“Telegram is not a private messenger. There’s nothing private about it. It’s the opposite. It’s a cloud messenger where every message you’ve ever sent or received is in plain text in a database that Telegram the organization controls and has access to it”
“It’s like a Russian oligarch starting an unencrypted version of WhatsApp, a pixel for pixel clone of WhatsApp. That should be kind of a difficult brand to operate. Somehow, they’ve done a really amazing job of convincing the whole world that this is an encrypted messaging app and that the founder is some kind of Russian dissident, even though he goes there once a month, the whole team lives in Russia, and their families are there.”
" What happened in France is they just chose not to respond to the subpoena. So that’s in violation of the law. And, he gets arrested in France, right? And everyone’s like, oh, France. But I think the key point is they have the data, like they can respond to the subpoenas where as Signal, for instance, doesn’t have access to the data and couldn’t respond to that same request. To me it’s very obvious that Russia would’ve had a much less polite version of that conversation with Pavel Durov and the telegram team before this moment"
It’s also important to continue educating people about the fact that Signal is incredibly problematic as well, but not in the way most people think.
The issue with Signal is that your phone number is metadata. And people who think metadata is “just” data or that cross-referencing is some kind of sci-fi nonsense, are fundamentally misunderstanding how modern surveillance works.
By requiring phone numbers, Signal, despite its good encryption, inherently builds a social graph. The server operators, or anyone who gets that data, can see a map of who is talking to whom. The content is secure, but the connections are not.
Being able to map out who talks to whom is incredibly valuable. A three-letter agency can take the map of connections and overlay it with all the other data they vacuum up from other sources, such as location data, purchase histories, social media activity. If you become a “person of interest” for any reason, they instantly have your entire social circle mapped out.
Worse, the act of seeking out encrypted communication is itself a red flag. It’s a perfect filter: “Show me everyone paranoid enough to use crypto.” You’re basically raising your hand.
So, in a twisted way, Signal being a tool for private conversations, makes it a perfect machine for mapping associations and identifying targets. The fact that Signal is operated centrally with the server located in the US, and it’s being developed by people with connections to US intelligence while being constantly pushed as the best solution for private communication should give everyone a pause.
The kicker is that thanks to gag orders, companies are legally forbidden from telling you if the feds come knocking for this data. So even if Signal’s intentions are pure, we’d never know how the data it collects is being used. The potential for abuse is baked right into the phone-number requirement.
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There’s no such social graph to speak of. Signal does not know who is speaking to whom.
The only people who know this are people operating the server. Period.
Three-letter agencies have served them legal subpoenas many many times and they never turn over anything more than the above information.
See the link I provided above.
Filter for…what, exactly? The hundreds of millions of people who value private and secure communications?
Yup, that’s precisely what it’s a filter for.
We do, because they publish them publicly.
Trust me bro is not a viable model for anybody who actually gives a shit about their privacy.
The reality of the situation is that Signal asks users for information it has no business collecting during the sign up process, and this information can be used in adversarial ways against the users. People using Signal are making a faith based judgment to trust the operators of this server.
nope… signal has sealed sender to prevent them from building a social graph
Nope, sealed sender does not address the problem because the phone number is collected at sign up time. The whole sealed sender concept is just another trust me bro mechanic because, once again, nobody aside from people who are actually operating the server know what it’s doing. Signal is proof that vast majority of people don’t understand the basics of privacy and security, and they don’t actually care.
the phone number being collected at sign up just proves that you use signal
they can’t build any kind of social graph from it… they can only use the information contained in the message for delivery and rate limiting
Again, the only people who actually know what the phone number is used for are the people who operate the server. I don’t know why this is such a difficult concept for people to grasp. They don’t need the information contained in the messages. Once the phone number is collected, it CAN be stored and associated with your account. There is no way for you to know whether that happens or not unless you have access to that server. There is no way for you to verify that the server does what people operating it say it does. That’s what makes it a trust based system.
yes, i’m aware that you don’t know what the phone number is used for, but what we can guarantee is that it can’t be tied back to your message history, because again that’s what sealed sender is for. in order to send messages, you use a signed, derived value that has never been seen by the signal servers (since it’s derived) but is still signed (so signal knows it’s legitimate: they can validate your identity and rate limit without knowing it)
so whilst the phone number is associated with an account, that only allows them to know that you (person/identity) use signal… but that identity can verifiably not be tied back to any messages you send
nothing about that identity other than derived cryptographic data is ever sent along with your messages
*edit: i’ll slightly retract that: of course your IP address is also sent along with messages, and that may be able to be tied back to your identity… let’s say out of band, of course… so it’s on you to use a VPN or some other method to obfuscate your source IP address. i’d say that’s generally applicable to any other service too
The only people who know this are people operating the server.
