[heinrich5991]

This article incorrectly implies that Telegram is end-to-end encrypted, by putting it in the same line as WhatsApp and Signal.

Telegram doesn't even try to be end-to-end-encrypted by default. WhatsApp claims to be end-to-end-encrypted, but it's not open-source, Signal is end-to-end-encrypted.

[riedel]

Open source would not help without the reproducible builds of Signal (I wonder who check them on each release?). And only builds like Molly include no binary blobs of Google [1], which could IMHO at least be used to extract some metadata. Leaving the OS still as a risk, even for Molly or Matrix clients. Even with transparency around linked devices, I would believe that few people would notice silently linked devices. Simplest thing is I guess social engineering which happened in a coordinated attack on Signal messagers of German politicians recently (I guess there should be an official signal app version not supporting linked devices for such people) [2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46081855 [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/hackers-attack-phone-of-germ...

[adrianN]

Politicians should probably not use Signal but something that is controlled by the government and for example doesn’t allow „accidentally“ deleting incriminating messages.

[rurban]

If politicians would be effectively controlled by the government and not by some independent party those mysterious, oops, accidentally deleted it problems would increase.

[librasteve]

oh dear, my phone was stolen - Morgan McSweeney

[ranger_danger]

> controlled by the government

So they can spy on them directly?

[hellcow]

> WhatsApp claims to be end-to-end-encrypted, but it's not open-source

And explicitly does not encrypt metadata.

Meanwhile NSA top brass publicly stated, "We kill people based on metadata."

[2ndorderthought]

I imagine in 2027 people will be getting killed over vibes.

Does make you wonder what kind of people they kill or how many. I can't think of a lot of crimes whose metadata warrants being killed for personally.

[xethos]

> I can't think of a lot of crimes whose metadata warrants being killed for personally

You're (literally) missing links then. If A is a high-value target that we look at closely (because they're a high-value target), what if B frequently contacts A? If C, D, and E always recieve messages from B immediately following A messaging B?

What about times? Is B messaging F at a consistant time, and never outside of that? Is A only messaging G, at a set time, with G's phone immediately being put into (ineffective) airplane mode immediately before and after?

Facebook built their business on the social graph, but the CIA's been at this for decades

[2ndorderthought]

Thanks for explaining. I guess we are talking about espionage or something like that. I've been so focused on the rise of domestic surveillance lately that I forgot about the noncitizen aspects. Which is ridiculous but at the same time, it does seem like a trillion dollar focus lately.

[xethos]

My examples are all based on the CIA and NSA playbook though, as it was the NSA director that said the quiet part out loud, explicitly, in front of Congress. The NSA is effectively America's red team, an offensive arm, meaning they (should be) focused on threats (percieved or otherwise) outside the country

The FBI has been much quieter about this though - there has yet to be a Snowden-for-the-FBI, though they would be one of the agencies I would fully expect to be doing similar work domestically.

As this becomes more well-known, I would expect state and county police to start looking into data and metadata as well. In some cases, they already are [0] - even if some aspects of that case are less relevant today (Google Maps no longer uploads location history, though cell tower trilateration is getting more accurate, not less).

It's far more prevalent than most people realize, though I invite you to consider which you'd rather have when building a second-by-second profile of a person's life: the message contents, or the metadata?

[0] https://www.wired.com/story/find-my-iphone-arson-case/

[2ndorderthought]

Metadata would be more powerful in 9 out of 10 cases. Message contents could be invaluable in some cases too. Interesting to think about

[tardedmeme]

Isn't this already happening? It's why the war department uses ChatGPT and Claude to target drone strikes. It's why Anthropic had to make a public scene to pretend that wasn't happening.

[Projectiboga]

In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, thoughtcrime, also known as crimethink in the official language of Newspeak, is the offense of thinking in ways not approved by the ruling Ingsoc party. It describes the intellectual actions of a person who entertains and holds politically unacceptable thoughts; thus the government of The Party controls the speech, actions, and thoughts of the citizens of Oceania.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime

[2ndorderthought]

It's a great book! It does make you wonder what s future with neural link and data centers in every city looks like under a fascist regime.

[Razengan]

> Meanwhile NSA top brass publicly stated, "We kill people based on metadata.

Can someone post a link to that?

[LarsKrimi]

Maybe just search for it and pick a source you trust. Take the search term "kill people based on metadata" and no noise comes up, just tons of articles about General Hayden's interview and related

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Since you're too lazy to do even a precursory search:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NSaGl2uO5w

[Razengan]

Cause that sort of shit sounded like ambiguous clickbait

[wolvoleo]

Yes and the secret chats in telegram are super clumsy. Both parties need to be online at the same time for the key exchange, it only works on one device at each side. Nobody I know uses them.

I sent some people a password reset through them but half of them couldn't get their head around it.

So yeah while it has secret chats, they aren't very useful at all.

[em-bee]

telegram may not be end-to-end encrypted by default but it does support end-to-end encryption. the generous reading is that this encryption, if used, should be broken.

so as i read it the article doesn't suggest that all of telegram is end-to-end encrypted only that it has support for it.