[throwaway101416]

I am not using Telegram and wouldn't have used it if I was a US journalist working on something potentially dangerous, but I don't think this is a good argument.

As long as Telegram isn't compromised by USA-allied countries (Iran is somewhat allied with Russia), it might be a safer choice than Signal for US journalists. The reason is that USA can easily send a letter to Google that would reveal a lot about that person + they have root on the device.

Just like the safest place for Snowden right now is in Russia.

[tptacek]

To me, this is madness. I shouldn't have to care what global power my messaging service is aligned with. With Signal, I don't.

[throwaway101416]

With Signal, you clearly do as they send a lot of your information to Google explicitly (like contacts) and Google has root on your phone.

[kikoreis]

Is that completely accurate? As Moxie explained elsewhere they do sync contacts, but that's optional. I'm not sure there's any other dependency beyond the GCM push, which I don't know is very concerning.

Google definitely has root on your phone, but is that automatically an implication that Signal is compromised?