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>WhatsApp backs up your encryption key to Google Drive by default, meaning it's far from end-to-end encryption.

This is a lie[1]. If you don't enable backups yourself, you loose your messages. You can enable E2E encryption for your backups.

WhatsApp is vastly superior to Telegram in terms of E2E encryption. Telegram can read users messages on their servers and they are not even trying to tell their users to enable E2E.

[1] https://www.tomsguide.com/news/whatsapp-encrypted-backups

discuss

0xy|2 years ago

The Google Drive option is the default on the numerous nag screens, therefore it is default behavior.

Regardless, chances are your contacts have enabled the Google backdoor if you haven't.

>WhatsApp is vastly superior to Telegram in terms of E2E encryption

That's why CVE-2020-1910 enabled attackers to steal your entire message history with a single image message. Has Telegram had similar catastrophic E2E exploits? Nope.

>Telegram can read users messages on their servers

Google has your WhatsApp "E2E" private key by default -- meaning it is NOT end-to-end encrypted. Telegram's E2E Secret Chats have no such backdoor.

NayamAmarshe|2 years ago

> WhatsApp is vastly superior to Telegram in terms of E2E encryption.

I must reiterate that this is a baseless claim because no one can see WhatsApp's source code and going by the track record of Facebook as a company, I'd rather choose to reject this statement than accept it as a possibility.

AdrenalinMd|2 years ago

The argument regarding "source code" is misleading and not entirely relevant. It's worth noting that Telegram's backend is also closed source, yet its supporters often overlook this fact.

Decompiling and inspecting mobile apps is relatively simple, so if there were any issues with the WhatsApp client, they would likely have been uncovered already.

As for Telegram, its messages are stored in plain text on their servers, and it doesn't offer default end-to-end encryption. This means that if Russian secret services were to gain access to Telegram's backend, they could easily read all the messages.

Therefore, when using Telegram, it's important to be aware that its administrators have the ability to read all of your messages.