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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 7 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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[–] 5 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Signal is good because it is easy to get others on board because of its simplicity, while having good encryption and security. However, SimpleX is just a better option. No phone number required, the same encryption, you can make a new profile whenever you want and you can have however many you want at a time. The groups can hold thousands of people. You can have it automatically make a new anonymous profile for you for each contact and group so that you can't be tracked across them apart from your writing style. There are no usernames, you add each other through links, which can be temporary or permanent, and you can add or remove a link whenever you want.

Sorry for that big wall of text, I just spat out all the things SimpleX is better for. I think that it's platform is the future.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    the tracking argument against signal is pretty weak imo… signal has no ability to build a social graph because in 2018 they implemented a feature called sealed sender which is a cryptographic mechanism that allows you to send a message without disclosing to signal who you are (the receiver still knows, and rate limiting still works)

    the reality of signal having your phone number is they know you (as an identity/person) use signal and that’s it

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    I know about that and that's why I'm not worried about them having my phone number, but its still a pointless requirement. What if I don't have a phone number for privacy reasons? SimpleX is still better in every way other than simplicity.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (4 children)

    i’d agree that for privacy alone simplex is probably better, but until it scales i’m not sure we can say that it will be able to scale. i have my doubts, simply because if you can have unlimited anonymous profiles, when it becomes a high value target then spam becomes a real problem, and then there’s only 2 major solutions that i can think of:

    • raising the barrier to creating new accounts so that accounts become relatively expensive (essentially what the phone number does)
    • spam filters, like email, which is a whole separate system that can be abused like it has been with email
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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (3 children)

    Well spam seems pretty easy to combat. A lot of the groups make you talk to the admins and wait before you can talk, and you can have it so you approve contacts before they can contact you using one of your links. And if one of your links falls to spam, you can just delete it. I'd say spam isn't really an issue.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    that’s reasonable. perhaps the best service is one with both options: you can somehow have a verified account that lets you msg people you haven’t connected with (perhaps they have an “allow from verified” contact option), and join groups without verification, but that you can also have unlimited anonymous accounts that are assumed spammy

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

    Personally I disagree and think that the way SimpleX already has it is the best way because I don't think trying to protect your privacy as much as possible should automatically get you labelled as a spammer, but I can see your viewpoint.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    yeah, bad choice of words on my part… and i think the verification doesn’t have to be identity-based… it just has to be some limited resource (which identity is, and guarantees fairness because it’s n per identity)

    it’s all compromises, and i don’t think there’s a perfect solution… what we want is the largest impact on general privacy the world over, and options that allow verifiable perfect privacy when needed - but understanding that that requires compromise in things like usability simply because it’s more complex to set up things like trust networks than to … just not

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