Telegram Hands U.S. Authorities Data on Thousands of Users
www.404media.co
The number of data requests fulfilled by Telegram skyrocketed, with the company providing data to U.S. authorities on 2,253 users last year.

as if you needed more reasons to switch to Signal

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    4·
    1 month ago

    You’re telling me the messaging serving with a roll-your-own encryption that hasn’t been audited and doesn’t enable end-to-end-encryption by default, instead requiring you to initiate 1-to-1 “secret chats” isn’t secure or trustworthy?? Holy balls!

    • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      29 days ago

      There’s privacy and then there’s user experience. UX on Matrix is awful. Not to mention Matrix collects all the metadata, and the vast majority of it sits on a single server (matrix.org), which is owned by a private company and subject to subpoenas.

    • coyotino [he/him]@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      open stuff scares people. plus with messengers, we’re kind of bound to what our friends use. I’ve been slowly converting friends to Signal, and but people are very reluctant to change when the thing they have already works. Can’t imagine how much friction I would hit with something like matrix.

      • calmluck9349@infosec.pub
        1·
        30 days ago

        How slow friends are blows my mind. Like a cool new app they is secure and private?! Who wouldn’t jump on that?! I tell everyone" I don’t do SMS. Signal is the only way to get a hold of me. If you have a more secure app I’ll look into it. "

  • Mikina@programming.dev
    1·
    1 month ago

    I’m a fan of self-hosted Matrix server. You can get a dozen of bridges for those stubborn people that refuse to leave messenger/whatsapp/telegram (at a loss of encryption, and they still get your convos, but at least you don’t have their spyware on your mobile and you can have everything in one app), while also being decentralized.

    Self-hosting a server is actually really, really easy. It took me like half an hour, because there is an amazing Matrix Ansible Deploy script, that has a pretty easy to follow documentation, and is also one of those super-rare projects that just works. Even if I forgot to update my server for several months, I could literally “just update”, and the script is clever enough to figure out what changed, tell me what I need to update in the config files (which are still only like four rows of stuff I needed to setup), and it is a really smooth experience. Even when you want to set up some bridges, for most it’s literally just adding “<service>_bridge_enabled: true” to the ansible yml config file. I’ve already set up Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord and Messenger this way, and it was effortless.

      • haverholm@kbin.earth
        1·
        1 month ago

        I’ve used matrix for the better part of a decade, and I get that reference.

        That said, while the matrix crew have worked hard on the decryption issues, I’d much rather feel that particular pain on a federated network where I can change servers than be stuck with Signal if/when the single server’s policies turn evil.

      • white_nrdy@programming.dev
        1·
        1 month ago

        Matrix is a new-ish decentralized, private, E2EE encryption protocol. It’s pretty neat. It still has some issues (at least that I experience. Mainly the Android app is constantly being super slow to receive messages), but it’s super promising.

        They also have some goals to improve email infrastructure by integrating the matrix protocol, but not sure if that will go anywhere. I remember reading this off hand remark on their blog. Can’t find the source.

        As the original comment said, there’s the concept ifa “bridge” which allows you to bridge other services to a matrix chat. So you could have a discord channel and matrix room bridged, as an example. A ready to go option with bridges is Beeper. But you can also setup your own stuff, as they said.

        • stinky@redlemmy.comEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          If I give my Discord chats to Beeper, and authorities subpoena Beeper, will the authorities get my Discord chats?

          • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
            1·
            29 days ago

            Theoretically no, all of your messages stored on Beeper servers are encrypted. But they will get all your metadata.

            But I wouldn’t worry about that anyway since Discord not only has access to all of your messages but sells them to companies to process for AI. So that’d be the far easier and faster route for them.

            • stinky@redlemmy.comEnglish
              1·
              29 days ago

              I feel like introducing another attack surface for a minimal gain inconvenience just isn’t worth it. I’ll be passing, thanks

              • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
                1·
                29 days ago

                If I’m honest, it’s not convenient either. I stopped using it years ago because I kept getting logged out of my accounts and flagged for “automated activity”. Plus they straight up lie about supporting SMS and RCS. The only “support” they have is connecting it to your Google account.

    • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      29 days ago

      Depends if you consider Signal “popular”, because based on your own link, the only information they provide is:

      No message content., Date and time a user registered. Last date of a user’s connectivity to the service.

    • HappyTimeHarry@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      Isn’t simplex also funded by venture capitalists like Jack Dorsey? I don’t think I’d trust then not to sell out users when it comes time to pay back the investors.

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
    0·
    1 month ago

    Proton up people. And get your people on Signal or WIRE.

    We’re probably the most boring people day to day and we’ve dove it for a while on general principle. Now, it feels important to have already made that shift.