almosTahel
Security Gap Analyst
Divine
LEVEL 1
400 XP
So I decided to create this topic and hopefully it gets noticed.
In this post, I will cover why you shouldn't use Telegram and what you should use instead.
(Read the post before telling me "F*** off, telegram is great, the guy I buy configs from told me so!")
Telegram Spyware
Lots of people here use Telegram and most of you never did any research on it.
Have you ever asked yourself why do you even use it? Is it because it's "private"? Is it because it's "secure"?
The purpose of this post is to clarify how Telegram actually works.
I'll list the Pros and Cons of Telegram
Cons:
Telegram is not E2EE (end to end encrypted) by default
Which means, that if you don't toggle it yourself, your traffic is unencrypted, anyone can see your messages in plain text.
Telegram logs your contacts
Ever notice the notification "Bob is now on Telegram! Say Hi!"? They log your contacts and their numbers. Yes, they now know your drug dealer's phone number.
Telegram is not open source
Telegram's client itself is opensource, but you can't see the code of the server side.
Telegram requires your phone number
As you already know by now, you can't use Telegram without a phone number. Which means that you can't be fully anonymous, or in fact anonymous at all.
Pros:
Lots of people use it
The main reason why you're still using it
Sources:
"Telegram sucks? What do I use then??"
So I did research on the most private and secure chat platforms.
The list would go smaller and smaller when I did more and more research on it.
But in the end, it squared up to 2 chat platforms.
Element (Matrix)
- Decentralized
- Fully opensource (both server and client sides)
- E2EE by default
- Doesn't require your phone number
- Data center in Switzerland
What I also love about Element is the way verifying sessions work, the whole system of encryption and decryption keys. If someone managed to hack your account, they couldn't read shit because your decryption keys are on your device.
Jami
- Decentralized
- P2P
- Fully opensource
- E2EE
- Doesn't require a phone number
I personally prefer Element over Jami, there is no serious reason to it, just personal experience. Choose whichever you want and please stop using Telegram.
P.S
I would have included Signal as well, however there's a few things that were complete red-flags about it.
Signal is centralized, requires phone number, and it's hosted in Microsoft Azure cloud. That's 3 red-flags about it.
Now Signal is definitely not as bad as Telegram, although some people have a reason to think that it's a honeypot.
In this post, I will cover why you shouldn't use Telegram and what you should use instead.
(Read the post before telling me "F*** off, telegram is great, the guy I buy configs from told me so!")
Telegram Spyware
Lots of people here use Telegram and most of you never did any research on it.
Have you ever asked yourself why do you even use it? Is it because it's "private"? Is it because it's "secure"?
The purpose of this post is to clarify how Telegram actually works.
I'll list the Pros and Cons of Telegram
Cons:
Telegram is not E2EE (end to end encrypted) by default
Which means, that if you don't toggle it yourself, your traffic is unencrypted, anyone can see your messages in plain text.
Telegram logs your contacts
Ever notice the notification "Bob is now on Telegram! Say Hi!"? They log your contacts and their numbers. Yes, they now know your drug dealer's phone number.
Telegram is not open source
Telegram's client itself is opensource, but you can't see the code of the server side.
Telegram requires your phone number
As you already know by now, you can't use Telegram without a phone number. Which means that you can't be fully anonymous, or in fact anonymous at all.
Pros:
Lots of people use it
The main reason why you're still using it
Sources:
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iddqd.press
So I did research on the most private and secure chat platforms.
The list would go smaller and smaller when I did more and more research on it.
But in the end, it squared up to 2 chat platforms.
Element (Matrix)
Loading…
element.io
- Fully opensource (both server and client sides)
- E2EE by default
- Doesn't require your phone number
- Data center in Switzerland
What I also love about Element is the way verifying sessions work, the whole system of encryption and decryption keys. If someone managed to hack your account, they couldn't read shit because your decryption keys are on your device.
Jami
Loading…
jami.net
- P2P
- Fully opensource
- E2EE
- Doesn't require a phone number
I personally prefer Element over Jami, there is no serious reason to it, just personal experience. Choose whichever you want and please stop using Telegram.
P.S
I would have included Signal as well, however there's a few things that were complete red-flags about it.
Signal is centralized, requires phone number, and it's hosted in Microsoft Azure cloud. That's 3 red-flags about it.
Now Signal is definitely not as bad as Telegram, although some people have a reason to think that it's a honeypot.