So why the fuck Telegram is not e2e encrypted by default, and why are group chats not e2e encrypted?
Not to mention that even when chats are e2e encrypted, they are encrypted using their proprietary algorithm?
Not to mention that even when chats are e2e encrypted, they are encrypted using their proprietary algorithm?
The Telegram method of dealing with this is obviously not the only way, but it is a legitimate way.
>Not to mention that even when chats are e2e encrypted, they are encrypted using their proprietary algorithm?
The algorithm is public. It is a straightforward application of well known primitives. It is hardly proprietary.
Note that its predecessor, was very much not that (e.g. https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/ was a vulnerability in it, and it stuck to some weird choices of crypto primitives/key sizes for a pretty long time). This colors my expectations about the current version slightly.
I personally know nothing about the current protocol used (mtproto 2.0) and a few minutes of googling surfaced https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/595.pdf, https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/469 and https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.03141, which I'd need to read in reasonable amount of detail to have an opinion on mtproto 2.0.
Look, if people want to encrypt their chats on Telegram, they start a secret chat. That’s how it should be. Why should it be the default? Because you think people are idiots?
If I make a secret chat on Telegram, I trust it more than a default chat on Signal. Both are good, but one company is much harder to pressure than another.
And this is all a moot point - like arguing which homeless person is richer. If you want real privacy and control — simply communicate without using the infrastructure and software provided by centralized corporations!
Because everyone is an idiot once in a while (just after waking up, when drunk, when stressed, when sick, ...). Also, because the very presence of a secret chat is something that can be observed and can be enough to raise suspicion.
That said, you are right that not-on-by-default-for-everyone makes the encrypted chats more suspicious.
I have to say that I have a nuanced view on encryption, which isn’t matching the orthodoxy on HN:
https://community.qbix.com/t/balancing-privacy-and-accountab...
OT: Do you have anything more concrete written on the choice of holders of escrow shares (so that they can be trusted to actually follow the audit rules)?
Yes, for all private interactions / conversations I support encryption, provided it can be decrypted in the way I said. Obviously there is room for innovation to make it harder and harder to do bulk decryption without a proper reason and audit trail. And make sure somehow that the cameras can prove they aren’t sending unencrypted video or that encryption keys are secure. It’s hard to prove a negative, but possible if verifiers can search the entire signal. Those innovations are part technological and part societal… but the underlying technology (like blockchain) has to exist first. Has anyone built it yet?
Now having said that, I don’t think encryption keys should be that hard to get for conversations within a corporation, and probably should be nonexistent for public servants on duty. Today we have the opposite … NATO promises to Gorbachev are secret, Normandy format talks were closed for years, Ukraine-Russia negotiations were behind closed doors, we don’t know why they all failed. And regular people have to go to war because of their failure. I think if the government wants to know where my $600 goes I should be able to know where trillions go.