- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
blog.cryptographyengineering.com
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Blog post by crypto professor Matthew Green, discussing what Telegram does (I wasn’t familiar with it) and criticizing its cryptography. He says Telegram by default is not end-to-end encrypted. It does have an end-to-end “secret chat” feature, but it’s a nuisance to activate and only works for two-person chats (not groups) where both people are online when the chat starts.
It still isn’t clear to me why Telegram’s founder was arrested. Green expresses some concern over that but doesn’t give any details that weren’t in the headlines.
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I mean really, we don’t need an entire article to explain how encryption works on Telegram.
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Chats by default aren’t fully e2e. Your key must be kept on the server(s) to enable instant sync with other devices
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There is a full e2e chat, you can enable this at any time. But, it doesn’t do groups, it’s only between 2 parties, and it doesn’t sync across devices.
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Telegram’s encryption isn’t open source, so no one can verify it’s soundness or risks.
None of this is new info, it’s been talked about for 2 years now.
2 years? Try ten!
We really don’t need more than #3 for a reason to stay far away from Telegram. Security through obscurity is not security, and neither is rolling your own crypto.
Sure, I just have never used telegram or paid attention to it until that guy got arrested. So the quick overview by a cryptographer was helpful.
Are there any programs that can do e2e in a group chat? My limited knowledge of e2e and encryption makes me think that’d be extremely difficult and even clunkier
Element (really any Matrix client that supports e2ee) but rooms with hundreds I’d people and having encryption enabled is going to to have lots of messages with key exchange errors.
Group chat is a tricky problem and the modern crypto group (moderncrypto.org) talked about it at great length a few years back. I don’t know whether any software exists that incorporates all those ideas, but that’s mostly because I haven’t really been looking for it.
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same subject 3 hours ago ☞ https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/26612132
Hmm, so this is kind of a dup thread. I wonder if there is a way to lock and forward it, or at least mark it as a cross post. Thanks.
This is pretty good, a discussion of possible motivation of the founder’s arrest, and comparison with an earlier scuffle involving the RIM Blackberry.
https://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2024/08/25/pavel-durov-and-the-blackberry-ratchet/
They can shut off that server whenever they want and then it won’t matter how encrypted your unsent message is.
Telegram is service as a software substitute.
No.
Only under very specific circumstances.
