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Hi, German here. How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. Just like Signal. I seriously don’t understand why people use

Hi, German here. How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. Just like Signal. I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! The app doesn’t solve any privacy problem, default chats are unencrypted, keeps personal info. App should be dead already or turned into a dating app because it’s clearly not seriously privacy fucused.

nulbyte 4y ago
Sounds like option 3: "If this option is supported, Telegram will change its data structure and privacy policy for users from Germany."
- londons_explore 4y ago
  I would prefer them to be clearer to say "we will redesign our systems so we no longer store IP addresses". "Change our data structure" sounds like they might just host the servers outside the country and use a "Telegram Deutschland Inc" company that doesn't have access to any user data to run the service.
  - mccorrinall 4y ago
    Even if they don’t store it: if they get a court order, and it requires to turn on IP logging, they will have yours the next time you log in.
    - seanw444 4y ago
      Better than a history, at least.
neverrroot 4y ago
Channels, Groups, it’s overall way better. But true, per default not as secure. Supports secure chats, that are secure.
- izzytcp 4y ago
  Are channels and groups e2ee?
  - skyyler 4y ago
    They aren't meant to be. The people signing up for telegram in droves aren't looking for a replacement for signal or wickr or whatever "secure" messaging platform. They're joining their friends' group chats and subscribing to their friends' channels. It's a replacement for twitter/facebook more than anything else.
  - endless1234 4y ago
    No. Is discord, reddit, hacker news e2ee? No, but they are still products people want to use.
    - croes 4y ago
      Do you use discord, reddit, hacker news for private communication? BTW reddit and Hackernews are E2EE, it's just that one E is public.
      - wruza 4y ago
        What is your HN key fingerprint? I’d like to compare it to know if our messaging is secure.
        croes 4y ago
        I'm not messaging to you but to HN via E2E https connection. You can't read that messages as they are transported, you can read them afterwards because HN makes them public not because my message wasn't send encrypted.
        sequoia 4y ago
        You seem to be mistaken about what the "ends" refer to in end to end encryption. If I whisper something in my friend's ear and she whispers it into your ear, that is not a secret message between you and me even if each "hop" was private. E2E means no intermediaries see the plaintext, only the original sender and ultimate recipient see the plaintext. HN is not the recipient of your message, it's an intermediary.
isaacfrond 4y ago
I switched from signal to Telegram because the iphone version was buggy as hell. That's why.
- edsimpson 4y ago
  Signal bugs on ios really are a pain point for people that I have convinced to switch. Even basic things, the ios app does not seem to use the correct camera API which makes using the internal camera lower quality which also makes video calls blurry. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/5294 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/5294
tiagod 4y ago
Poeple use it because the UX is great, as well as the bot DX. E2EE isn't a critical feature for most people picking a chat app. Signal is a great alternative to WhatsApp. Not so much for Telegram.
wellthisisgreat 4y ago
Because you lose all your chat history without any way to export it. I unfortunately have convinced some of my relatives to use Signal without me looking into it beforehand. Now because of Signal’s moronic design I dread the day when something happens and I decide I want to save all our chats for posterity / memories, but wouldn’t be able to. There is simply no “export” button. There is some way to do it on Android but on iOS we are SOL.
- croes 4y ago
  https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Backup-and-Restore-Messages https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Ba...
  - madmoose 4y ago
    > Signal Desktop does not support transferring message history to or from any device. > Migration Assistant and Time Machine for macOS are not supported.
bloqs 4y ago
Telegram seems to have captured some of thr discord market and seems to do "group" stuff a lot better UX wise.
- afiori 4y ago
  To effectively capture discord usage telegram should add Group groups, that is to allow user to create an Organizations with some channels and groups. Also some kind of shared access policy. Could even be a pro feature.
  - ComodoHacker 4y ago
    Desktop client already has it, it's called 'folders'.
    - afiori 4y ago
      That is client side; there is no functionality comparable to how discord groups chatrooms by server
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    I specifically like Telegram because it doesn't have group groups =)
    - afiori 4y ago
      I don't use discord or other complex chats much, are there annoyances that come up with group groups?
perakojotgenije 4y ago
Because it works flawlessly on all three major operating systems (windows, linux, macos), unlike Signal who can not make a decent linux port.
onli 4y ago
