[faangguyindia]

I just use telegram.

Just yesterday I setup a bot which is easy via botfather

And also, setup an app (claude built it but I had to fiddle with it, it works like pagerduty) but uses cloudflate worker to push downtime/errors (via fcm) in production (from graphana) via webhooks to "full screen, by pass dnd, alerts, with loud music, this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0IQBWWabuU )

I named the app "Siren".

It's not straightforward to have durable hard to miss alerts about your production enviornment but good thing is this doesn't cost a cent.

Telegram group alerts are from my teammates (small team 3 members) via bot.

And Siren is for only me as I am responsible for the backend with 10 microservices, centralized logging via graphana, alloy, loki, and for metrics Prometheus.

It's all working reasonably well for me, this makes your life so much better as you fix the issues before they turn into nightmare.

[jeanlucas]

I personally don't use whatsapp because I like it, but because all my contacts in my country are over there. It is officially more used than SMS here. It is not optional in my case :/

[gsich]

SMS is unsafe anyway.

[baq]

zuck can read your whatsapp messages, at this point I think I'd rather criminals and the government read them instead

[gsich]

Maybe, as I don't know if I got a special version that exfiltrates data to somewhere else. But this does not improve SMS security in any way. Another software also potentially being bad has no influence here.

[hikarudo]

WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted. No one at Meta can read your messages.

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

Saw this exact claim on a billboard not too long ago

It's a strangely worded statement. What about data collection, metadata, other third parties

Maybe it's related to the fact that plaintiffs lawyers are now trying to verify what's going on inside Meta with WhatsApp through litigation discovery:

https://ia801607.us.archive.org/10/items/gov.uscourts.cand.4...

Meta's motion to dismiss seemed a little weak. Time will tell

https://ia801607.us.archive.org/10/items/gov.uscourts.cand.4...

Hearing will likely be sometime this summer

[commandersaki]

What about data collection, metadata, other third parties

How does any of that result in Meta reading your messages?

[righthand]

If I can log into whatsapp on a new device and old messages aren’t encrypted then they have a copy of your key and it is not true e2e encryption.

[lukebennett]

You can't unless you've chosen to back up your WhatsApp messages to iCloud/Google in which case it's Apple/Google responsible for preserving the messages and subject to their encryption standards, nothing to do with Meta.

[Mordisquitos]

Try logging in on a new device and putting your main device into aeroplane mode as soon as the login succeeds. Loading of old messages on the new device will stop.

[cute_boi]

How are we sure that it is really end-to-end encrypted?

[lossyalgo]

Moxie Marlinspike (founder of Signal) [0]implemented the same E2EE algorithm as Signal (Signal Protocol) into WhatsApp, but that was 10 years ago, so who knows if things have changed since then.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxie_Marlinspike

[dTal]

Practically speaking, it isn't secure; no closed app can be. It receives regular compulsory updates (old versions refuse to work) and there's nothing at all stopping Zuck from sneaking in backdoors targeted at you personally.

[mett36]

+1

[pwillia7]

yeah who wants marginally regulated oligarchs -- Give me fully unregulated criminals!

[TeMPOraL]

Nobody gives a damn. What matters is that it works even on a potato.

SMS security only became a problem due to 2FA, which is just one of many use cases, and the failure isn't even technical here but organizational. I agree it should've prompted more pressure to secure the system against SIM-swapping; alas this is too close to the Real World, so the tech industry instead responded with alternative that side-steps the problem by offering zero customer support. No humans to talk to = no humans to social engineer = secure. So much win.

(I'd also say the 2FA proliferation is itself a problem, but that's an unpopular opinion and for a separate discussion.)

[gsich]

>Nobody gives a damn. What matters is that it works even on a potato.

Everybody does. That's why people use messaging apps.

[TeMPOraL]

People started using messaging apps because it's free where SMS was not, and it worked on desktop.

[lxgr]

> Nobody gives a damn. What matters is that it works even on a potato.

It doesn't work on my computer, nor does it work on my phone when I'm traveling (different SIM), so I give a damn. WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal etc. do both. I really wish there was an open, federated standard (and no, RCS is neither), but until then, I'll use what actually works for me.

SMS just sucks, and I hate that it's become so ubiquitous an authentication method when it's not even secure.

[bluebarbet]

You can rent a virtual mobile number in your home country and consult SMSs on the web or even redirect them to email. I have done this for years, using Twilio for 2€ a month. Can't say the UX is great but it certainly fixes the whole problem.

I've never understood why so many people still chain their identities to physical SIM or even eSIMs. It's so fragile.

[lxgr]

Yeah, that's a good workaround. Google Voice can work too.

