this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2021
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Privacy
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I will also leave whatsapp. It's true that I hardly use it. In my case I use Telegram. Why to Signal? Telegram is much more widespread than Signal. I understand that Telegram is not 100% secure, but neither is Signal when you need a phone number. That is the first rule.
before answering, i'd like to preface that i personally don't take in consideration the number of users when analyzing the value of a tool, as 100% of my friends can reach me via sms.
i'm not going into the technical details of why signal is more secure than anything else in our age (i invite you to make your own way into their blog https://signal.org/blog) the striking thing about people working on signal is their intention; the tool is completely open-source, the foundation is a non-profit based on donations. we're seeing what happens when durov's money starts to run out: how long will his ads strategy last, before he needs to invent another trick to keep the boat afloat?
The problem with Signal is that its from the United States, which means the have to follow the orders of CIA and other agencies. Telegram doesn't have that problem.
I agree, as I wrote elsewhere. But this could be mitigated against if Signal would allow 3rd party clients and externally compiled clients (on fdroid for example). But they have been openly hostile to this (with IMHO very weak arguments), so that disqualifies them in my view.
thanks for the feedback, i went reading that and reviewed the webpage i think i was too messianic about signal, so i left signal as the first suggestion, but invite the reader to explore the complexity of the topic
I'm also worried they don't provide any warning to users that use the default GBoard keyboard, which sends pretty much everything you type to Google (or has the ability to do that).
Well, that doesn't really matter since they don't store anything, so if they would get subpoenaed they couldn't give anything of value. If laws change and they force to have backdoors, well, that's another story but until then that's not a valid argument.
The problem is that their app is only distributed through the Google and Apple app stores, so for the average users its impossible if what they install actually matches the source code. And they dont allow distribution through F-Droid (which compiles directly from source). An agency like the CIA could easily serve a malicious Signal update to a specific user.
Telegram is on F-droid.
I'm talking about Signal.
Oh right, so that's a strong argument for telegram being safer than signal. That really bucks the conventional wisdom.
Telegram is NOT safer than signal. When you start using it your mom will and they won't use encrypted chats because telegram makes them not default... It's a terrible messenger
to be exact : TELEGRAM FOSS
I think that the CIA would do that with very specific people, it's not like it's going to be wasting attacks at random, and that people should probably download the .apk from Signal's website or use something more anonymous, like Briar.
We dont know that, and personally I wont take the chance. Downloading from their website is even more insecure by the way,
The creator of the Signal app also had an interesting appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast where even he had trouble going through airport security due to his role in the app's creation.
They would do that with specific people, but atm it's just safer to not use a smartphone at all if you think you are a target for that kind of thing - telegram for sure isn't better
that's a good point. how could one improve that? might someone offer a location for the signal team to move in another country?
I doubt that's going to happen. In the medium and long term, I think that Matrix will be the best solution, but its gonna take more time for it to be fully usable. So for now we have to make compromises.
To that point I'm not sure why Threema or Telegram aren't being considered more seriously as they don't fall in US jurisdiction.
Because the apps of Threema and Telegram are tied to their own services and are unforkable while apps/clients that use XMPP can use federated-like services.
What about delta.chat?
Just out of curiosity, what makes matrix not fully usable at this time?
The mobile app seems more focused on group chats than something like whatsapp or telegram, which makes it a bit more complicated to use. Also, sometimes I still get decryption errors so certain messages are unreadable.
Session, Status and maybe Spixi are good alternative but they are all too young in my opinion. Session is the best concept, though.
lmao are you serious?
counter argument: Signal is from the US and they have to follow the orders of agencies, but they are an american company. Telegram is in russia and free real estate for the american overfunded three letter agencies who I am sure are collecting every shitty not-encrypted telegram message.
They say that over 250 US companies and government agencies were hacked by Russia in the Solarwinds breach, so I wouldnt be so sure about this "free real estate". But of course you are free to disagree, and free to choose the messenger that you prefer.
Signal announced before that they will leave USA if EARN IT or anything of that sort gets approved. It is clear since Snowden is backing Signal right now.