You can install Telegram with f-droid, and it works well on a degoogled phone. Signal forbids alternate clients and is not on f-droid. It's thus just not an option.
- martin_a 4y ago
  > Signal forbids alternate clients Which might be due to their E2E encryption?!?
  - smarx007 4y ago
    No, it's a management decision and not a technical limitation.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      Strange, I have Signal on a de-googled Puxel 2 runnibg ClayxOS...
      - fsflover 4y ago
        How can I install Signal on my Qubes OS or on Pinephone, if I don't have any Google or Apple phones?
      - smarx007 4y ago
        But I guess you have an original Signal APK installed, not an alternative client that connects to Signal servers.
        newpseudonymn 4y ago
        There are third party apps that connect to Signal's servers such as Molly. https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      It was mainly moxie who was hell-bent against that though. I'm hoping they'll reverse their stance since he left. And on federation as well. Moxie was against all these things because it would make new features more difficult to implement. But personally I care much more for an open infrastructure. Most of their new features weren't even useful. I'm currently using a matrix bridge and I didn't get banned (officially that's a third party client too) so that's a good sign.
matkoniecz 4y ago
UX of Signal is terrible. Part of that is a direct result of security-usability trade-offs. > The app doesn’t solve any privacy problem, default chats are unencrypted, keeps personal info. I am using it for public chats. -------------------- EDIT: this is inacurate, see replies For example I get repeated "insert PIN password here to remember it". I have a password manager. There is no way to get rid of it, even via deeply hidden settings. For example, what about disabling it for password with length over 40? Or something?
- dividuum 4y ago
  > There is no way to get rid of it, even via deeply hidden settings. At least on iOS: Settings > Account > [ ] PIN Reminders. I would be very surprised if there isn't a similar way of disabling those reminders on Android.
  - matkoniecz 4y ago
    Thanks, used that! And edited my post. Either I missed it or they added it after I started using Signal.
- durkie 4y ago
  I have a "pin reminders" setting in iOS signal that I can turn off. It's in Settings > Account
  - matkoniecz 4y ago
    Thanks, used that! And edited my post. Either I missed it or they added it after I started using Signal.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  ...i havent inserted my android remind-pin for years.
rvz 4y ago
> How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. Just like Signal. Yeah, give S̶i̶g̶n̶a̶l̶ Twilio your phone number instead. Problem solved. > I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! The app doesn’t solve any privacy problem, default chats are unencrypted, keeps personal info. App should be dead already or turned into a dating app because it’s clearly not seriously privacy fucused. They don't care and Signal offers less that what Telegram has despite Telegram being less secure. Signal is bad at selling itself. Maybe Signal needs to offer a better user experience, backup chats across all devices and offer more useful features; not less than their competitors rather than pushing a private cryptocurrency scam project useful for criminals, scammers and money launderers.
- Forbo 4y ago
  If the cryptocurrency weren't useful for criminals, scammers, and money launderers, then it wouldn't be useful for political dissidents either. The reason the undesirables use those technologies is because they work. Yes, bad people are going to use effective tools. Does that mean nobody should have them? Granted, I wish they would have just implemented Monero instead, especially since MobileCoin was (is?) unusable in the US. I agree they definitely could use some work on the backups side of the house as well.
xenator 4y ago
Just to remind that Signal is bu//sh*t messenger that ask you for your phone number. And keep and share all the information with authorities. Since it is a US based company, and it is what US based companies do. If you want to make a protected application, don't tie it to any real world data. That is very easy.
- Forbo 4y ago
  > And keep and share all the information with authorities. Hilarious that you call it bullshit whilst spouting your own. https://signal.org/bigbrother/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/ Unless of course you have some documentation to back up what you're saying.
  - bigfudge 4y ago
    I love Signal, but in some jurisdictions government request for data can be accompanied by gagging orders with serious penalties for breach. I'm not sure that list can be considered complete.
    - Forbo 4y ago
      Does the design of Signal's applications or server infrastructure change because of the jurisdiction? Does the information they gather or store change?
      - afiori 4y ago
        With signal can you join public/private channels without disclosing your phone number? The last time I checked (a few years back) I only saw private groups and no way to hide phone numbers. If that is still the case then there are less reason to have a warrant for you phone number as it is easier to access.
  - xenator 4y ago
    If you trust some random people over internet who publish anything, then my words should have the same power to you.
