The last time I read about Telegram people on HN were upset about it's security competition or something like that. IIRC, the gist of it was akin to this:
T: "Our security system is so secure that we'll give you a prize if you manage to break in through the front door"
HN: "But real criminals won't necessarily use the front door. What about other potential points of entry?"
T: "We won't confirm or deny the existence of any other point of entry, and to be clear, the competition is strictly about the security that our front door provides"
I am really happy to see Telegram growing. I am one of those people who deleted Whatsapp (and lost touch with 30-40 people and several groups) when Facebook bought it.
So far I have been happy with it, even though only like 5 of my friends use it. Yeah, it may (or may not) have security flaws like many on HN complain, but I would take it anyday over FB owned give-us-all-your-data product.
Same here, except the people I wanted to communicate with are either the same or kind enough to install it also. If they don't care about WhatsApp already why should they care about installing Telegram next to it? Doesn't make a difference (to them anyway).
I've been trying to get friends and family to switch to Telegram from iMessage and WhatsApp. Their native apps are great platform, speed is awesome, and, above all, it's a platform-agnostic system. I highly recommend it.
This is a huge hurdle in my opinion. Most of my friends own an iPhone and since I also own one, we group message on iMessage. If I wanted to switch to an Android, I would have to either convince them to switch to WhatsApp, Telegram etc etc or stop being part of that group chat, I think they call this FOMO. So having a bunch of friends with an iPhone that I regularly communicate with is a big pressure to continue buying Apple products.
I wonder whether telegram could offer a bridge service to proxy WhatsApp accounts, meaning you could switch to WhatsApp without losing any contacts...
Alternatively, perhaps the API can be glued to WhatsApp somehow.
I wonder why isn't there a "text messaging mobile app" out there which just uses openPGP signed and encrypted email as the backend. Email is not that far from text messaging anyway.
If an attacker were to record all of a target’s ciphertext traffic over some extended period of time, and then compromise that one key at any point in the future (perhaps by seizing the device it’s on), they would have the ability to decrypt all of the previously recorded ciphertext traffic belonging to the target.
Telegram is fantastic with the glaring exception of mandatory read receipts.
Am I the only one that can't stand having people know when I've read their messages? It seems like every major chat platform (except for iMessage) has read receipts enabled without any option to disable them. Why has this become so popular?
Almost certainly because it increases engagement. By optimizing purely on metrics, psychologically undesirable effects creep in (guilt, in this case). c.f. online gaming apps and their addiction inducing behaviour.
My dad is still an "avid" Blackberry user (as much as anyone who uses a blackberry these days is avid) and I note Telegram does not have a Blackberry client. Until that changes, we're still on whatsapp.
I switched to Telegram with my fiancée because of troubles with migrating WhatsApp data when she bought a new phone. When we powered up the new phone we realized that WhatsApp message history hadn't been transferred in the device migration (Windows Phone here) and there was some data that we wanted to preserve. WhatsApp on the old phone stopped working because the account had been used on the new phone so we couldn't even look at the chat history without using the SIM card to reactivate it. Reactivating WhatsApp on the old phone involved some extra hassle because the two phones had different SIM card slot sizes. After reactivation we could look at the old messages before moving the SIM card back to the new phone but couldn't transfer them, since WhatsApp chat history transfer on WP requires that both phones have an SD card slot. Being pretty fed up with WhatsApp at that point I found Telegram and have used it ever since.
It's a little frustrating to see that the most secure (yet still usable) alternatives aren't the most popular (perhaps with the exception of iMessage, although 95% of the security of those messages is compromised anyway by the backup system that's enabled by default).
I like to tell myself that this is because the really good open source options don't have enough money or clout to make themselves popular, while apps like Whatsapp or Skype or Telegram do. It's just unfortunate that the least secure apps and services get pushed to the mainstream simply because of money.
Telegram is not governed by VCs or large corporations with ambiguous ties to government. Its code is open-source. It hasn't needed to spend money to make itself popular...its users did it for them.
Which you could really say about all the services you mentioned.
The difference is in who's footing the bill for all the other costs.
The founder of Telegram is a privacy and civil liberties activist who has publicly committed to keeping Telegram as secure as possible, and that until a revenue model is determined that honors that standard, he'll continue funding it on his own (he's loaded from equity in VKontakte).
I think a lot of it is timing and momentum. I just bought an Ubuntu phone only to discover there is no whatsapp on it. I am happy to use Telegram, but convincing friends is an uphill battle.
