[emptysongglass]

Ultimately what Moxie is doing here is disingenuous and an abuse of language to prop his argument. He could have just stated the facts but instead he's using propaganda to create fear in his audience. You can use correct language (messages are encrypted at rest) and still make the argument that Telegram does not use E2EE unless Secret Chats are turned on but he doesn't do that.

Really poor behavior from a leader in this space.

The Russian FSB dropped the case because there was no way to block Telegram without collateral damage and most of the Russian population uses it, including politicians. There's no need to get "shadowy council" here, especially in light of Durov's quite public support for the Euromaiden protests that got him in such trouble with VK.

[older]

> The Russian FSB dropped the case because there was no way to block Telegram without collateral damage

Are you working for FSB or is this information publicly available on their website?

[emptysongglass]

If this is the first place your head goes, I don't know what to tell you except perhaps that this paranoia exhibited from the security community is often not rational, and frequently resorts to takes-no-prisoners stakes.

Here's an article [1] that goes over the attempts at blocking Telegram after the FSB demanded the encryption keys, was denied and the collateral damage that resulted from Roskomnadzor attempting to enforce that ban.

[1] https://www.bloombergquint.com/view/telegram-block-gets-help...

[older]

This is just one from today, in plain text: https://tjournal.ru/news/562296 If you cannot read Russian, use google translate or deepl.

Telegram has agreed to co-operate with FSB and installed equipment they demanded to install.

[emptysongglass]

I ran this by my Russian friend and he confirms TJournal is reputable. However, he also cautioned believing a known propagandist, deputy Matveychev who made these claims. And toward the bottom of the article you sent: "A source close to the creators of the messenger, however, doubted the deputy’s statement: when asked what Telegram thinks about Matveychev’s statement, he replied: 'Clowns.' This was reported in the online publication 'Durov's Code'."

It's difficult to believe that Durov who was driven from Russia and from his first company for refusing to hand over information on Euromaiden protestors would so jeopardize the trust he's built over the last decade by allowing hardware backdoors.

[older]

All this about him refusing to co-operate is just Durov's words. So you choose to trust him for some reason. But that's not how security works. Zero trust security model exists for a reason. Moxie is right, Telegram is not secure.