upofadown 4y ago
>How about not storing any information at all? That wouldn't work for groups. Abusers could then destroy the groups with impunity for the purpose of censorship. Telegram is mostly about groups. Telegram is often used for activism. Signal claims to not store data about who is talking to who. That doesn't mean that they don't. If they were, say, a secret subsidiary of the CIA they would act exactly as they are acting now. In general you can't trust the providers of these sorts of things. See Crypto AG...
- Canada 4y ago
  The signal code is public and has been widely reviewed. We know full well what the server knows regardless of what they say.
  - hunter2_ 4y ago
    Suppose an update is rolled out in app stores, and many people update to it. Suppose this new version contains surveillance instead of matching the published/reviewed code. Won't there be some substantial period of time during which many messages can be stolen before somebody eventually goes on twitter to say "hmm, wireshark shows more data than I'd expect" and/or "hmm, I can't get the source to build quite like the store's new apk"?
    - Canada 4y ago
      Then we're screwed. All mainstream applications running on modern general purpose computers are vulnerable to this. You don't like that? Stop busting their balls and produce an alternative operating system and application update framework which is not vulnerable.
  - upofadown 4y ago
    That means the end to end encryption (if you verify your identities) works. It says nothing about how much meta data Signal collects.
    - 4y ago
em-bee 4y ago
I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! telegram is the only chat app that offers Free Software clients, does not force me to share my phonenumber, is easy enough to use even for old people. matrix is ok. but element is still buggy and the ux is complex and takes some learning. another alternative is deltachat. it uses smtp as transport and works with an email account. the UX is also easy enough to use. easier than matrix/element.
- zoobab 4y ago
  Signal require a phone number, a nogo for real privacy.
  - meijer 4y ago
    I believe Telegram requires a phone number, too.
    - maxnoe 4y ago
      It requires a phone number, but it doesn't require sharing the phone number with other people. On signal you are only reachable via the phone number, Telegram has User names and allows to hide the number from the profile.
    - boboralice 4y ago
      It asks for a phone number when you sign up, but you don't have to share the phone number with people you want to add as a contact/share it in groups. For a lot of people, Telegram does a good job of being "less evil than Facebook Messenger", and private in ways that matter to them. I'm more worried about some nutcase from a video game meetup group getting hold of my phone number than I am law enforcement finding out I was in that video game group in the first place. I have a Matrix server and an XMPP server for 'truly private' communication anyway.
      - zoobab 4y ago
        Let's see if Telegram gives the data to courts: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/22/08/31/2210240/court-orders-telegram-to-disclose-personal-details-of-pirating-users https://yro.slashdot.org/story/22/08/31/2210240/court-orders...
yunohn 4y ago
> How about not storing any information at all? Acc to telegram: > Telegram may disclose IP addresses and phone numbers How do you propose this data is masked? You need a phone number to use Telegram (and Signal), and you need an internet connection, thus exposing your IP address. I’m not sure why you think Signal does not have this information.
- fsflover 4y ago
  Matrix won't have this information, if you have your own server.
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  Signal has been subpoena'd in the past, and the only relevant information they were able to provide were account creation date and account's last connection date. Literally nothing else. It's actually a little funny to read: https://signal.org/bigbrother/cd-california-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/cd-california-grand-jury/
  - autoexec 4y ago
    That was in the past though. Now Signal is storing exactly that same information permanently in the cloud. Specifically they store your name, phone number, photo, and a record of every person you contact.
    - d0mine 4y ago
      Metadata is enough to execute people (by certain country but anywhere in the world--it is immoral for Signal to position itself as secure if it provides such data).
      - autoexec 4y ago
        Last I checked Signal was outright lying in their privacy policy which was never updated after they started collecting and storing user data in the cloud. You can't morally market yourself as secure while you lie to your users about what their risks are.
tcfhgj 4y ago
I don't get why anyone uses Signal. Horrible UX compared to WhatsApp, no sync of messages between devices, walled garden like WhatsApp, you can't have your own custom client only thing: not Facebook & open source You can have all of that with a Matrix client (except good UX, that's unique to Telegram)
- jen20 4y ago
  > why anyone uses Signal. > not Facebook Bingo!
