Telegram, the FSB, and the Man in the Middle
www.occrp.org
The technical infrastructure that underpins Telegram is controlled by a man whose companies have collaborated with Russian intelligence services.
    • 6nk06@sh.itjust.works
      27·
      9 months ago

      Not an excuse but Telegram is pretty, and full of colors and animations. Signal is ugly (which is a feature for a small number of users).

      But yes it’s shady since their custom encryption is weak and they hold the keys.

      • Grass@sh.itjust.works
        14·
        9 months ago

        nah both are ugly, but out of the messengers I have tried only telegram and whatsapp have the problem of randos adding me to crypto scam chat groups without any option to decline before it starts pinging me with notifications.

        • ikt@aussie.zone
          6·
          9 months ago

          you want to go into settings > privacy > invites > change to my contacts

          that will stop the random channel invites

    • The D Quuuuuill@slrpnk.netEnglish
      13·
      9 months ago

      it got big in people’s minds earlier. my experience over the last 5 years has been that the only people still using telegram are fascists and cishet eastern europeans. queer folks in eastern europe mostly moved to signal (again. this is my experience. it’s purely anecdotal)

      • Goretantath@lemmy.world
        5·
        9 months ago

        Unfortunately the vr pirates that crack the games I want to try only use telegram… So I have to use it to get their releases, but they prob fit the categories you listed…

        • The D Quuuuuill@slrpnk.netEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          nah for sure. there’s a lot that goes on on telegram. just don’t put anything that incriminates you on it

        • The D Quuuuuill@slrpnk.netEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          noted! wonder why they’re not on signal? seems like with how common queer identities are in the furry community there’d be more desire to avoid a platform with russian ties

    • Barbecue Cowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      9·
      9 months ago

      It’s a lot easier to get a telegram account. I use telegram for its API and automated notifications, not impossible to do that with signal, but difficult to the point of serious impracticality. Telegram groups also don’t really have anything that compares with Signal.

      For person to person communication, its signal every time though.

    • gegil@sopuli.xyz
      3·
      9 months ago

      Because there is nobody who has signal, and everyone is using telegram. I could switch to signal, but there is nobody to chat with. Telegram users and group chat owners wouldnt switch to signal, because they dont care, and nobody else in chat does so. So unless telegram will be legally banned by government, nobody is going to do anything about using it.

    • woelkchen@piefed.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      Wake me up when Signal can actually share the location, esp. live location, and not just a static maps screenshot with a Google Maps URL.

      • trolololol@lemmy.world
        3·
        9 months ago

        That requires paying Google maps for their services. I don’t know how their running costs and budget work.

        • woelkchen@piefed.worldEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          Signal have tons of money from selling proprietary licenses of the Signal code base to Meta (used by WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger), Google, and Microsoft.

          All these partnerships were announced on Signal’s own blog, in case you don’t believe it.

    • Akasazh@feddit.nl
      2·
      9 months ago

      I’ve had it installed for a while. Didn’t use it much, but it was fun to see the pop ups from people out of address book joining telegram.

      There were some usual suspects of kind of ‘sceptical’ folk, but also some surprises like my aunt.

      The novelty wore off quickly though