Comment by sundarurfriend
1 year ago
Not a single person I know who uses Telegram cares about or thinks of it as e2ee. Whether "techie" or "non-techie" (whatever the definition of that is). People use it because it has a nice interface, was one of the first to have good "sticker" message support (yes, a lot of people care about that kind of stuff), and of course because of the good old network effect.
It's only on HN I ever see people set up Telegram as some supposed uber-secure private app for Tor users and then demolish that strawman gleefully.
Do you read other news sites that mention Telegram or is this an N=1 situation?
Today, on the same topic, another tech site which generally gets a lot of things right (but whoever is responsible for writing about Telegram, or maybe their internal KB, is consistently wrong and doesn't care about feedback) wrote that it is an encrypted chats service: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/225750/ceo-en-oprichter-telegram... ("versleutelde-chatdienst" means that for those fact checking at home)
> Do you read other news sites that mention Telegram
The average person I know that uses Telegram ("non-techie" as GP comment put it) certainly doesn't. People join telegram because it has a group they want to join, or via word-of-mouth of a friend recommending it. Normal people don't read tech news, and if they do they don't give it much weight.
Maybe that sucks, maybe they'd be better off somehow if they did, but the reality is that most people live in a different universe from those of us who care about e2ee security or read tech news with interest.
You could also ask about whether they think it's private. And if they say yes, ask them what it means. Does it mean only sender and intended recipients can read the message, or is it fine if the service has someone check the content. Would they agree on the notion "it's OK my nudes I send to my SO are up for grabs for anyone who hacks Telegram's servers", or do they think should Telegram plug this gaping hole.
Also, people tend to state they have nothing to hide, when they feel they have nothing to fight with. But I can't count the number of times I've seen a stranger next to me on a bus cover their chat the second I sit next to them. Me, a complete random person with no interest in their life is a threat to them.
You may try sitting near a completely open-space developer and watch what they are doing, and see the 10x performance drop on average, while there was zero privacy on screen at all times. It helps to realize that people not always behave logically (we have lots of group instincts legacy) and it doesn’t always work as a proper argument.
>And if they say yes, ask them what it means
I just did it to gather anecdotal evidence and the answer was, the founder is in jail to protect their privacy.
So they take theatrics over logical evaluation of the situation. Cool. Tell them Durov could have locked himself out of their data and spared himself the trip to behind bars.
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For the past few weeks I've been using Telegram to create my own cool sticker and when talking with people in whatsapp (eughh) I find myself having trouble finding the words my telegram stickers would mean
Telegram is mostly used by people in the US for drug deals and chatting with people in Eastern Europe, so it's very common to believe it's a secure messenger.