- tommit 4y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean. Messages sync just fine between my iPhone and Linux machine. > Horrible UX It got way better in the past few years. When I did the initial push with my friends, we failed. Mainly because the basic functionality was buggy at times, such as messages that would simply not be received. But now it's running real smooth imo. Sure, there are a few things I would like to see. Polls is a big one. Maybe a smooth gif creation like WhatsApp -- but those are fairly minor. My experience is that it gets pretty much the job done and that's all I want from it. What exactly is so horrible about it in your experience? > only thing: not Facebook & open source Those two are pretty big positives, at least for me. That's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. > You can have all of that with a Matrix client Well ... unfortunately that's a bit much for your average Joe, simple as.
  - maxnoe 4y ago
    No they don't sync just fine. A device cannot receive chat history from before it was added and signal regularly "forgets" linked devices, losing all messages on the device and starting from scratch after relinking.
ComodoHacker 4y ago
>How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. This means no history sync, no seamless device switching, no contact discovery, no search. That's not what people want.
gsich 4y ago
>I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! Very easy to integrate custom notifications with bots. Signal is more like "maybe it works with this 3rd party tool". Also being able to use custom buttons with bots.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
> why people use Telegram instead of Signal Telegram has a great bot feature, that you can use to do a bunch of stuff (from smart house notifications, to "uptime robot" tracking of services up/down states, build results, temperature alarms, server monitoring, etc. One curl oneliner, and you get a message on your phone with whatever data needed (even with an image/graph or a file attachment).
AnonC 4y ago
> I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! Any reason? I’ll give you some serious ones. Signal sucks really bad on user experience and features. If you try both for a week or two and learn about the features, you’d be able to conclude the same. Signal does not care about users and prevents backups on iOS. Lose your device or delete the app due to some issues and reinstall? All your chats are gone! Signal still has message delivery issues (like long delays)…it’s 2022!!! Signal keeps pestering me to allow notifications and to allow contacts access. I can only choose “Not Now”, since there is no option that says “No”. When I choose “Not Now”, it will say “we’ll remind you later” and pester me again. I don’t understand why anyone would assume that this app cares about privacy or about users’ time.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  Signal operates on the idea that anything sent through chat is ephemeral and not worth keeping, which just doesn’t work in practice in my experience. When you’re knee deep in conversation with someone you’re probably not going to say, “oh hey we should switch to email so we can keep a record of this”. It might not even occur to you that the conversation could ever be of value. There’s been several occasions when my life has been made much more easy for having been able to dig up some old message in iMessage, Telegram, etc from as far back as multiple years ago sometimes because the way things played out the pertinent info didn’t exist anywhere else simply because nobody involved could’ve ever guessed it had any importance.
  - zelphirkalt 4y ago
    > Signal operates on the idea that anything sent through chat is ephemeral and not worth keeping, which just doesn’t work in practice in my experience. Why do you think that? Did you lose any messages? 'cause I can scroll back months and still see all my messages there. Never noticed any loss.
    - kitsunesoba 4y ago
      As mentioned in parent comment: > Signal does not care about users and prevents backups on iOS. Lose your device or delete the app due to some issues and reinstall? All your chats are gone! Switching out devices is something that happens often enough for many users that transferring history should not be an ordeal. Even the most careful users will occasionally break their phones, and sometimes people need to switch platforms for whatever reason. WhatsApp suffers from this issue too, at least when trying to migrate histories between platforms.
t0bia_s 4y ago
Telegram and Signal has basically same problem. Thats centralised storage of data. So if you care about privacy, Signal is not alternative to Telegram. Matrix is decentralised open-source solution. I don't understand why people don't use it more instead of Signal or Telegram. Or Session, but it is not very user friendly.
autoexec 4y ago
> How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. Just like Signal. just so you know, Signal does permanently store sensitive user data in the cloud. They collect your name, photo, phone number, and a list of every person you contact using Signal. That data is stored in your profile on their servers. Signal really used to not store anything, but that hasn't been the case for a long time now and if this is the first you're hearing about that, it should tell you all you need to know about how trustworthy Signal is.
sschueller 4y ago
Moxie rubs me the wrong way and I don't trust him. So defacto, I don't trust signal.

