Serious, do you consider Telegram to be secure and private?

[Spinat]

Almost every day I get contacted by people from this forum, thanks for that, nice to meet you all.

However, the first question is almost always, what is your Telegram or Skype. My standard answer is, I don't use it because I like my privacy.

So, that in mind, I also read here on the forum by several members that they are using Telegram because they find it to be secure and anonymous

Today I found a great example on a Blackhat forum,

What Is Telegram Scripts Bundle:

If you are reading this then you must be looking for a way to scrape members from a telegram group and then add those members in your own group OR channel. Well, now you don’t have to look anywhere else because we have created a product for you which will do all these tasks automatically.

You must have tried to add members manually into your group or channel but that was too frustrating & time consuming OR sometimes you also got banned from telegram but with our “Telegram Scripts Bundle” you will be able to automate this process without getting banned.

So, do you guys still think it is a good idea to use Telegram for your business activities if you don't even know who the f**k is going to misuse your account for spam purpose?

I remember there was even a idiot here that suggested the forum to make Telegram groups - nice try to f**k all of us over.

Just wanted to say so.. have a nice and Corona free day

 

[Sols]

I believe we had a topic about this a few months ago, where support for Telegram was strong but seemingly rooted exclusively (or at least heavily) in Telegram not having any US connection. For some reason, being built by Russians hiding in Dubai is enough to make it cryptographically sound.

My opinion is that Telegram is not to be trusted because it is not open source. You can't be confident that the encryption used is strong and implemented correctly.

It's probably secure but it's not provably secure, and that's an important distinction for me.

 

[Martin Everson]

Wouldn't touch telegram for anything private as it stores all your data in the the cloud. If its not 100% peer to peer communication forget it for anything confidential.

 

[ontherun]

they close accounts belonging to drug traffickers. if they are able to close accounts, it means these commications are not entirely private. only if drug traffickers can chat freely do you know for sure you can also chat freely

 

[keggo]

I read their privacy statement a few years ago and it stated that they hand over data to authorities in criminal cases. So if they admit this in their own privacy statement then there is nothing else to say. Definitely stay away from Telegram.

 

[LibertyGuy]

So what to use instead?

 

[Nishizawa]

Their source code was not reviewed by other group. And E2E is not a default on a chat. Furthermore, no one knows the jurisdiction where they located and stored our data.

I assure you, XMPP messenger with OMEMO or OTR is the better option.

 

[ontherun]

So what to use instead?

can't use anything public. some closed-loop solutions like XMPP with OTR provide some degree of assurance, but since these are closed systems they cannot be used in a way that's generally accessible.

the question you always need to ask yourself is. can methenamine vendors, kidnappers, extortionists, blackmailers, embezzlers, hitmen and chechen beheaders chat freely and without the possibility for their channels to be closed by anybody except themselves?

as long as these people cannot chat freely. neither can you!

 

[keggo]

So what to use instead?

Signal messenger (open source)

Another option would be an encro phone but this only works if your business partners have encro phones as well. An encro phone costs around 1500€ for 6 months.

 

[wadelovepin]

I think signal is better. Open sources, and carries self destruction message function.

 

[Delaney]

I think signal is better. Open sources, and carries self destruction message function.

Agreed, Signal is better for a one time usage & burner phones.

And for paranoiak:
Jabber XMPP + Pidgin + OTR encrypted on a burner laptop bought with cash and using a simcard 4g for network. running on any ubuntu flash drive.

 

[Sulu]

Signal is better, although the phone number identifier is very bad.
I believe the Status app might have better security. It doesn't yet support video and all that jazz tho.

 

[Offshorespirit]

Nothing is safe, but telegram is by fr more flexible.

Signal is better but nobody use it, in general I keep far form apps.

 

[Sulu]

I know many people who use Signal - not all of them because of me.

You have to make an effort if you want security. It won't be handed to you on a platter.

 

[Spinat]

Nothing is safe, but telegram is by fr more flexible.

Signal is better but nobody use it, in general I keep far form apps.

Nothing is safe, but telegram is by fr more flexible.

Signal is better but nobody use it, in general I keep far form apps.

It's not about flexible, it reveals all your data and they collect all your data to make profits out of it. I would never use it.

 

[Clip]

I don't like any of the listed here
-Whatsapp - no even need explanation
- Telegram - How it makes money? What's his privacy policy? They store all your data in their cloud, easy for law enforcement replace your sim card and access to all. Maybe secret chats are more secure, but be careful with keyboards.
- Signal - How they make money? Why they ask the phone number? Under the patriot Act they need to disclose all the information to the NSA, the servers are based in US.
- Wickr - Same as above but it doesn't ask for your phone.

 

[Sols]

Did you do any research?

- Telegram - How it makes money? What's his privacy policy? They store all your data in their cloud, easy for law enforcement replace your sim card and access to all. Maybe secret chats are more secure, but be careful with keyboards.

On the FAQ on their website, Telegram states: Q: How are you going to make money out of this?We believe in fast and secure messaging that is also 100% free. Pavel Durov, who shares our vision, supplied Telegram with a generous donation, so we have quite enough money for the time being. If Telegram runs out, we will introduce non-essential paid options to support the infrastructure and finance developer salaries. But making profits will never be an end-goal for Telegram.

Privacy policy is on their website: https://telegram.org/privacy

They do store messages in the cloud and, as mentioned earlier, I am wary of Telegram for its lack of transparency on technology. It's probably secure but I prefer provably secure. AFAIK, it's a proprietary, secret, home-made encryption which means it's significantly less sturdy than an encryption protocol which has been tried and tested openly.

- Signal - How they make money? Why they ask the phone number? Under the patriot Act they need to disclose all the information to the NSA, the servers are based in US.

Signal is a non-profit which receives its funding through government grants and donations. While there is a difference between applying for a grant and being a paid government actor, I can't fault the conspiratorially-minded for thinking this implies government control of Signal. It's comparable to how newspapers get government funding, including ones whose bias is neutral or contrary to the government which funds them.

Asking for phone number instead of a username makes adoption easy. It doesn't negatively affect the security of the messages, but it does have privacy concerns. You can get around this by having multiple phone numbers (dual/multi-SIM phone, SMS-enabled VoIP).

The NSA and just about anyone else with enough authority can indeed raid Signal's servers. They just won't find anything useful there, other than heaps of encrypted data. For anyone interested, there is a lot of literature available about the Signal Protocol, which itself is open source along with the client.

 

[invoice]

No cellphones are safe.
Even the encrochat smartphones aren't completly safe and all the big guys in drug business use them.

Apps like telegram or signal require a cellphone number. Just use a burner sim(no connection with yourself) in a burner cellphone to verify your telegram account. This gives you one more layer of security. Activate the 2FA.
Like this it is secure enough for talking with your friends. If you are planning to talk about anything not 100% legally even if it is in a grey zone no cellphones.

P.S You can run telegram on your encrypted computer through an android emulator behind tor

 

[reesek]

telegram is also open source guys
it is as safe as any cloud storage, true
but there are private chats that go p2p only

 

[Spinat]

Telegram is a s**t service if you take your privacy serious. If you don't care to get depp throated in the mouth just go a head and use Telegram.