What's the popularity of 'WhatsApp' like at the moment?
IIRC the folks at Open Whisper Systems (TextSecure, Redphone and Signal) did some work with them to integrate the TextSecure protocol into that.
So while I use TextSecure with friends who are happy to use that, I'm not upset about using WhatsApp with others as it's more mainstream and friendly, but has decent security under the hood.
[+] [-] ilitirit|10 years ago|reply
T: "Our security system is so secure that we'll give you a prize if you manage to break in through the front door"
HN: "But real criminals won't necessarily use the front door. What about other potential points of entry?"
T: "We won't confirm or deny the existence of any other point of entry, and to be clear, the competition is strictly about the security that our front door provides"
Is this still the case?
[+] [-] nomel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 4k|10 years ago|reply
So far I have been happy with it, even though only like 5 of my friends use it. Yeah, it may (or may not) have security flaws like many on HN complain, but I would take it anyday over FB owned give-us-all-your-data product.
[+] [-] lucb1e|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rainymood|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] levifig|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giarc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nicois|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrmister1|10 years ago|reply
And if you want to build an app using the telegram system it's basically using their cloud servers.
Does anyone know what their tech stack is?
[+] [-] beckler|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wahsd|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hurin|10 years ago|reply
http://www.alexrad.me/discourse/a-264-attack-on-telegram-and...
[+] [-] leni536|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uph|10 years ago|reply
If an attacker were to record all of a target’s ciphertext traffic over some extended period of time, and then compromise that one key at any point in the future (perhaps by seizing the device it’s on), they would have the ability to decrypt all of the previously recorded ciphertext traffic belonging to the target.
https://whispersystems.org/blog/asynchronous-security/
[+] [-] otibom|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevenleeg|10 years ago|reply
Am I the only one that can't stand having people know when I've read their messages? It seems like every major chat platform (except for iMessage) has read receipts enabled without any option to disable them. Why has this become so popular?
[+] [-] discreditable|10 years ago|reply
It settles the age old question of "Hey, did you get my message?". Many people like this functionality.
[+] [-] XJOKOLAT|10 years ago|reply
Having said that I really like it and am encouraging my group to switch to test it out.
I wonder how effective that will be: "The Inertia ... the inertia" (said in full-on Marlon Brando Apocalypse Now voice)
[+] [-] teahat|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkr-hn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pdevr|10 years ago|reply
Telegram hit 1 billion messages in December 2014, and had 50 million active users at that time[1].
So, is it reasonable to assume that WhatsApp sends around 16 billion messages every day?
[1] https://telegram.org/blog/billion
[+] [-] iloveluce|10 years ago|reply
How is that sustainable?
[+] [-] Aoyagi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Freeboots|10 years ago|reply
My only guess is that they are planning to charge for their api when they hit scale.
[+] [-] planetjones|10 years ago|reply
EDIT: I want a polished official product, not something put together in a hackathon: https://telegram.org/blog/bb-results
[+] [-] dorfsmay|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SliderUp|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skrowl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yfkar|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] spacefight|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darklajid|10 years ago|reply
I'm okay with a price for something that I might use every day, but if I'm accepting closed source solutions - what's the benefit of Threema here?
[+] [-] subliminalpanda|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucb1e|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] higherpurpose|10 years ago|reply
I like to tell myself that this is because the really good open source options don't have enough money or clout to make themselves popular, while apps like Whatsapp or Skype or Telegram do. It's just unfortunate that the least secure apps and services get pushed to the mainstream simply because of money.
[+] [-] m52go|10 years ago|reply
Which you could really say about all the services you mentioned.
The difference is in who's footing the bill for all the other costs.
The founder of Telegram is a privacy and civil liberties activist who has publicly committed to keeping Telegram as secure as possible, and that until a revenue model is determined that honors that standard, he'll continue funding it on his own (he's loaded from equity in VKontakte).
What else are you looking for?
[+] [-] robmcm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] collyw|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jszymborski|10 years ago|reply
I tried to get my friends on Tox, but ultimately had to get them on Telegram because it was the only app that was truly 100% cross-platform.
[+] [-] Nursie|10 years ago|reply
IIRC the folks at Open Whisper Systems (TextSecure, Redphone and Signal) did some work with them to integrate the TextSecure protocol into that.
So while I use TextSecure with friends who are happy to use that, I'm not upset about using WhatsApp with others as it's more mainstream and friendly, but has decent security under the hood.
[+] [-] mahouse|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cynic_|10 years ago|reply