KLISHDFSDF

A billion people tricked into using malware is still a billion people using malware. Telegram is a Russian spyware and misinformation machine. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/columns/2024/08/27/7472194/

Putin's Mouthpiece Demands Release of Durov (a likely fsb agent himself)

Pavel Durov has secretly traveled to Russia more than 60 times between 2014 to 2022

Durov concealed that he crossed the border more than 50 times from 2015 to 2022

• Despite the story that "the FSB took Vkontakte away from Pavel in 2014", his relationship with the Russian authorities 2015-present was good enough > that he was not afraid of being detained while entering, reentry& long stays & operations in Russia.

• In response to the publication about his possible ties to Russia, Durov deliberately deceived Ukrainians and the general public, claiming that he > was an exile in Russia and that Telegram had "no ties" to Russia.

• As proof of his lack of ties to Russia, Pavel claimed that he was no longer a Russian entrepreneur, had dual citizenship in France & the UAE.

• After his arrest in France and the statements of the Russian authorities, we know that he has a valid Russian passport.

• Russian authorities are demanding his release.

Pavel Durov, telegrams owner, repeatedly crossed the border and concealed these 60+ trips into mother russia. For those familiar with Durov's official position that he has become an exile and cannot return to his country, this fact alone should be interesting, as it probably means that Durov was not telling the truth about his conflict with the Russian authorities.

But go ahead, keep using Telegram, товарищ.

I'll reiterate my statement as you didn't address it.

If Signal wanted to block third party clients, they would have blocked them already.

He was specifically talking to that developer. The "You" and "You're" in that quote was specifically targeted at the LibreSignal developer.

I recall the gurk-rs developer specifically mentioned that his client reports to Signal's servers as a non-official app. The Signal admins can see the client name and version - just like websites can tell what browser you're using - and could easily block third party clients if they wanted to but they don't.

If Signal wanted to block third party clients, they would have blocked them already.

They have demonstrated history of asking third party clients to not use the signal name, and not use the signal network.

The lead developer, nearly 10 years ago now, specifically asked LibreSignal to stop. A single event does not make a demonstrated history.

• Molly ~5 years in development
• gurk-rs ~4 years in development
• signal-cli ~9 years in development
• Flare ~2 years in development
• Beeper

The client that currently exists that do this do it against the wishes of the signal foundation

If you have evidence to back this claim, I would like to see it so I can stop spreading misinformation.

They are doing everything they can to discourage third party app development.

I'd say you're moving the goalpost. Other than the hostility the founder showed towards LibreSignal nearly 10 years ago now, can you source any evidence to support your claim?

Signal doesn't disallow third party clients, you should always understand the risk when messaging anyone on any platform. See my post here: https://lemmy.ml/post/19672991/13312234

That's outdated information:

• Molly ~5 years in development
• gurk-rs ~4 years in development
• signal-cli ~9 years in development
• Flare
• Beeper

Go forth and contribute, fork, or create your own.

They also refuse to distance themselves from Google’s app store.

This link has existed forever at this point if we count in internet years: https://signal.org/android/apk/ - getting an app directly from the developer with no middleman is about as distant as you can get from Google's app store.

I feel like the difference is not that big, though.

But the difference is massive. Telegram, because E2EE does not work for the majority of its use cases, is hoarding tons of CSAM and other illegal content. This isn't just about the "criminals" who are adding illegal content, its about Telegram's access and hoarding of this data.

On the other hand, Signal is simply a transport vehicle for data. No illegal content is stored or accessible by Signal, its developers or anyone who may gain access to their infrastructure - the complete opposite of the situation over at Telegram. Signal cannot be implied to be storing illegal content because they simply don't store any content. Law enforcement can ask Signal to provide all the data they have on specific users, and they have, but the only data they have is when you created your account and the last day (not time) a client pinged their servers.

Texas reeks ~~of freedom~~

ftfy

It's okay to not tolerate hatred, fascists and misinformation.

The paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

The fact that Signal has not run into legal trouble when Telegram has.

Because Signal cooperates as much as they can with law enforcement. Signal happily gives all the data they have and thankfully, for its users, the only data they have is the date/time the account was created and the date (not time) a client last pinged their servers; both in unix timestamp format, they don't even convert it to a proper date.

Additionally, Signal has no "public groups" like Telegram. Everything's private, end-to-end encrypted by default.

Also Signal has some really shady practices, such as rejecting and killing all third party clients.

Yeah, so that's outdated misinformation:

• Molly
• gurk-rs
• signal-cli
• Flare
• Beeper

Three of these have existed for multiple years and have not been asked to stop development. The gurk-rs dev even commented (on reddit, unfortunately I can't find the source) that it reports to Signal's server as a non-official client and that if the Signal devs wanted to block it, they could easily do so.

Another great release! 🚀