this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
534 points (96.5% liked)

Privacy

31981 readers
238 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

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.

Some Rules

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] otter@lemmy.ca 32 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Would you have more info on the differences? I was wondering the same thing, but I don't know enough about Telegram to compare

[–] pimeys@lemmy.nauk.io 69 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Signal always responds to authorities when they ask for data, and they give them all they have: the day they registered, their phone number and the timestamp they last used the app.

Telegram has unencrypted channels of drug dealing, and what I heard is a lot of illegal porn too. The authorities want information on certain users there and Telegram doesn't comply. This is directly against the law Signal is not breaking, because they always send all the data they have to the law enforcement.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 17 points 2 months ago

Telegram is a propaganda weapon in some sense, between two worldviews - one is "a good service doesn't require trust, because they physically can't sell you", another is "a good service you can trust because they won't sell you". And Telegram helps the latter.

So frankly - kill it with fire. Sadly I'm in Russia and everybody uses it here.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

while not wrong context matters, US social media companies also enable human, weapons, and drug trafficking. they play a role in a few genocides too.

but the western regime does not care.

[–] pimeys@lemmy.nauk.io 26 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

But they give their data when the officials ask. That is all that matters. And I seriously hope none of us uses Telegram or WhatsApp to any discussions. Use Signal because that is so far pretty unbreakable.

Telegram is already in the hands of that tiny Russian old man and WhatsApp is owned by a lizard.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, try telling your family, friends, colleagues, therapist to use Signal.

[–] pimeys@lemmy.nauk.io 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Did so years ago. Everybody uses it from my family and friends. I've had a very active group chat there for eight years with friends. My mom uses it actively, even calls me using Signal. My partner knows it is the best chat app and actively uses it.

I just asked ages ago for everybody to switch to signal, they valuated the features and for a group chat automatically deleted messages and strong encryption were really interesting for everybody. Now we can shoot shit in a group chat without needing to worry that the logs are stored somewhere forever.

[–] brognak@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

Same. I also sell the fact that it works xPlatform perfectly, so no more Android/SMS/iMessage fuckery happening.

[–] doubtingtammy@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah, I'm trying to convince everyone to start using signal before the slide towards fascism turns into a drop

[–] independantiste@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

All of the illegal stuff like that that I've seen around on social media always linked to telegram channels. Most of the time what you see on regular social media are bots advertising the telegram channels, where the real people are at

[–] inbeesee@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Hilarious that it's impossible. They don't even horde your data.

[–] misaloun@reddthat.com 1 points 2 months ago

Is it time stamp of last usage, or time stamp of all messages?

[–] unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm no authority on it but from what I've read it seems to have more to do with the social features of telegram where lots of content is being shared, both legal and illegal. Signal doesn't have channels that support hundreds of thousands of people at once, nor media hosting to match.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Right, the French authorities are going to present evidence that this dude was aware of specific illegal activity and refuse to comply with a legal warrant involving said actively, making him guilty of obstruction at best, and possibly conspiracy. Signal complies with warrants, they just don't have anyone's keys. Telegram has everyone's keys, and theoretically could turn them over but they refuse. That's a huge difference from a legal perspective.

[–] unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thank you. I'm going to restate your explanation to be sure I've got it:

  • authorities want platforms to comply with legal requests
  • when Signal gets a subpoena, they open the key locker and show that it's empty. They provide the metadata they can (sign up date and last seen date, full stop) and tell authorities they can't do better.
  • when Telegram gets a subpoena, they open the key locker and show all the keys, then slam it shut in the face of the investigator, telling them to get bent.
  • conclusion: it's easier to never have the keys in the first place than to tease the government with them
[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

It's easier, but Telegram's authors are from Russia. They psychologically can't accept that "never have the keys" thing. They want to have control and they want to be able to tell "yes" to the investigator, possibly for something in return.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

And it's sad that it doesn't. Because that's why people use Telegram.

Media hosting - we-ell, I suppose something similar to bittorrent (or just sharing encrypted files over bittorrent) would do to back such a system?

Telegram's channels are like blogs, they have reactions and comment links leading to a groupchat associated with a channel.

It's basically a social network in an instant messenger format.

Telegram is socially , in terms of finding a market niche, the smartest thing of what's happened in the Internet recently. Durov really is a good businessman.

[–] phase@lemmy.8th.world 1 points 2 months ago

She responds to this point in the interview.