nulbyte 4y ago

Sounds like option 3: "If this option is supported, Telegram will change its data structure and privacy policy for users from Germany."

londons_explore 4y ago
I would prefer them to be clearer to say "we will redesign our systems so we no longer store IP addresses". "Change our data structure" sounds like they might just host the servers outside the country and use a "Telegram Deutschland Inc" company that doesn't have access to any user data to run the service.
- mccorrinall 4y ago
  Even if they don’t store it: if they get a court order, and it requires to turn on IP logging, they will have yours the next time you log in.
  - seanw444 4y ago
    Better than a history, at least.

neverrroot 4y ago

Channels, Groups, it’s overall way better. But true, per default not as secure. Supports secure chats, that are secure.

izzytcp 4y ago
Are channels and groups e2ee?
- skyyler 4y ago
  They aren't meant to be. The people signing up for telegram in droves aren't looking for a replacement for signal or wickr or whatever "secure" messaging platform. They're joining their friends' group chats and subscribing to their friends' channels. It's a replacement for twitter/facebook more than anything else.
- endless1234 4y ago
  No. Is discord, reddit, hacker news e2ee? No, but they are still products people want to use.
  - croes 4y ago
    Do you use discord, reddit, hacker news for private communication? BTW reddit and Hackernews are E2EE, it's just that one E is public.
    - wruza 4y ago
      What is your HN key fingerprint? I’d like to compare it to know if our messaging is secure.
      - croes 4y ago
        I'm not messaging to you but to HN via E2E https connection. You can't read that messages as they are transported, you can read them afterwards because HN makes them public not because my message wasn't send encrypted.
        sequoia 4y ago
        You seem to be mistaken about what the "ends" refer to in end to end encryption. If I whisper something in my friend's ear and she whispers it into your ear, that is not a secret message between you and me even if each "hop" was private. E2E means no intermediaries see the plaintext, only the original sender and ultimate recipient see the plaintext. HN is not the recipient of your message, it's an intermediary.

isaacfrond 4y ago

I switched from signal to Telegram because the iphone version was buggy as hell. That's why.

edsimpson 4y ago
Signal bugs on ios really are a pain point for people that I have convinced to switch. Even basic things, the ios app does not seem to use the correct camera API which makes using the internal camera lower quality which also makes video calls blurry. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/5294 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/5294

tiagod 4y ago

Poeple use it because the UX is great, as well as the bot DX. E2EE isn't a critical feature for most people picking a chat app. Signal is a great alternative to WhatsApp. Not so much for Telegram.

wellthisisgreat 4y ago

Because you lose all your chat history without any way to export it. I unfortunately have convinced some of my relatives to use Signal without me looking into it beforehand. Now because of Signal’s moronic design I dread the day when something happens and I decide I want to save all our chats for posterity / memories, but wouldn’t be able to. There is simply no “export” button. There is some way to do it on Android but on iOS we are SOL.

croes 4y ago
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Backup-and-Restore-Messages https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Ba...
- madmoose 4y ago
  > Signal Desktop does not support transferring message history to or from any device. > Migration Assistant and Time Machine for macOS are not supported.

bloqs 4y ago

Telegram seems to have captured some of thr discord market and seems to do "group" stuff a lot better UX wise.

afiori 4y ago
To effectively capture discord usage telegram should add Group groups, that is to allow user to create an Organizations with some channels and groups. Also some kind of shared access policy. Could even be a pro feature.
- ComodoHacker 4y ago
  Desktop client already has it, it's called 'folders'.
  - afiori 4y ago
    That is client side; there is no functionality comparable to how discord groups chatrooms by server
- theshrike79 4y ago
  I specifically like Telegram because it doesn't have group groups =)
  - afiori 4y ago
    I don't use discord or other complex chats much, are there annoyances that come up with group groups?

perakojotgenije 4y ago

Because it works flawlessly on all three major operating systems (windows, linux, macos), unlike Signal who can not make a decent linux port.

onli 4y ago

You can install Telegram with f-droid, and it works well on a degoogled phone. Signal forbids alternate clients and is not on f-droid. It's thus just not an option.

