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Comment by derwiki | Hacker News Reader

I recently tried WhatsApp alternatives that provided end-to-end encryption on Android (I use TextSecure, but only 1% of my contacts do). Wickr was the best, but a little too paranoid for daily use. WhatsApp has a better UI and sends messages faster. I would love to trust that their end-to-end encryption is legit, and WhisperSystems being involved helps, but.. seems I'm still skeptical.

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What about Telegram? I've been fairly pleased with it and its interface is a shameless rip off of WhatsApp. (which isn't a bad thing mind you)

Telegram should be considered insecure. See this post for a nice summary: http://security.stackexchange.com/a/49802

That seems more like an ad-hominem than anything.

Their secret chats specifically seem like they would be entirely secure.

It would be interesting if you could find a reputable cryptographer to agree with either of those sentences.

Steve Gibson did a pretty detailed analysis of Telegram on Security Now #444, recorded 25 Feb 2014. He concluded that Telegram's security was inadequate and recommended Threema as an alternative.

http://twit.tv/show/security-now/444

https://threema.ch/en

Thanks for the link to the security-now show, good stuff and does a good job of explaining the reservations in the crypto community around Telegram. I'm now looking at other options.

I do like that Telegram launched with an API, but ya, it sounds like security isn't something that can be trusted. Thanks for the informative link.

Putting someone's credentials into question is not necessarily an ad hominem.

But in any case, you seem to have missed this bit: "The protocol they invented is flawed. Here is a nice blog post explaining why."

Telegram doesn't offer end-to-end encryption by default for one, and second, it "can't" offer end-to-end encryption for group chats.

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