We all know this, for reasons I’ve already stated.
See the link I provided above.
Your link is broken.
Yup, that’s precisely what it’s a filter for.
100M people is not a filter…
Trust me bro is not a viable model
No one said anything about that? That is not the model.
The reality of the situation is that Signal asks users for information it has no business collecting
The business is connecting users. It’s one of the reasons it is the most viable private and secure chat platform. It’s why I have a dozen connections on Signal and literally 0 on every other platform. Because you actually know who’s using it. You can have the most private and secure messaging system in the world but if you can’t use it to actually chat with anyone, then what good is it?
No, we don’t all know this. What we actually know that people like you say this and expect the rest of us to trust you blindly, which is itself concerning.
Your link is broken.
Your browser plugins are broken, the link is fine. That said, here’s non archived version https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/15/faq-data-subpoena-investigation/
100M people is not a filter…
Given world population and modern data analysis capabilities it absolutely is.
No one said anything about that? That is not the model.
That’s literally the model. Signal asks you for your phone number when you register, what happens with that information after that is only known to people operating the server. Let me know what part of that you’re still struggling to understand.
The business is connecting users. It’s one of the reasons it is the most viable private and secure chat platform. It’s why I have a dozen connections on Signal and literally 0 on every other platform. Because you actually know who’s using it.
That word salad has fuck all to do with the point I made, which once again, is that you have to trust people who operate the server in how they handle this information.
You can have the most private and secure messaging system in the world but if you can’t use it to actually chat with anyone, then what good is it?
Ah yes, because there’s absolutely no conceivable way to verify whom you’re connecting with aside from sharing your phone number with an American company. You couldn’t possibly use any out of band channel to verify who the person you’re communicating with is.
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I’m not misrepresenting anything you said. Meanwhile, it’s very telling how you’ve pivoted to making personal attacks instead of actually addressing the problem I’ve now repeatedly explained. You’re not fooling anyone here bud.
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There’s no such social graph to speak of. Signal does not know who is speaking to whom.
You have no source for that other than Signal’s “just trust us” claims.
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no, the technology in signal prevents it
Give me ssh access to their server so I can verify that works like it should.
Can’t? Then it’s just trust me bro
the whole point is you don’t need to trust them… you can never trust any server: your client is the only thing you can trust. you can verify using your message payloads that your sender information is not ever sent to the signal servers along with your messages
Signal has your phone number and everyone else’s who signed up. That is more than just client information, and it’s possible to build entire social networking graphs with it alone.
they do, but that information is disconnected from your messages by sealed sender: that’s the point… your sender identity is cryptographically shielded from the signal servers
they know who you are, but they have no ability to connect that identity with who you message (which you can verify using only your client)
*edit: i will say, because i’m interested in conversation and understanding not just winning an internet argument, that my conversation with yogthos here has underscored i think a place where this could still be improved: your IP address across the entire sealed sender process can be used to tie things together, if it remains unchanged (but you can change your IP address between receiving your sender token and sending messages)
Best alternative?
It really depends on your needs and what people you communicate with are willing to use. A few platforms that are notable in no particular order.
SimpleX Chat is probably the gold standard right now. It uses absolutely no user IDs such as phone numbers, no usernames, no random strings of text. Instead, it creates unique, pairwise decentralized message queues for every single contact you have. Because there is no global identity, there is no metadata connecting your conversations together.
Session is a popular Signal alternative. It doesn’t require a phone number and routes your messages through an onion-routed decentralized network that’s similar to Tor. Since your IP address is hidden and messages are bounced through multiple nodes, no single server ever knows who is talking to whom, stripping away metadata.
Jami is completely decentralized, open-source platform. It uses Distributed Hash Tables to connect users directly to one another without a central server. Notably, it supports high-quality voice and video calls.
heard SimpleX is really good, the only thing that bothers me is their vc funding model. It makes me feel a bit suspicious.
Yeah, I’m leery about anything where vcs are involved as well for obvious reasons. The tech itself does seem solid though, and it is open source. If it does start moving in a sketchy direction at least it could be forked at that point.