martin_a 4y ago
> Signal forbids alternate clients Which might be due to their E2E encryption?!?
- smarx007 4y ago
  No, it's a management decision and not a technical limitation.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    Strange, I have Signal on a de-googled Puxel 2 runnibg ClayxOS...
    - fsflover 4y ago
      How can I install Signal on my Qubes OS or on Pinephone, if I don't have any Google or Apple phones?
    - smarx007 4y ago
      But I guess you have an original Signal APK installed, not an alternative client that connects to Signal servers.
      - newpseudonymn 4y ago
        There are third party apps that connect to Signal's servers such as Molly. https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    It was mainly moxie who was hell-bent against that though. I'm hoping they'll reverse their stance since he left. And on federation as well. Moxie was against all these things because it would make new features more difficult to implement. But personally I care much more for an open infrastructure. Most of their new features weren't even useful. I'm currently using a matrix bridge and I didn't get banned (officially that's a third party client too) so that's a good sign.

matkoniecz 4y ago

UX of Signal is terrible. Part of that is a direct result of security-usability trade-offs. > The app doesn’t solve any privacy problem, default chats are unencrypted, keeps personal info. I am using it for public chats. -------------------- EDIT: this is inacurate, see replies For example I get repeated "insert PIN password here to remember it". I have a password manager. There is no way to get rid of it, even via deeply hidden settings. For example, what about disabling it for password with length over 40? Or something?

dividuum 4y ago
> There is no way to get rid of it, even via deeply hidden settings. At least on iOS: Settings > Account > [ ] PIN Reminders. I would be very surprised if there isn't a similar way of disabling those reminders on Android.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  Thanks, used that! And edited my post. Either I missed it or they added it after I started using Signal.
durkie 4y ago
I have a "pin reminders" setting in iOS signal that I can turn off. It's in Settings > Account
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  Thanks, used that! And edited my post. Either I missed it or they added it after I started using Signal.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
InCityDreams 4y ago
...i havent inserted my android remind-pin for years.

rvz 4y ago

> How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. Just like Signal. Yeah, give S̶i̶g̶n̶a̶l̶ Twilio your phone number instead. Problem solved. > I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! The app doesn’t solve any privacy problem, default chats are unencrypted, keeps personal info. App should be dead already or turned into a dating app because it’s clearly not seriously privacy fucused. They don't care and Signal offers less that what Telegram has despite Telegram being less secure. Signal is bad at selling itself. Maybe Signal needs to offer a better user experience, backup chats across all devices and offer more useful features; not less than their competitors rather than pushing a private cryptocurrency scam project useful for criminals, scammers and money launderers.

Forbo 4y ago
If the cryptocurrency weren't useful for criminals, scammers, and money launderers, then it wouldn't be useful for political dissidents either. The reason the undesirables use those technologies is because they work. Yes, bad people are going to use effective tools. Does that mean nobody should have them? Granted, I wish they would have just implemented Monero instead, especially since MobileCoin was (is?) unusable in the US. I agree they definitely could use some work on the backups side of the house as well.

xenator 4y ago

Just to remind that Signal is bu//sh*t messenger that ask you for your phone number. And keep and share all the information with authorities. Since it is a US based company, and it is what US based companies do. If you want to make a protected application, don't tie it to any real world data. That is very easy.

Forbo 4y ago
> And keep and share all the information with authorities. Hilarious that you call it bullshit whilst spouting your own. https://signal.org/bigbrother/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/ Unless of course you have some documentation to back up what you're saying.
- bigfudge 4y ago
  I love Signal, but in some jurisdictions government request for data can be accompanied by gagging orders with serious penalties for breach. I'm not sure that list can be considered complete.
  - Forbo 4y ago
    Does the design of Signal's applications or server infrastructure change because of the jurisdiction? Does the information they gather or store change?
    - afiori 4y ago
      With signal can you join public/private channels without disclosing your phone number? The last time I checked (a few years back) I only saw private groups and no way to hide phone numbers. If that is still the case then there are less reason to have a warrant for you phone number as it is easier to access.
- xenator 4y ago
  If you trust some random people over internet who publish anything, then my words should have the same power to you.

upofadown 4y ago

>How about not storing any information at all? That wouldn't work for groups. Abusers could then destroy the groups with impunity for the purpose of censorship. Telegram is mostly about groups. Telegram is often used for activism. Signal claims to not store data about who is talking to who. That doesn't mean that they don't. If they were, say, a secret subsidiary of the CIA they would act exactly as they are acting now. In general you can't trust the providers of these sorts of things. See Crypto AG...

