When you realize end-to-end encryption is a necessary property of all features, you realize Telegram lacks even basic things like desktop clients, syncable chats, and group chats. Not so feature rich anymore ;)
- WhatsApp before they implemented it
- GMail (or any other mail service)
- Matrix (by default, until recently?)
- IRC
- SMS
- Letters in the mail
For some reason this has a tendency to boil down very quickly to
- E2E-encryptet === good, no further information needed
- anything else === bad, no further information needed
Which obviously isn't the whole truth:
It is far less likely give you trouble
- if you receive a stream of unencrypted postcards from Grandma on vacation
- than it is if you send and receive perfectly encrypted messages to/from a criminal mastermind over a channel that leaks metadata or by default backs up your data to any mainstream cloud provider.
The availability of metadata, who can access that metadata etc etc plays a role.
Telegram has significant problems, as far as I know both technically and also at higher levels, but for some reason someone always have to pull the E2E: Good, anything else: Bad.
That isn't useful.
https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&q=are+telegram+cha...
You are probably answering another post here. I don't think it is intentional.
> Messages of the rest can be read by Telegram team.
Well, there are a number of ways to prevent that from happening easily.
I cannot verify this, but Telegram said years ago that they solved certain problems by routing keys and messages through different datacenters in different jurisdictions.
That said: the big question is if their solutions work and if it works that way? I don't know, they seem remarkable competent at certain aspects of what they do and other times I feel they suffer from the same thing that Elon Musk sometimes suffer from where they publicly state things that sound immediately unreasonable.
But that would be meaningful criticism so probably off topic in a Telegram bashing contest ;-)
Firstly, there is no proof of this happening. I've been looking for the documentation and/or source code for this for more than five years now, and it's never been published.
Secondly, even IF it was happening, the server that strips the in-transit encryption has access to the plaintext, and can copy the message to anywhere it damn pleases. It can write it to "plaintext-messages.txt" for all it cares, that's like two lines of Python in the backend.
Also, the servers creating database entries must by definition have the full database encryption key in its RAM, from where privileged processes can exfiltrate it (computer organization 101).
The thing is, there isn't technology out there that allows Telegram to do what it claims as securely as it claims. If they are indeed innovating on this, why aren't they publishing their research and proving their worth?
"they seem remarkable competent at certain aspects of what they do"
Yeah, you can be great at UX design and shitty at cryptography. That's perfectly fine. The fact they won't spend money to hire competent cryptographers is the shitty part. I don't know if it's this Russian pride wrt. Nikolai being an award winning mathematician, or if they don't really give a fuck and think damage control can mend the damage that resulted from nepotism.
Well, the first time they get hacked properly shows how shit the architecture was. We can only hope people will then ask "ok where the fuck did we go wrong, again, can we switch to something that fixed this once and for all", and that by then, Signal is usable enough for their needs.
> Firstly, there is no proof of this happening. I've been looking for the documentation and/or source code for this for more than five years now, and it's never been published.
I haven't found anything more either. See also below.
> Secondly, even IF it was happening, the server that strips the in-transit encryption has access to the plaintext, and can copy the message to anywhere it damn pleases. It can write it to "plaintext-messages.txt" for all it cares, that's like two lines of Python in the backend.
Theoretically, couldn't the client send the message to one server and the keys to a different set of servers? Clients would request the encrypted messages from one server and the keys from another?
It is still not nearly as good security as proper E2E-encryption but should still be possible to set up so that a single rogue sysadmin cannot get hold of messages.
> Also, the servers creating database entries must by definition have the full database encryption key in its RAM, from where privileged processes can exfiltrate it (computer organization 101). The thing is, there isn't technology out there that allows Telegram to do what it claims as securely as it claims. If they are indeed innovating on this, why aren't they publishing their research and proving their worth?
See above. As long as they don't do serverside search or anything this should be possible?
> "they seem remarkable competent at certain aspects of what they do" Yeah, you can be great at UX design and shitty at cryptography. That's perfectly fine.
Definitely.
As mentioned before I prefer Signal. I actually like your answer.
We need more of these answers and less:
- X is definitely in the pocket of FSB.
- E2E or nothing!
- Use WhatsApp or nothing!
Hey, even tptacek went as far as admitting this at some point:
That would imply client-side encrypted cloud backups, with external key management which isn't the case in Telegram, if it were it could be shown from client-side code. Also, even if that would be the case, it would just need combining key and ciphertext in once place which is again the weak link.
Also, there's no way the search would work as fast as it does now if key /ciphertexts would have to be transported via servers, and finally, since it's a single server that can request data (I have checked the destination IPs), anything of the sort is not happening.
"should still be possible to set up so that a single rogue sysadmin cannot get hold of messages."
I'm afraid that's not possible. When the message arrives to server and the outer layer that is in-transit encryption is stripped, what must remain is the plaintext message, or a message that the server can not decrypt. Such technology already exists, it's called end-to-end encryption. If there was a simpler way to protect from malicious servers, there wouldn't be a need for E2EE communication ;)
"See above. As long as they don't do serverside search or anything this should be possible?"