I really want simplexchat to evolve and get more features. If they ever make a lot of mod tools and the possibility to make giant servers with thousands with chatrooms like discord I could see it having mass appeal due to the ease of “signup”
yeah it definitely has some promise
I like your analysis, and would love your thoughts on matrix(assuming you have ofc)
It’s better than Signal since you don’t have to disclose any personal info, but people have pointed out some issues with federation in it. Again, it’s one of those things that may or may not matter based on your use case.
That link seems dated (Nov. 2024). If anyone finds a more current critique, pls send. I also get auto-kicked from HLC simplex group, so I’m not sure what to think of them but commando’s matrix server was amazing befored abandoned
People keep finding significant vulnerabilities in its cryptography and the Matrix team tries to deflect or create strawmans for why it isnt actually a vuln. Soatok found a vulnerability in 2024 by just browsing the source code for tiny bit of time, and again just two weeks ago after looking for a couple hours. In both cases, Matrix then responded to his vuln report with hostility, saying it wasnt actually a vulnerability. He is sitting on another vulnerability.
Having a cleartext mode is a security downgrade and no secure messenger should support cleartext. It only barely got functional forward secrecy recently. VoIP in most Matrix clients (and servers) still use Jitsi backend which isn’t E2EE, even with the release of the newer (secure) Element call protocol. Matrix leaks tons of metadata, such as usernames, room names, emoji reactions, generate URL embedded previews. Rooms arent encrypted by default. It is also a UX nightmare and often times you cant decrypt your messages.
Matrix is not secure. You’d be better off with XMPP and OMEMO which has its own problems and isn’t secure either. Sill better than Matrix.
“sitting on a vulnerability” does this mean he’s discovered another exploit but refuses to disclose it essentially?
It is a denial of service attack. He discloses all vulnerabilities ahead of time. The only reason he released the previous one so quickly is because the Matrix team said it “wasnt a real vulnerability”.
Session is a security downgrade. It doesnt support forward secrecy which is hella important.
Session actually does implement a form of forward secrecy through the Session Protocol. https://getsession.org/blog/session-protocol-v2
It seems that forward secrecy is still in development from the blog you showed.
I still wouldnt use session for the reasons stated in this Soatok’s (a cryptographer) blogs. Even if they fix(ed) these problems, I have no trust for their security implementations. Why use session instead of something like Briar?
https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/ https://soatok.blog/2025/01/20/session-round-2/
I’m not advocating for using Session specifically, I just listed it as a viable alternative to Signal. Given that it’s forked from Signal presumably it’s an easier switch for people who like the general mechanics of Signal and its encryption system.
Understood.
I appreciate the comment on the matter. This is good information to know and consider.
People should know that Signal is encrypted and private, but won’t make you a ghost.
That being said, the majority of people are not interested in privacy so getting them to use Signal over WhatsApp or SMS is a 99% win.
The question here is why not get people to switch to a better platform like SimpleX or even matrix with something like Element. I don’t find that Signal does anything better in practice.
And I’m not arguing not to.
But I tried to get everybody I know to contact me on signal or simplex. For a year. Only one person switched and they did so to signal. Because it was easier and more people were on it. I myself stopped using simplex because not enough people are using it that I know.
So where the rubber meets the road, if anybody wants to use signal I’m good with that because its good for 99% of all things.
If we (as privacy enthusiasts) want to promote the better apps, they need to be and appear less niche so they’re more acceptable.
Yeah, there are network effects at play here. Getting people to move off a platform is very difficult because they need their contacts to move to, and their contacts need theirs in turn. Some people are willing to use multiple messaging apps, but most don’t. I’d argue that’s why it’s important to promote alternatives to Signal. The more popular they become the easier it is to get people to move to them.
We have to choose our threat level. Signal is great when you don’t want to expose your data to companies mining it for their profit. It is not so great when you are a person of interest, and need absolute privacy.
The metadata is worthless and pricy to use it for an awarage joe.
The thing is that there’s nothing special about Signal that makes it better than alternatives like SimpleX. I just don’t see why it should be promoted instead of them. Yes, it’s better than WhatsApp where meta has a master key and can read your messages, but why settle when you can use a platform without compromises?
Simple: I already migrated most of my friends over Signal. I did not know better alternatives at the time. While I agree with you, not about SimpleX I dont have enough info about it, but about that there are better solutions.
Yeah, that’s fair. If you’re already stuck on Signal, then it’s difficult to make a move to something else. I’m mostly talking about people who are using something like WhatsApp, and it’s better to make a fresh move to a platform that doesn’t have the issues Signal has.
signal is open source no?
There are forks that don’t require phone numbers.
Yes, but those are basically separate platforms like Session. Signal does not federate, and there’s only a single server in the US that requires your phone number to sign up.
