"We are getting 100 new registrations every second." | Hacker News Reader

"We are getting 100 new registrations every second."

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91 pointsantr47 comments

"800,000 users from the Netherlands and counting." https://twitter.com/telegram/status/437275755312345089

This is speculative, but I think Telegram actually has enough momentum at the moment to overtake WhatsApp as the main instant messaging service in the Netherlands--if they are able to adequately handle the massive amount of new registrations. The general public definitely seems to be uncomfortable privacy-wise with the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook. So much for privacy being dead.

https://twitter.com/search?q=telegram%20lang%3Anl&src=typd&f... Telegram is definitely a trending topic on Twitter in the Netherlands.

Most people I know in the Netherlands switched to Telegram within 48 hours after the announcement.

Which currently appears to be dead, BTW.

If only their messages were secured end-to-end by default. Then it wouldn't be just another insecure Whatsapp clone I have no interest in.

At least they do offer the option relatively seamlessly (or so I hope). It might be cumbersome and awkward to explain to your non-tech friends why you want to enable it, but at least it's an option (although not necessarily proven to be secure).

It is a trend, exactly that. Because all major news outlets in the Netherlands are reporting on the Whatsapp downtime, they try to add some perspective with the Facebook buy and poke Telegram. This results in people checking out Telegram as the new trendy thing. Let us say 4/10 contacts use Telegram now. Why bother if 60% of your interaction is still on Whatsapp? Unless everybody switches it will just be a novelty app.

The thing that bothers me is this - any service that we use and are happy with, can be bought by FB. Then FB would own all of that data - so it doesn't matter if we don't use FB - first instagram, now whatsapp (there are probably others that I can't remember). This is good for the founders of whatsapp - not sure about the users though. It is hard to say no to boatload of cash, I guess.

What is your concern exactly? If it's privacy, from state level organizations like NSA you shouldn't be using mainstream IMs anyway. If it's just Zuckerberg then Telegram is fine and WhatsUp is not (anymore). If it's none of the above, then you're fine.

I think the point is is that even if you don't use mainstream services, than there's nothing stopping Facebook buying up whatever you were using at some point in the future.

Well, if the conversation is encrypted and the connections are routed through tor, you don't really care who intercepts what.

Is this the same messengering app that had the whole encryption debacle a month or two ago?

Yes.

They Show HN'd to much controversy [1].

Started a $200,000 'crypto challenge' [2] which lots of people hated on [3].

Then someone compromised their protocol and they gave away $100,000 [4].

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6913456

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6931457

[3] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6936539

[4] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6948742

EDIT: /launched/Show HN/s

> They launched to ...

They "launched" several months before their appearance on HN. Though I guess it doesn't really qualify as a true launch without a "Show HN" thread, right?

To be fair: If we're talking 'replace WhatsApp', the 'had security issues' point is - well - comparable. Competitive? :)

I stay with xmpp.

Considering that WhatsApp used port 443 but sent messages in plaintext... I think Telegram actually did better. Also since in the end, nobody actually turned out to be able to decrypt messages.

WhatsApp didn't go on about their security and mock security expert's opinions, either. Telegram intentionally built their own encryption, did a poor job, summarily dismissed expert criticism, and set up a shame contest. That kind of behaviour is far worse than an "SMS-replacement" service not really putting much effort into security.

From what I remember they were arrogant in the beginning, but in the end they admitted their flaws and fixed them?

100/s = 8.6M per day. That seems unrealistically high, even for the most viral of apps. WhatsApp is currently at 1M per day. Either Telegram means requests of some sort or they're getting DDoS'd.

Edit: looks like it might be a spike because WhatsApp is currently down: https://twitter.com/wa_status/status/437319926605680640

I doubt it is 24 hours a day, and it is obviously related to WhatsApp acquisition...

is not related to the acquisition, is related to the fact that WhatsApp isn't working right now.

Definitely to both. Telegram has been going viral for several days.

They specifically stated "registrations".

A third possibility is that they are being wilfully misleading.

https://core.telegram.org/techfaq#q-why-do-you-use-sha-1-in-...