Canada 4y ago
The signal code is public and has been widely reviewed. We know full well what the server knows regardless of what they say.
- hunter2_ 4y ago
  Suppose an update is rolled out in app stores, and many people update to it. Suppose this new version contains surveillance instead of matching the published/reviewed code. Won't there be some substantial period of time during which many messages can be stolen before somebody eventually goes on twitter to say "hmm, wireshark shows more data than I'd expect" and/or "hmm, I can't get the source to build quite like the store's new apk"?
  - Canada 4y ago
    Then we're screwed. All mainstream applications running on modern general purpose computers are vulnerable to this. You don't like that? Stop busting their balls and produce an alternative operating system and application update framework which is not vulnerable.
- upofadown 4y ago
  That means the end to end encryption (if you verify your identities) works. It says nothing about how much meta data Signal collects.
  - 4y ago

em-bee 4y ago

I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! telegram is the only chat app that offers Free Software clients, does not force me to share my phonenumber, is easy enough to use even for old people. matrix is ok. but element is still buggy and the ux is complex and takes some learning. another alternative is deltachat. it uses smtp as transport and works with an email account. the UX is also easy enough to use. easier than matrix/element.

zoobab 4y ago
Signal require a phone number, a nogo for real privacy.
- meijer 4y ago
  I believe Telegram requires a phone number, too.
  - maxnoe 4y ago
    It requires a phone number, but it doesn't require sharing the phone number with other people. On signal you are only reachable via the phone number, Telegram has User names and allows to hide the number from the profile.
  - boboralice 4y ago
    It asks for a phone number when you sign up, but you don't have to share the phone number with people you want to add as a contact/share it in groups. For a lot of people, Telegram does a good job of being "less evil than Facebook Messenger", and private in ways that matter to them. I'm more worried about some nutcase from a video game meetup group getting hold of my phone number than I am law enforcement finding out I was in that video game group in the first place. I have a Matrix server and an XMPP server for 'truly private' communication anyway.
    - zoobab 4y ago
      Let's see if Telegram gives the data to courts: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/22/08/31/2210240/court-orders-telegram-to-disclose-personal-details-of-pirating-users https://yro.slashdot.org/story/22/08/31/2210240/court-orders...

yunohn 4y ago

> How about not storing any information at all? Acc to telegram: > Telegram may disclose IP addresses and phone numbers How do you propose this data is masked? You need a phone number to use Telegram (and Signal), and you need an internet connection, thus exposing your IP address. I’m not sure why you think Signal does not have this information.

fsflover 4y ago
Matrix won't have this information, if you have your own server.
OkayPhysicist 4y ago
Signal has been subpoena'd in the past, and the only relevant information they were able to provide were account creation date and account's last connection date. Literally nothing else. It's actually a little funny to read: https://signal.org/bigbrother/cd-california-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/cd-california-grand-jury/
- autoexec 4y ago
  That was in the past though. Now Signal is storing exactly that same information permanently in the cloud. Specifically they store your name, phone number, photo, and a record of every person you contact.
  - d0mine 4y ago
    Metadata is enough to execute people (by certain country but anywhere in the world--it is immoral for Signal to position itself as secure if it provides such data).
    - autoexec 4y ago
      Last I checked Signal was outright lying in their privacy policy which was never updated after they started collecting and storing user data in the cloud. You can't morally market yourself as secure while you lie to your users about what their risks are.

