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Comment by jcalve | Hacker News Reader

Yes, it would force people to use better alternatives such as Signal or Telegram.

Signal is run by someone who hates repeatable builds and open platforms. Telegram is to the russian government what whatsapp is to the US government.

That is to say, both options are bad. Of course it is conceptually better to spread your information over many separate information silos so that your data is harder to correlate. That should not be the bar we aspire to though.

All of these apps seem to hate open platforms and third party clients; Signal just as much as WhatsApp. I wouldn't even mind using WhatsApp if I could just open a browser window on any modern computer and log on like I can with Twitter. But no, I need to have a smartphone with either Android or IOS. They all want that magic unique personal identifier that is the mobile phone number to prevent you from having more than one persona, and they all want their closed apps as the sole way of using their service.

Of course, that requirement is exactly how they implement the user lock-in, so it's not going anywhere until legislation forces them to open up.

Signal is actually open source but I agree with the sentiment.

Services now just want some person info they can link to you and that actually scares me a little.

You're right about Signal having an open source client of course. It's a closed platform because of the 'no-forks-allowed' stipulations.

The main reason for not wishing that Signal is forked revolves around adding new features. It stops things being fragmented.

As both the client _and the server_ is open source though it's entirely possible to do things like Signal<->Matrix bridges.

Ah. That's why Russian government was trying to block Telegram for over two years. Good to know.

They could have just been doing that to lend it legitimacy ... psyops is something they’re very big into these days

I've heard that before and the idea is reasonable but I must say if they've actually pulled of that stunt then it is amazing because I've seen nothing to suggest so despite being aware of the possibility for years.

I’d say it’s pretty much their MO these days

You mean directing people were they want by pretending they don't want you to while not taking action against those who do?

If so, do you have other notable examples or is it insider information? ;-)

I think it’s pretty well known ... have a look into this guy https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/...

I know you’re not engaging in good faith but I’m adding this more for the benefit of onlookers

> I know you’re not engaging in good faith but I’m adding this more for the benefit of onlookers

That was uncalled for. Please adjust your troll-detector and I'll adjust my wittyness dispenser ;-)

I am serious even when I'm joking, but I have never heard anyone saying that in full seriousness and also it feels like we should have known something: even the Russian secret service isn't perfect, in fact they've done some really big mistakes the last few years (in addition to their deliberate "mistakes" that they seemingly do to show off.)

Yeah right Vladimir. Sure.

I actually have a really viking name for some reason and while I have tried to learn Russian my vocabulary is limited to around 20 or so :-)

I don't think it's the Russian government you should be concerned about when using Telegram. Sure, TG is far from a secure platform, but the Russians have spent considerable effort trying to shut it down so out of all the possibilities, I'd say TG being in Russian hands is among the smallest.

>Telegram is to the russian government what whatsapp is to the US government.

Do you have a source for that. Telegram is built by the VKontakt guys who Putin famously fucked over.

And that's why we have Matrix.

that'll never happen - WhatsApp is almost WeChat for Europe, it's ubiquitous and the network effect is so strong you'll really struggle to get masses of people to switch away fom it.

99% of people outside of the HN bubble will just look at the dialog, click OK and carry on as normal.

If WhatsApp can’t be legally compliant then they simply can’t provide the service. It’s up to them.

Instead of surrendering we - technically aware people - should think about possibilities to make them respect privacy or think about ways to change the situation.

Yes but not clicking through the shrink-wrap agreement isn't a real way to do it. Legislation that requires people be able to say no to data collection without loss of service would go a long way.

I have messaged a bunch of my EU friends with this article. Most of them were shocked.

I did the same. Mixed reactions, some shocked, some shrug and move on. And my friends are academically educated and relatively conscious of this issue I believe. Probably not the most representative sample...

I think this level ignorance is pretty common today.

If you need to force people to use alternatives it's because they are not much better to begin with.

I've used the Signal app and it's a bug fest. Telegram is not even encrypted by default and there is no option for encrypted groups.

> If you need to force people to use alternatives it's because they are not much better to begin with.

This isn't necessarily true - that's basically the problem with monopolies and the point of anti-trust. The network effect really can entrench an inferior product.

That's not a useful definition of better though. WhatsApp, Messenger, etc. are better because they're reliable and the people I want to talk to use them.

MMS messages are hot garbage but they're still better than a lot of alternatives because everyone with a phone can receive them.

Main reason I use whats app is because everyone else I deal with uses whats app, not because it has specific features. I could probably list a different chat app and social networking site for every time I switched a school and when I started to study.

I do personally believe that for all its faults WhatsApp is the best. It’s a pity about that but I guess FB have to pay all those great developers somehow. It’s up to regulation to set the boundaries for what’s acceptable in business so let’s see what happens.

> It’s a pity about that but I guess FB have to pay all those great developers somehow.

They could just run it as a paid service again? They had a minimal annual charge before the Facebook acquisition and probably could have raised that, instead Facebook made it "free" which should have been a warning sign of things to come.

One of the reasons the founders left was that FB wanted to put ads and track users, and didn't even want to try to make a Business paid version like WhatsApp proposed.

> Telegram is not even encrypted by default and there is no option for encrypted groups.

Friendly reminder that encryption is more than E2E-encryption despite what certain people on HN thinks.

Telegram is encrypted point-to-point by default. Same as banks, modern mail etc.

Can we stop spreading technical misinformation now, please? There's plenty of other issues with Telegram and if we stop crying wolf over the neighbors grand danois people might actually believe us when there is an actual wolf.

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