So no that wouldn't work in practice. Proper cryptographic design in secure messaging apps doesn't distinguish between entities on server who have access to keys. "Jack has one part of the key and Jill has another, but they will never collude or get hacked at the same time" is very bad security rationale.
"- X is definitely in the pocket of FSB."
Well, the problem here is, if the scenario is this "Telegram is secretly in the pocket of the FSB and they're giving access to every message on their server" I can't say "No way, it's all end-to-end encrypted they have nothing to give". I can say that for Signal, however, so I'd rather recommend it instead, and actually, because I can't say Telegram definitely isn't in the pocket of FSB, I don't think it should be used. I hope you understand this requirement of verifiability. If Telegram really wanted to lock themselves from user data, the would've implemented E2EE from the get go.
"E2E or nothing!"
Not sure what to make of this, I haven't heard anyone claim no encryption is better than weaker encryption. But wrt. message confidentiality, since there is no difference when it comes to service provider obtaining the plaintext copy, it's hard to not say "don't use it if it's not E2EE".
"- Use WhatsApp or nothing!"
Another complex problem that boils down to trusting WA has not changed source code after Moxie helped implement Signal Protocol. Like I said earlier, there's maybe a 1..2% chance of backdoor that allows WA to snoop on it's E2EE. So if for some reason one would have to compare these particular ones (IRL this is what we'd call a false dilemma), I'd say
1. Telegram secret messages for one-on-one chats 2. WhatsApp group messages 3. Telegram group messages
WhatsApp may have 1..2% chance of backdoor, but with Telegram I know there's a front door with 100% probability.
If we forget the false dilemma, suddenly Signal solves all of our woes wrt. cross-platform private one-on-one chats and group chats.
"Hey, even tptacek went as far as admitting this at some point:"
Let's not put his words "almost literally any secure messenger is better than email."
Firstly, that assumes he considers Telegram a secure messenger. Secondly, encrypted email has serious problems with deniability (which we'll ignore this time) and forward secrecy: in those respects Telegram's E2EE is better, sure, but E2EE email for group chats (Assuming the client knows how to reply individually to all, and to use each individual's PGP key to protect it) is again more private than Telegram's group chats.
the idea being that there can be an internal policy to shut down the server and wipe the ram but it is harder to do with drives.
I also have a question since you probably can answer: can E2E offer a similar user experience to what normal telegram chats offer?
There's no precedent I'm aware of that if e.g. NL Telegram server has the key in its RAM but not in its disk, that it doesn't have to hand out the keys. Also the keys and/or plaintexts can just be stolen by foreign intelligence establishments. It's not just judicial means we need to be concerned about. E.g., just because it's legal in China to hack Telegram servers abroad, doesn't mean it's right, and Telegram should take this into account.
"the idea being that there can be an internal policy to shut down the server and wipe the ram but it is harder to do with drives."
This is pure speculation and it wouldn't matter because key lifting attacks would be transparent, i.e. the exploit is polished enough not to raise alarms.
"I also have a question since you probably can answer: can E2E offer a similar user experience to what normal telegram chats offer?"
Yes. Except channels and extremely large supergroups. But these two don't enjoy expectation of privacy. You can't expect something you say to a group of 10,000+ people to remain private, people consider such groups public.
Encrpytion is just math so there's also no way around the UX problem of authentication that's part of E2EE, but since that's expected of users, it's not a problem either.
Everything else, group chats with roles, synced chats, file transfers, locations, stickers... you name it, can be done over E2EE, just look at how Signal is showing each of those can be done. It's not trivial of course, but like you asked, "can it be done", yes, it can.
That's such a bullshit excuse. Everything goes with outer layer of encryption these days, what matters is will Telegram offer to lock themselves out of the messages to which the answer is no by default. If you want to chat on desktop or create a group, the answer is no whether you like it or not.
So again, some niché use case of "it's probably nothing sensitive so you might as well send it in the clear because that says you're not a dissident" is thus not even valid. There's almost always outer layer of encryption.
"The availability of metadata, who can access that metadata etc etc plays a role."
Indeed. All the more reason to avoid Telegram that by default stores all that metadata.
"someone always have to pull the E2E: Good, anything else: Bad."
No the point is we'll never even get to the debate on reducing metadata as long as we need to play whack-a-mole with shit apps like Telegram that don't E2EE by default, let alone provide any kind of metadata protection, even sealed sender like Signal does.
As the author of messaging system[1] that provides both E2EE by default for everything as well as metadata protection (more than any other app out there) and advanced protections like endpoint security, I don't really like you putting me into some square of caring only about E2EE. All I can say to you is, first things first.
the desktop client of telegram is the main reason to use it over the competition for me. something that does not lag when you type text or resize its window, opens in a quarter of second, etc etc
It has everything it should have and is not Electron. The best app of this kind there is at the moment.
I'm not affiliated with Unigram in any way, just a happy user.