Not effectively, since it’s centralized in the US and you have no idea what code the server is running.
Signal does claim to have their server code open, but they went a whole year one time without updating it, until they received some backlash for it.
you can never validate what code a server is running, so having FOSS server code is kinda a moot point: it can’t add anything useful to the privacy conversation
the only way you can guarantee privacy is with the client code, and they have repeatable builds so you can validate the code that’s encrypting the messages, and in that case it barely even matters if their server is streaming all the data they receive to some shady other place… especially with sealed sender
you can never validate what code a server is running
Most halfway-decent messaging services (unlike signal) are self-hostable. So yes with actual open source software, that’s very possible.
that comes down to a difference in philosophy i think… signal have detailed their reasoning for not making signals servers decentralised and self hostable, and i don’t disagree with some of them… i think everything is a trade-off, and decentralisation has scaling and usability issues
signal has done a pretty good job of creating a platform that’s much much better than alternatives in a package that’s consumable by the general public
i’m not sure that something that’s more like matrix, or xmpp, etc could do that
it might be theoretically and technically not quite as perfect, but its impact on increased privacy across the globe has been far larger because they’ve made some of those compromises
I can’t really trust anyone’s security philosophy when they market their service as “secure”, but then have it built on required phone numbers (linkable to your real identity), and a single centralized US-based server subject to national security letters.
Anyone who came up with this idea of security should be laughed out of the room.
I’m convinced signal’s entire support is similar to apple’s : they make vague untestable claims about security, whilst having a shiny and functional app.
There are so many self-hostable alternatives that have signal beat on both those, that make any reason for using it moot.
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you can’t, and shouldn’t… lemmy never claimed to be, nor has the architecture to enable it to be a private service. lemmy instances are run by arbitrary people on the internet, and some of them do run forked versions of the codebase (eg blahaj)… we have no way of verifying what’s running on the server
but interaction on lemmy doesn’t require trust. i don’t think anyone is expecting lemmy to be private
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The above poster is wrong. You can absolutely trust lemmy, because its open source and self hostable. You can build the project from source (like a cooking recipe), and run it yourself.
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Citation for what exactly? Go read up on how networking works, entire textbooks are available. The server has access to all the data the client sends it. How do you think you get paired with another person to chat, by magic?
The link is not working. Would you be so kind as to provide the article link?
Dude for the first 15s I thought this is porn
its the sauna
How I hate that saunas are associated with porn and sex. It’s not supposed to be sexual and more importantly it’s an awful, just terrible place to have sex
I don’t know man, those benches are nice for a variety of positions. Plus, you are already naked…
Just trust me on this one, 80’C+ room just isn’t the place for that sort of exercise. And it’s not like your heart rate isn’t up already lol. It’s a terrible experience
Slow down, big daddy! You can be gentle at it sometimes.
I want you to actually try sauna sex and report back to me, if you don’t believe me. But don’t say I didn’t warn you lol
you are gonna feel way too gross in the sauna to wanna have sex
Raising money for Signal with OnlyFans
Why are they sitting in a sauna?
As much as I’d like to favor foss and federated messenger apps, telegram isn’t as much garbage as whatsapp:
1.The client is somewhat open source and have forks like Forkgram, Materialgram and unoffical clients like Telegrand.
2. Telegram isn’t E2EE by default but at least it doesn’t lie about it and have E2EE secret chat when nessesary, that means crucial chats stay on your device and the rest stay on their database recoverable and syncable across devices.
(Yes, whatsapp supposedly is E2EE but we can’t know for sure, it’s closed-source.)
3. You can use telegram as a cloud service with only 2GB per file limit, unlike whatsapp.
(There’s even a third-party app that utilise this as a cloud gallery.)
4. Even tho telegram has ads in large channels, telegram isn’t funded by a greedy big-corp and it doesn’t datamine you, ads are based on the channel’s topic.Yes, in terms of privacy, telegram isn’t the best option, Signal, Session, XMPP, Matrix, or SimpleX have better privacy features, less linkability and E2EE by default but telegram is very mainstream and got more publicity, making it the whatsapp alternative it advertises itself as-is.
Publicity doesn’t make a better messenger app, but for what it tries to do, it’s adoptable for simple users, doubles as cloud storage and is more secure than the garbage being whatsapp.Immigrating users to different apps is a headache on it’s own, but if they know of telegram and it’s not privacy invasive, that’s not bad.
Isn’t it possible to verify WhatsApp encryption with packet sniffing?