> Q: Why do you use SHA-1 in the place of a MAC?

> Technically speaking, in our implementation SHA-1 can be seen as a specific case of a MAC (but not HMAC), since it is also used as an encryption key.

> We use it, because it is faster, especially when you need to send photos or large videos (Telegram supports videos and documents up to 1Gb). And since this means still requiring at least 2^128 operations (instead of 2^256 with, say, SHA-2) to even begin trying to break this scheme, the trade-off seems fair.

Questionable choice of marketing image https://telegram.org/img/tl_card_open.png?1

What is it even supposed to convey? It seems that often advertising and marketing forget that they are supposed to, you know, communicate something to someone.

"open"

(Though it doesn't make no sense, and I personally find the illustration more cute than offensive, it was probably a poor choice.)

Well, you can see how it works "under the hood"... not being ashamed of what they are/their works. I kinda understand the rationale for that picture (I'm wondering how hard it would be to draw "open standard" in a pictionary game)

I fully agree on it being questionable, though.

Telegram? No thanks.

I'll continue to use WhatsApp for another month or so, until TextSecure becomes available for iOS, after which I'll be helping everyone I know switch to it.

Any specific reason why not Telegram?

Not the GP, but: No open-source server as far as I can tell (i.e. "cannot host it myself") and questionable security track record at the moment. The latter is something that can be fixed in parts, but .. without the ability to _not_ send my private conversations to a random company and tie my "identity" to their service I've got to decline.

To be clear: I've never used WhatsApp either - so I'm not really supporting the 'WhatsApp > Telegram' idea.

Not being able to verify the source code destroys the purpose of using TextSecure.

The cycle of messanging.

"We need a way to communicate over the internet". Email was born.

"We need a way to communicate with groups". Messaging boards and mailing lists are born.

"We need a way to communicate quickly and privately". Email is now only a tool for spam, registration mails and professionalism. AIM, ICQ and MSN are born. Email lists are "when you click on that list button in Outlook" to the general public.

"We need a way to communicate on the go". Messaging boards die. People use Facebook to chat. Twitter grows. Old-style protocols can't keep up despite offering more. SMS is that thing that does exactly the same but costs money.

"We need a way to communicate with groups again". No one was using boards anymore so no one developed new and edgy alternatives. Discourse is born. Nothing new is offered, but JavaScript! Ajax! Frameworks! Apps!

"We need a way to communicate quickly and privately again". Old protocols are reinvented. Poorly. WhatApps and competitors arise. People using XMPP and OTR die of loneliness. Solved problems are solved again. Poorly. But now there's an app for that. Even on Windows Phone (never seen one in the wild).

Time to reinvent Email. Or not.

Maybe they're overloaded, but it doesn't seem to work for me or my friend. We both can't see each other on the contacts list.

Either that or they don't work well with our phone number format.

It's down for me. They seem to be having some real scaling issues. This is no joke.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

Just speculation, but could this have anything to do with what's happening in Ukraine at the moment?

trying to install it as we speak. Won't send me the SMS verification message.

https://twitter.com/telegram/status/437327903572131841

Try during sleep.

No, seriously, it seems to be blowing up just in Europe and it's 01:27 AM in GMT+1 right now (western Europe). I was able to get my CLI client activated on Linux something like an hour ago.

Edit 01:30: And activated web client too.

Mine eventually came through, but it took 10 or 15 minutes.

What is telegram and can I run my own copper?

WhatsApp clone, may also be a joke.

Pretty sure it is a joke.

Not just a clone; its selling point is that the clients and protocol are open-source and it supports end-to-end encryption.

The Messenger for Telegram app for Mac plays very well with the entire Telegram ecosystem.

IMHO, Telegram's (open source) value proposition is more up do date with the current multi-platform ecosystem per user.

https://telegram.org/apps

I'm not sure it is a joke, my friends chat on fb were talking about, and they found out about it cuz some other friends were talking about it in their timelines.

Whatsapp is down, so people are looking for alternatives of course. Sad is not textsecure instead.

Textsecure has obviously problem with 'how to use this thing' and 'we don't want another SMS app'.

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