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#Telegram Warning#

Z

ZKyG9saXkd

Tourist
I know that Telegram is a very popular messaging app in the kink community. And I believe its probably pretty popular with the zoo community as well. But its important to remember that the threat model for zoo stuff is different than for kink stuff. People rarely get thrown in jail for tying each other up, or are forced to move across the Atlantic Ocean after being outed as a spanko.

There's a pretty good cypersecurity blog called Restore Privacy, and they did a review of Telegram that everyone here should read: https://restoreprivacy.com/secure-encrypted-messaging-apps/telegram/

TL;DR Telegram claims not to share user info (such as phone numbers) with governments except in cases of terrorism. But they are a private company with shady financials who use closed-source software and have been caught sharing information with the German government.

At the very least if you plan continue to use Telegram to talk about taboo stuff, you need to

1) only use Telegram through a court-tested VPN
2) pay for that VPN with crypto currency
3) always use Telegram's Secure Chat feature
4A) register your user account with a phone numer that can't be traced back to you
-OR-
4B) register your account with a +888 anonymous number secured through the blockchain like Fragment: https://fragment.com

We don't want nobody to get locked up of this, okay ;)
 
ZKyG9saXkd said:
I know that Telegram is a very popular messaging app in the kink community. And I believe its probably pretty popular with the zoo community as well. But its important to remember that the threat model for zoo stuff is different than for kink stuff. People rarely get thrown in jail for tying each other up, or are forced to move across the Atlantic Ocean after being outed as a spanko.

There's a pretty good cypersecurity blog called Restore Privacy, and they did a review of Telegram that everyone here should read: https://restoreprivacy.com/secure-encrypted-messaging-apps/telegram/

TL;DR Telegram claims not to share user info (such as phone numbers) with governments except in cases of terrorism. But they are a private company with shady financials who use closed-source software and have been caught sharing information with the German government.

At the very least if you plan continue to use Telegram to talk about taboo stuff, you need to

1) only use Telegram through a court-tested VPN
2) pay for that VPN with crypto currency
3) always use Telegram's Secure Chat feature
4A) register your user account with a phone numer that can't be traced back to you
-OR-
4B) register your account with a +888 anonymous number secured through the blockchain like Fragment: https://fragment.com

We don't want nobody to get locked up of this, okay ;)
Click to expand...


I am not a tech guy but from everything I have read Signal is the securest chat available.
 
Intriguedbyu said:
I am not a tech guy but from everything I have read Signal is the securest chat available.
Click to expand...
Signal is highly secure. But it has two fatal flaws:

1) Much like Telegram (pre-Fragment) the only way to sign up for a Signal account is with a valid phone number. This means that each message on Signal is associated with a unique phone number, and if the service was ever compromised, or if the government strongarms the owners then they could release your phone number to LE and then you're fucked.

2) Even worse than Telegram, you cannot message someone on Signal by sharing only usernames. You have to share your registered phone number. And so if the person you're talking to is actually LE, or ir the person you're talking to gets strongarmed by LE (say they get caught doing zoo stuff, and LE offers them a plea deal if they inform on all their contacts) then they can share your phone number and then you're fucked.

Obviously, its much easier for LE to compromise an individual zoo versus trying to compromise a huge corporation. At least Telegram now allows you to register an accoung with a Fragment (but that costs $250+ in crypto as of June 2023)
 
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I'm pretty sure you can use Signal without sharing phone numbers.. as I've heard illicit drug dealers use it.. I may be conflating with Session, though.
 
Funny enough I'm actually testing/playing with Sessions right now, no email or phone number needed to use and it's a fork of Signal. It uses the onion protocol (tor) for routing via the OXEN network, a good write up is here:

restoreprivacy.com

Session Messenger Review - Best Secure Messaging App?

Session is a secure messaging service in Australia. In this Session review we examined the pros and cons of this messaging app.
restoreprivacy.com restoreprivacy.com

So far the traffic looks clean entering and leaving the app when looking at the traffic on the wire. No trackers, cookies or third party api calls.

There is also a good (but long) break down of various chat (teleguard and wire are mentioned as well...wire could be interesting as a self-hosted private application) platforms here that highlights the pros and cons:

free messenger

Why not recommend other messengers ...
www.freie-messenger.de www.freie-messenger.de
 
Picking up on this old thread to raise a point about Session. After picking up on the excellent points made above (thanks all) I read the Restore Privacy review here. Way down, near the bottom, after all the excellent sounding stuff re Onion etc, it raises what sounds like a fundamental issue with the whole app. Because it's based in Oz, under Aussie legislation the Government Intelligence agencies seem to get snooping rights. The review goes into quite some detail (if you're a Session user I think it'd be worth a read, but I won't quote all of it here) and the conclusion below seems a real deal breaker to me.

"So is your data safe and secure with Session messenger?
I have my doubts after researching the Telecommunications and Other Legal Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018, commonly known as the AA bill or TOLA, but you can come to your own conclusions."

It sounds as if there are community members with far greater expertise than me. What do you think folks? As @Coles says, I'm tempted by Teleguard but, as it hasn't been reviewed by Restore Privacy yet, I'm still not overly confident. I want to be using a messaging app I can trust.
 
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