Yes, but how would you know Meta doesn’t have a copy of your encryption key (ex: when you sign up) and keeps a copy of your encrypted messages somewhere?
AFAIK your encryption key resides as whatsapp’s data folder but since whatsapp is closed-source you can’t guarantee that whatsapp gave the encryption key to Meta’s server at some point when it was created; (or it was created on their servers and sent to your device.)One would just assume the encryption key is made on your device and never sent to Meta and all the E2EE messages aren’t kept on Meta’s server after they are sent.
Again, Meta is a company that is profiting on targeted advetising and selling user data, how would whatsapp be a free service without any profit?
Also, Here’s someone who saw their whatsapp chat used for targeted ads on them in case you have doubt.
Yeah don’t get me wrong, I despise meta and their facade pretending WhatsApp is private. Your example is evidence but not proof but it does not mean I doubt you because it really doesn’t surprise me. Gmail likes to pretend it’s secure and private too because data in transit is supposedly encrypted but they can still just read absolutely everything in your inbox themselves
Just…
Don’t let them deceive you;If you must use deceitful software like Gmail, Whatsapp, Discord, office or whatever, just try your best not to leak your personal data on them, and if you can hinder the tracking, do so.
If you can use other (preferably FOSS) software, do so, there’s plenty of solutions out there and most of them are free, and sometimes selfhost-able.
Google, Meta, Microsoft or whatever corp can lie about security or privacy all they want, but in the end, they only fool themself thinking their monetary practices aren’t obvious and they can fool everyone, trust is a hard thing to earn and they can’t earn it with fraud.
The product mostly show itself, and you have to go around it to know what’s it’s deal, if you prefer to not do so, you can search if any security researcher or analyst did investigate the product; For example Google claims Chrome browser is “safe” and “secure” dispute them giving so much trackable APIs for websites, and having a horrable default permissions, and don’t forget the “Manifest V3” transition just to remove ads (and trackers) blockers like uBlock Origin.
You don’t need solid proof to know what is what.And then you just type " Foss Chrome Alternatives" or “Private Browsers” on a search engine like DDG where you can find many articles to help you find one (like this) and you’d be done.
Forget about ““Others”” right now, your well-being matters the most.
What is not mentioned… there’s no privacy when the device itself is compromised. For instance, Android phones can read and phone home data from your notifications. In that case, any messenger app wouldn’t be private from Google’s eyes.
…and once you get to “AI” with system level access that is supposed to scan for “bad content” (like with Apple’s supposed “CSAM scanning” and Google’s Android System Safety Core), all bets are off.
All of the major platforms owned by corporations (including Apple) are or will be compromised.
The only way out is degoogled Android (for now) or, better, a true Linux device.
There’s a commonly used Russian metaphor “to not see the forest behind the trees”.
What you are calling a device is in fact a system. It’s a local system, that you are carrying in your hand, but it’s functioning due to a very complex global system which is not. That device in itself is like a 1960s’ town in complexity. In itself, but there’s also the global system.
And these are a result of quite a lot of people employed by various organizations with hierarchies and dependencies. And most of the power in those organizations doesn’t want you to have privacy and autonomy as much and when you want. If you want those, you should produce your own hardware and everything above it. Or build organizations interested in your full privacy and autonomy which will do that. It’s about structure, so just creating a few of them (a goal hardly reachable in itself) with manifests saying “we want to be good” won’t change anything.
So, if you were wondering why contemporaries of Stalin’s regime were reluctant to divorce it with Marxism and call it something else, - that’s similar to this. They really wanted to believe there’s a Marxist superpower, just like some people wanted to believe Google is a good corporation, and before that some people wanted to believe Apple is a counterculture corporation, and so on. And, at various moments in time and space, in various dimensions, sometimes these were. Just like in some ways the British Empire was really bringing civilization to the world.
The more life and diversity there is, the likelier we are to have good things. That doesn’t mean we’ll ever have full privacy, full autonomy, fully civilized, peaceful and honorable world, and so on. We won’t.
I think that metaphor is quite universal because it’s also used very commonly in English and Estonian at the very least.
Where I am, Telegram is mainly used by alt- and far right figures close to Russia. Facts don’t matter in these circles any more. Feelings do. And Durov knows how to manage those.
These people are foolish to use telegram, it’s just a plain-text unencrypted app. Plus there’s scams and spam all the time on telegram but not on signal.
These people are foolish for reasons far worse than just using Telegram.
Especially after Telegtam started working with authorities and handing out user / chat info.
