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by wyuenho 1991 days ago
They indeed were one of the first if not the first to come out with a messaging app that can e2e encrypt your chat. This was a time when WhatsApp was found using a plaintext protocol, and right after the Snowden revelations. They did move the needle a bit at the right time.

One of the most vocal critics was Moxie, who later founded Signal. It's ironic that 7 years after Snowden and Telegram, Signal the supposed more secure and privacy focused messaging app still has yet to gain any sizable foothold in the market. I think that says a lot about both Telegram and Signal's product strategies.
3 comments
bjoli 1991 days ago
The signal protocol is used in WhatsApp, and will be rolled out as a part of Google's latest RCS effort. Signal maybe didn't catch on, but Moxie's goal of making communications encrypted seems to have worked out all right.
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upofadown 1991 days ago
>They indeed were one of the first if not the first to come out with a messaging app that can e2e encrypt your chat.

Off The Record showed up in 2004 and was used over multiple instant messaging systems. OpenPGP was used over various IM systems before that...

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FDSGSG 1991 days ago
SCIMP also predates Telegram by several months https://web.archive.org/web/20150402122917/https://silentcir...
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wyuenho 1991 days ago
Well, if you go that far lol. I remember OTR on Pidgin and Adium back in the days. Not sure I'd consider these third party tacked on solutions e2ee messaging app that can e2e encrypt your chat. OpenPGP doesn't come with email and OTR doesn't come with GTalk.
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pseudalopex 1991 days ago
OTR did come with other apps. OpenPGP was a documented XMPP extension.
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bildung 1991 days ago
TextSecure (essentially the old name for Signal) is 3 years older (2010 vs. 2013), isn't it?
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wyuenho 1991 days ago
The timeline seems to suggest e2e had always been at the heart of the protocol, but I'm not sure if TextSecure and RedPhone were actually apps that people could install after Whisper Systems was acquired by Twitter. Regardless, instant messaging hadn't seem to be introduced until 2014. Tough call.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TextSecure#/media/File:Signal_...

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bildung 1991 days ago
TextSecure was available from Google Play for years, I've used it since release. The transformation to Signal was pretty seamless.
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