tcfhgj 4y ago

I don't get why anyone uses Signal. Horrible UX compared to WhatsApp, no sync of messages between devices, walled garden like WhatsApp, you can't have your own custom client only thing: not Facebook & open source You can have all of that with a Matrix client (except good UX, that's unique to Telegram)

jen20 4y ago
> why anyone uses Signal. > not Facebook Bingo!
tommit 4y ago
I'm not sure what you mean. Messages sync just fine between my iPhone and Linux machine. > Horrible UX It got way better in the past few years. When I did the initial push with my friends, we failed. Mainly because the basic functionality was buggy at times, such as messages that would simply not be received. But now it's running real smooth imo. Sure, there are a few things I would like to see. Polls is a big one. Maybe a smooth gif creation like WhatsApp -- but those are fairly minor. My experience is that it gets pretty much the job done and that's all I want from it. What exactly is so horrible about it in your experience? > only thing: not Facebook & open source Those two are pretty big positives, at least for me. That's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. > You can have all of that with a Matrix client Well ... unfortunately that's a bit much for your average Joe, simple as.
- maxnoe 4y ago
  No they don't sync just fine. A device cannot receive chat history from before it was added and signal regularly "forgets" linked devices, losing all messages on the device and starting from scratch after relinking.

ComodoHacker 4y ago

>How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. This means no history sync, no seamless device switching, no contact discovery, no search. That's not what people want.

gsich 4y ago

>I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! Very easy to integrate custom notifications with bots. Signal is more like "maybe it works with this 3rd party tool". Also being able to use custom buttons with bots.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

> why people use Telegram instead of Signal Telegram has a great bot feature, that you can use to do a bunch of stuff (from smart house notifications, to "uptime robot" tracking of services up/down states, build results, temperature alarms, server monitoring, etc. One curl oneliner, and you get a message on your phone with whatever data needed (even with an image/graph or a file attachment).

AnonC 4y ago

> I seriously don’t understand why people use Telegram instead of Signal. Any reason! Any reason? I’ll give you some serious ones. Signal sucks really bad on user experience and features. If you try both for a week or two and learn about the features, you’d be able to conclude the same. Signal does not care about users and prevents backups on iOS. Lose your device or delete the app due to some issues and reinstall? All your chats are gone! Signal still has message delivery issues (like long delays)…it’s 2022!!! Signal keeps pestering me to allow notifications and to allow contacts access. I can only choose “Not Now”, since there is no option that says “No”. When I choose “Not Now”, it will say “we’ll remind you later” and pester me again. I don’t understand why anyone would assume that this app cares about privacy or about users’ time.

kitsunesoba 4y ago
Signal operates on the idea that anything sent through chat is ephemeral and not worth keeping, which just doesn’t work in practice in my experience. When you’re knee deep in conversation with someone you’re probably not going to say, “oh hey we should switch to email so we can keep a record of this”. It might not even occur to you that the conversation could ever be of value. There’s been several occasions when my life has been made much more easy for having been able to dig up some old message in iMessage, Telegram, etc from as far back as multiple years ago sometimes because the way things played out the pertinent info didn’t exist anywhere else simply because nobody involved could’ve ever guessed it had any importance.
- zelphirkalt 4y ago
  > Signal operates on the idea that anything sent through chat is ephemeral and not worth keeping, which just doesn’t work in practice in my experience. Why do you think that? Did you lose any messages? 'cause I can scroll back months and still see all my messages there. Never noticed any loss.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    As mentioned in parent comment: > Signal does not care about users and prevents backups on iOS. Lose your device or delete the app due to some issues and reinstall? All your chats are gone! Switching out devices is something that happens often enough for many users that transferring history should not be an ordeal. Even the most careful users will occasionally break their phones, and sometimes people need to switch platforms for whatever reason. WhatsApp suffers from this issue too, at least when trying to migrate histories between platforms.

t0bia_s 4y ago

Telegram and Signal has basically same problem. Thats centralised storage of data. So if you care about privacy, Signal is not alternative to Telegram. Matrix is decentralised open-source solution. I don't understand why people don't use it more instead of Signal or Telegram. Or Session, but it is not very user friendly.

autoexec 4y ago

> How about not storing any information at all? Nothing to give, problem solved. Just like Signal. just so you know, Signal does permanently store sensitive user data in the cloud. They collect your name, photo, phone number, and a list of every person you contact using Signal. That data is stored in your profile on their servers. Signal really used to not store anything, but that hasn't been the case for a long time now and if this is the first you're hearing about that, it should tell you all you need to know about how trustworthy Signal is.

sschueller 4y ago

Moxie rubs me the wrong way and I don't trust him. So defacto, I don't trust signal.