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Comment by pdimitar | Hacker News Reader

Telegram has moved to Dubai long ago so no idea where you get the idea that FSB can strong-arm them from.

Durov travels freely to and from Russia and several of their employees are still based in Russia. So yeah, the FSB have leverage if they need to use it.

You say it like it's a fact, so I assume you have proof? Durov is very vocal about being in exile so this looks doubtful.

That's the tune of every Russian oligarch that doesn't want to get caught up in a sanctions regime that makes their Paris/Milan shopping trips a pain.

And this comment provided zero proof, exactly as expected.

> Durov travels freely to and from Russia

This is incorrect. Check your facts. They're made up.

As I stated in a sister comment, Dubai is marginally better, but not significantly better. If it's the same original developers, they could be squeezed through their family.

Same goes for Signal devs, or any devs really. You're only stating the obvious: humans can be forced and coerced given enough motivation and resources.

Singling out Telegram, or Signal, or any other service's devs is not advancing any argument forward.

No, telegram is especially concerning given how insecure it is by default.

There is more reason to be concerned about Telegram than most other similar services.

Partly because it’s insecure by default, which makes a large percentage of conversations vulnerable.

And also because the team behind it is very susceptible to pressure from the Russian government, which is especially bad when it comes to these things. Even if some of them are based out of Dubai now, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t still at risk of coercion, either directly or through for example threats against family members who remain in the country.

If you don’t trust Russia, which you shouldn’t, then don’t trust Telegram with anything sensitive.

Whom should we trust then? Have we already forgotten about Snowden?

Can we trust some more than others without trusting anyone completely?

I for one trust that there are more Americans who would say no to the NSA when they have a legal basis for doing so than there are Russians saying no to the FSB.

The state of the rule of law is certainly not great anywhere in the world right now. But it's far worse in some places than in others. The difference still matters to some degree.

> Can we trust some more than others

No, we cannot, so yours and other comments come across as picking favorites. As an Eastern European I'll state that I distrust USA as much as I distrust Russia, China and North Korea. All nations with ambitions use every dirty trick known to man.

> Even if some of them are based out of Dubai now

Not to mention there's not much reason to trust UAE any more than there is to trust Russia.

Yes, and?

I just found the mention of the state confusing because surely this app is equally untrustworthy regardless of its origin. American companies can't be trusted either—they've long since indicated a willingness to work with law enforcement and intelligence. E2e encryption is the only meaningful answer.

Yeah I agree with that, I am always baffled why people single out Russia as if it's the Cold War; none of the major powers can be trusted at all, some are just more covert than others but I guess "out of sight, out of mind" applies in full force even for a seemingly less-biased audience like HN.

As for E2E encryption, eh, this topic has been beaten to death many times. Its UX is difficult so many apps like WhatsApp and Telegram do UX tradeoffs, quite successfully so I'd say.

Hardy har har har. How quaint.

Guess you never heard of polonium either.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/alexander-litv...

I heard. Your point?

They have a long reach and like to be brutal for effect.

Death is death, whether it's brutal or not, your dead corpse will not care.

Still no idea what your argument is. Or that of the grand-parent comment. "Oh look, Russia is poisoning people!" Yeah, we knew that ever since the Cold War. Show me a nation that doesn't persecute people it doesn't like.

Much more recently using Novichok: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_...

Ah yes, Dubai the bastion of integrity, equality and human rights.

True, they aren't. Whether they're friends with Russia is another thing though.

They don't have to be friends to turn a blind eye.

If Dubai had to pick between letting some nobody foreign national living on their soil get squeezed by a foreign secret police, or pissing off the Russians, what do you think they would do?

(This isn't a knock on Dubai specifically, substitute them for almost any non-NATO country in the world).

And you think the USA doesn't do such things? If so, that's quite naive.

Did I say that? Did I mention the USA at any point in this discussion? What a strange thing to add. I am not American btw.

I mentioned it because people very easily single out Russia and I think that's quite the outdated sentiment. I'd start with USA, North Korea, China, Russia and Iran -- again, just as a start, and I am sure there are many others that can't be trusted.

Where Telegram's devs and business resides hardly matters IMO. If somebody truly wants to put them under their boot they'll find a way, and that goes for probably half the countries on this planet.

You didn't "mention" it, you implied that I believed this, when it wasn't even part of the discussion. You can believe whatever you want, but you really shouldn't accuse others of such things.

Also: this whole topic is about a Russian company/app and Russian citizens living in Dubai. What other country would we be talking about here, exactly?

Well then, your goal was just to point out that Dubai is a bad place for democracy -- and nothing else?

If so, OK.

Did you hear about a russian pilot who defected to Ukraine and then was killed in Spain?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/world/europe/russian-pilo...

If russia wants to find and kill you they will.

Okay, and your concussion in relation to the topic is...?

> If russia wants to find and kill you they will.

If whatever State/Government wants to find and kill you they will.

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