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Comment by theshrike79

1 year ago

I don't know why people get hung up on Telegram's encryption. Maybe they're trying to make it be something it isn't.

Is Discord end to end encrypted, is IRC? Nope, does it make them useless? Again no.

Same with Telegram, it's a chat tool where you can select your audience and have a good UX with native bot support. (like Discord and IRC).

That's what I want, nothing more.

If I want to plan a coup, I'd use something else of course.

It's because Telegram is marketing itself as a secure messaging app, and because journalists continuously present it as such while discussing the arrest of its CEO.

  • I've only heard telegram presented as a messenger for criminals in western media.

    • For some, that would be a pretty big testament for security. What is the app used by people that are facing the power of law enforcement? If it can withstand that, it must be secure.

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because on their front page in giant font they call themselves private and secure and outright say “heavily encrypted”.

it’s their own fault. a better question might be:

why do they keep over and over crying when people call them out for endangering their users? it’s super odd.

  • Exactly this. It is all about how they market themselves. If they had promoted themselves as a social media-ish platform, nobody would be causing a fuss about their encryption.

    Neither discord, nor any of the popular IRC clients (HexChat, WeeChat, mIRC) even mention the word security or privacy to promote their products.

    Moreover, as Mathew Green mentioned in his blog post, there are many instances where Telegram (or Pavel Durov) has gone out of his way to attack the encryption offered by Signal and WhatsApp. If he were pitting his messenger against discord, why would he be worried about Signal or WhatsApp?