| A non-American’s take on Telegram: 1. Everyone I know uses it in plain-text, very few dare to (gasp) initiate secret chats (and they tend to lose chat histories every now and then). 2. At one point it had been banned by Russian authorities with a demand to disclose the E2E encryption keys. The ban was quietly lifted with a single report I could find vaguely mentioning some cooperation promises by Telegram’s leadership. What is happening beneath the curtain is anyone’s guess. 3. Last time I checked, the company that runs the servers has undisclosed structure and is liable to be manipulated by whichever entity that gains a hold of them (not even through legal mechanisms, but through direct or indirect fear for personal safety). 4. According to what I heard from friends, solvency/debt issues from the failed ICO attempt made them desperate for money. It’s not a safe private messenger, period. Even Telegram’s own advocates are switching from their old stance “Telegram is secure” to “Telegram is just best for messaging, who cares about e2e or privacy anyway” (which, incidentally, I don’t know if true in Android land, but at least on iOS Apple Messages has way superior stickers, built-in apps, etc. for those who don’t care that much about privacy). |