or WhatsApp say they use, their source code is closed, you can't prove their words, meaning they don't have e2ee. You can with Signal, you can with Telegram.
Telegram needs to enable e2ee by default, cause the way it is now, you may as well not have it.
But strangely only one is being prosecuted.
I suspect that’s because Telegram’s marketing and it’s users consistently try to place Telegram in the same categories as actually secure and encrypted messengers. Whereas I don’t see tech blogs claiming that FB messenger is secure.
That's ridiculous, Telegram client is opensource, Facebook is not. We know for a fact that Facebook shares their data with... well, anyone. The reason of the recent arrest of the Telegram CEO seems to be that he apparently doesn't share anything.
I mean that is a fair point. But open source client only matters if people were using Telegram’s secret chats consistently. The closed source server is what’s most important when almost all communication happens plain text.
Then is not than
Good catch 🫡