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Signal Founder Moxie Marlinspike: Telegram is not private. There is nothing private about it. They've done a really amazing job of convincing the world that this is an encrypted messaging app (cdn.imgchest.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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“Telegram is not a private messenger. There’s nothing private about it. It’s the opposite. It’s a cloud messenger where every message you’ve ever sent or received is in plain text in a database that Telegram the organization controls and has access to it”

“It’s like a Russian oligarch starting an unencrypted version of WhatsApp, a pixel for pixel clone of WhatsApp. That should be kind of a difficult brand to operate. Somehow, they’ve done a really amazing job of convincing the whole world that this is an encrypted messaging app and that the founder is some kind of Russian dissident, even though he goes there once a month, the whole team lives in Russia, and their families are there.”

" What happened in France is they just chose not to respond to the subpoena. So that’s in violation of the law. And, he gets arrested in France, right? And everyone’s like, oh, France. But I think the key point is they have the data, like they can respond to the subpoenas where as Signal, for instance, doesn’t have access to the data and couldn’t respond to that same request.  To me it’s very obvious that Russia would’ve had a much less polite version of that conversation with Pavel Durov and the telegram team before this moment"

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[–] 20 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Yes, but how would you know Meta doesn't have a copy of your encryption key (ex: when you sign up) and keeps a copy of your encrypted messages somewhere?
AFAIK your encryption key resides as whatsapp's data folder but since whatsapp is closed-source you can't guarantee that whatsapp gave the encryption key to Meta's server at some point when it was created; (or it was created on their servers and sent to your device.)

One would just assume the encryption key is made on your device and never sent to Meta and all the E2EE messages aren't kept on Meta's server after they are sent.

Again, Meta is a company that is profiting on targeted advetising and selling user data, how would whatsapp be a free service without any profit?

Also, Here's someone who saw their whatsapp chat used for targeted ads on them in case you have doubt.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago* (1 child)
    1. I can't find a link to this but I'm sure I've read an article about what happens when you "report" a message someone sent to you in WhatsApp. In this case some reviewer at Meta will look at your message and determine if it violated the rules. IIRC the article talked about them most likely being added to the chat but not visible.
    2. There's a recent lawsuit that shows that Meta can view your messages through internal systems: https://proton.me/blog/whatsapp-encryption-lawsuit
    3. Meta's AI assistant in WhatsApp leaves more questions about privacy. How closed-off is the data used in this AI from other parts of Meta's services?
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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Again, as I said, whatsapp doesn't feel like a genuine messenger app as much as an oversimplified garbage made for tracking users on the background for profiting.
    Even the deal of "giving" Llama LLMs (Meta AI) to everyone feels sketchy and look abusive the way it is pushed to users.

    Likewise all of meta's services, the only catch with whatsapp that it used to be good and it's a well-spread application, that's why they bought it instead of improving FB's messenger, as meta want to benefit of it's naive userbase who think whatsapp is "As fine as ever";

    To you, publicity is nothing important and it doesn't make a good product, to meta however, publicity is "everything" and it shall be all-time high, they have more analytical data about their userbase and have a good idea of what they would do and what decision they would take.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah don't get me wrong, I despise meta and their facade pretending WhatsApp is private. Your example is evidence but not proof but it does not mean I doubt you because it really doesn't surprise me. Gmail likes to pretend it's secure and private too because data in transit is supposedly encrypted but they can still just read absolutely everything in your inbox themselves

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    Just...
    Don't let them deceive you;

    If you must use deceitful software like Gmail, Whatsapp, Discord, office or whatever, just try your best not to leak your personal data on them, and if you can hinder the tracking, do so.

    If you can use other (preferably FOSS) software, do so, there's plenty of solutions out there and most of them are free, and sometimes selfhost-able.

    Google, Meta, Microsoft or whatever corp can lie about security or privacy all they want, but in the end, they only fool themself thinking their monetary practices aren't obvious and they can fool everyone, trust is a hard thing to earn and they can't earn it with fraud.

    The product mostly show itself, and you have to go around it to know what's it's deal, if you prefer to not do so, you can search if any security researcher or analyst did investigate the product; For example Google claims Chrome browser is "safe" and "secure" dispute them giving so much trackable APIs for websites, and having a horrable default permissions, and don't forget the "Manifest V3" transition just to remove ads (and trackers) blockers like uBlock Origin.
    You don't need solid proof to know what is what.

    And then you just type " Foss Chrome Alternatives" or "Private Browsers" on a search engine like DDG where you can find many articles to help you find one (like this) and you'd be done.

    Forget about ""Others"" right now, your well-being matters the most.

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