SimpleX is the most private of the big three. No phone number or account needed. Able to self host.
Pardon my French but what the fuck is SimpleX?
A messenger app Musk touted as better than Signal some time ago
It’s a turd of an App, it’s not even close to ready for prime time.
most importantly it has a severe network effect problem. you will not find anyone to message on it
Why you say its Bad?
Herpes. It’s sexually transmitted, and it’s lifelong. You don’t want it.
Geeez, who are the other two?
The answer is Simple!..
X
What are the big three, and what is the bar it’s jumping over to be consider big?
Unlike Signal, Telegram is successful in getting people to move away from Meta’s Whatsapp.
Idk about that. Signal is the main alternative to WA in some parts of europe.
Telegram has approximately 1 billion global users. Signal only has around 100 million. Telegram is about 10x the size of Signal.
The body language in this video is wild.
Body language of the interviewer?
No, both. The interviewer seems extra comfortable at the start but by the end they both seem on the same level. I think in a good way, not sure it’s a good method to get a read on either of them if i know my friends 😆
What about the astrological signs of the people?
Pretty sure signal is not the best option, but telegram should be avoided at all costs.
What do you mean?
DoDDOW uses it, it must be super secure /s
That’s absurd coming from the founder of a FOSS messaging app who actively decided not to let Signal federate and rejected any other open source Signal client. Not only that, even now you can’t truly use Signal’s new “username” feature. If any of the recipients have your number stored in their phonebook, irrespective of whether you know them or not, the username goes for a toss. This was/is the problem with Telegram’s username feature. Signal knew this and still decided to go ahead with it. Not to mention never doing anything about completely removing the phone number from the account after its creation. This has been, by design, a privacy and hence safety threat, and even after the username feature was implemented, this not getting implemented is very concerning.
you can’t truly use Signal’s new “username” feature. If any of the recipients have your number stored in their phonebook, irrespective of whether you know them or not, the username goes for a toss.
Hm. I haven’t interacted with a new Signal user in a while… but I do see in settings two knobs: “who can see my phone number” and “who can find me with my phone number”. Both of these settings can be set to “nobody”.
I’m guessing if I set “who can find me with my phone number” to “nobody”, then even if someone has my phone number in their contacts, they wouldn’t know I’m a Signal user?
Don’t forget not allowing you to sync historical messages between your phone and PC. Apparently somehow that’s just too complicated.
Its not about being complicated, its about dumping the whole chat history with just a few seconds of physical acceas to the device.
LEA has used this method with messangers like Whatsapp for years to quicly exfiltrade the data from a victims phone to other software.
There’s a pin. Just require the pin.
The Pin is not designed and used for such an authentication. Also can be changed at any time:
How do I manage or change my PIN?
On your phone, go to Signal Settings > Account > Change your PIN
I stopped using Telegram as soon as I learned their chats aren’t E2E encrypted unless you create a secret chat. Their advertising is so misleading. Even WhatsApp is more private than Telegram.
Signal is also not private
I don’t think, at this point, people who use Telegram do it for their privacy. I still use it, but I don’t trust it one bit more than I trust WhatsApp.
I predict yet another Signal-related hack within the month.
And it will again be about someone added to the wrong group. Meaning - not a hack.
See this is why I’m reluctant to start listing them because I don’t want to get dragged into an interminable discussion about how hacks like https://thehackernews.com/2025/02/hackers-exploit-signals-linked-devices.html?m=1 somehow “don’t count” because it was the user’s fault, or https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/4850133017242-Twilio-Incident-What-Signal-Users-Need-to-Know doesn’t count because it didn’t include chat messages.
The irony is I very carefully chose my words when I said “Signal-related hack” instead of “Signal hack” because I knew fanbois would show up to argue that anything short of a central database leak isn’t really a hack.
It’s a thread about comparing Signal to Telegram of all things. In comparison to Signal as anything secure Telegram doesn’t exist in any quality.
At the same time Signal doesn’t have mass group chats and is not intended for that purpose.
The first link does count, it’s a valid failure from Signal devs. Humans err.
The second link does not, it’s an unofficial centralized aggregator, not from Signal devs, and the “hack” was a direct consequence of how it worked. It’s absolutely something that no sane person would use.
It’s a thread about comparing Signal to Telegram of all things
The relevance is that it’s not some unaligned security professional talking in the article, it’s literally the guy that runs Signal having a pop at his competition.
it’s literally the guy that runs Signal having a pop at his competition.
The right kind of pop, saying only the obvious and nothing more.
