<story><title>Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption</title><url>https://news.fastcompany.com/telegram-founder-us-intelligence-agencies-tried-to-bribe-us-to-weaken-encryption-4040876</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>otalp</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;quot;It would be naive to think you can run an independent&amp;#x2F;secure cryptoapp based in the US.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be a shot at WhatsApp and Signal, implying that they have loopholes that allow the FBI to snoop in. I&amp;#x27;m not sure how true that is. This might be an attempt to deflect from the fact that Telegram uses a home-baked encryption protocol which might be insecure, while WhatsApp uses the OWS protocol.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>permanentdecaf</author><text>Pavel Durov wants everyone to think security is about trust in people. Most companies in that business do the same, because it&amp;#x27;s easier than building something that doesn&amp;#x27;t require trust in people. The way Pavel Durov and others like him present &amp;quot;trust&amp;quot; is (ironically) shady corporate structures[1], shell companies, or use of the word &amp;quot;Switzerland.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;They want people to think like that because they&amp;#x27;ve built businesses that require it. Telegram stores the messages you send&amp;#x2F;receive unencrypted on their servers. That&amp;#x27;s not good, unless you&amp;#x27;ve been trained to think that &amp;quot;privacy&amp;quot; is just about choosing the company, government, or legal jurisdiction that gets total access to your data.&lt;p&gt;Security professionals know that&amp;#x27;s not how we should think about security (never trust &lt;i&gt;people&lt;/i&gt;!), because Durov is leaving a lot out: there aren&amp;#x27;t safe jurisdictions, servers get hacked, and centralized databases will get compromised. Logic, though, is probably no match for conspiracy theories.&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;the-intersect&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;23&amp;#x2F;the-secret-american-origins-of-telegram-the-encrypted-messaging-app-favored-by-the-islamic-state&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;the-intersect&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;11...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Telegram founder: US intelligence tried to bribe us to weaken encryption</title><url>https://news.fastcompany.com/telegram-founder-us-intelligence-agencies-tried-to-bribe-us-to-weaken-encryption-4040876</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>otalp</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;quot;It would be naive to think you can run an independent&amp;#x2F;secure cryptoapp based in the US.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be a shot at WhatsApp and Signal, implying that they have loopholes that allow the FBI to snoop in. I&amp;#x27;m not sure how true that is. This might be an attempt to deflect from the fact that Telegram uses a home-baked encryption protocol which might be insecure, while WhatsApp uses the OWS protocol.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>retox</author><text>If I&amp;#x27;m not mistaken Telegram has already been proven insecure once in the past. WhatsApp is a zuck property now, you can consider it insecure.</text></comment>