Unfortunately, more and more services are declining to send to VoIP numbers because of seCurItY, so it's a game of cat and mouse.

Fortunately SMS is so expensive in parts of Europe and it's not allowable anymore to use SMS by itself for online payment authentication, and both issues combined have slowly been pushing companies to explore alternatives.

There unfortunately seems to be no such pressure in the US. Passkeys could solve the issue, but probably increase support request volumes enough for most companies to not bother unless forced.

[simonra]

> I've never understood why so many people still chain their identities to physical SIM or even eSIMs. It's so fragile.

Living in a place where getting a replacement sim is gated behind obtaining an id from the police tied to your national id number, I wish there were other identity systems which were as robust. Much easier to get back to normal operations when the id device becomes damaged or lost with a physical sim you can shove into a cheap replacement device, than relying on backup services you need one of your digital id devices to access in the first place, especially if they're all lost at the same time in a house fire or something. The police will presumably get all my photo backups and savings if they ask nicely anyways, so the big threat to the single point of failure doesn't have a great marginal impact, while I dread the possibility of having to recover the accounts I can't get back through the local legal system given the poor 2fa recovery ecosystem.

[gsich]

There is e-mail and XMPP I guess. Usefulness is debatable though.

[neya]

Second this. Their API is such a breeze and it is so much more automation friendly than any other messenger platform. It has a good adoption % too, otherwise Signal is the real winner if we account for privacy.

[tcfhgj]

Even more automation friendly than Matrix?

[morphology]

It's a bit less automation-friendly because the UX is not great when the bot doesn't have its own phone number (which costs money). I think it has better privacy, though. Matrix server operators can read message metadata.

[tcfhgj]

Telegram server operators can read message meta data and messages

[morphology]

You're right, Matrix is a much better option than Telegram. I misread the thread as comparing Signal to Matrix.

[neya]

Unfortunately, I haven't used Matrix personally enough to comment, sorry. But, I've heard only good things about it so far.

[taminka]

it's really unfortunate that telegram doesn't do e2ee, bc it's hands down the best messenger otherwise :(

[rafaelmn]

From what I understand you can have secure chats e2ee ? I like that I can login from multiple devices and continue the conversation. This was always annoying with whatsapp and signal. Worst case is mildly embarrassing stuff leaks.

[lxgr]

> From what I understand you can have secure chats e2ee ?

Not with bots, though.

> I like that I can login from multiple devices and continue the conversation

This is also not possible with Telegram E2E, while it is with Signal and WhatsApp.

[tazjin]

It does, but only for chats between two specific devices. Multi-device support is one of its best features that you lose with E2E.

Key distribution is just too hard. I think we won't get a messenger for non-tech people that works well with multi-device and E2E basically ever.

[taminka]

whatsapp, facebook messenger, imessage all support multi-device and it's pretty convenient, in fairness to telegram they launched a bit before double ratched was invented, but still, they've had over a decade to switch to it...

[stavros]

WhatsApp doesn't support multi-device. You can't have it installed on two phones at once.

[taminka]

you can (https://faq.whatsapp.com/1046791737425017/?cms_platform=andr...)

they even have it on fb messenger and instagram (though they recently removed e2ee completely from instagram lol)

[stavros]

That's still one device. If you turn the primary phone off, the secondary device stops working. WhatsApp just proxies everything through the primary device, it's like WhatsApp Web.

[ymolodtsov]

It's called iMessage. It's possible, Telegram just doesn't care. All their differentiating features (large groups, channels, device sync) is directly enabled by the lack of encryption.

[taminka]

they do have encryption, just not e2ee, and in fairness to them, it doesn't make sense to have e2ee on a channel or a group with 100k ppl in it, also device sync is possible with e2ee, it's just a slower

[tcfhgj]

you can have large groups and device sync WITH e2ee, see Matrix.

[ymolodtsov]

Any Matrix client I tried lagged even without chats though.

[tcfhgj]

Matrix

[lxgr]

What are you talking about? WhatsApp, iMessage, and Signal all have multi-device support and are E2E encrypted, just to name a few very popular options.

[BeetleB]

I'll second the "Telegram is great for bots". It's the reason OpenClaw users use it.

I stopped using OpenClaw a while ago, but I did vibe code the very basic automations I had used OpenClaw for. Getting it to work with Telegram was trivial.

I don't use Telegram for chatting. In fact, I try not to use any IM tools with humans. ;-)

[PUSH_AX]

> I just use telegram.

And how do you just get everyone you want to speak to use telegram?

[pawsocks]

Don't worry, it'll auto-spam all of your contacts when you sign up to take care of that.

[aembleton]

Live in a country like Ukraine where everyone uses Telegram