The memo…recommended use of other messaging apps, including Microsoft Corp’s Teams platform, Amazon.com’s Wickr, Signal, Apple’s iMessage, and Facetime.

lol

The entire set is then encrypted again in transit.

Citation? The author of the article provides theirs, and a cursory glance at the chart that telegram themselves provides reveals that the authentication key is not encrypted at all.

Here’s the part of the article you may have missed that clarifies why that’s actually a huge issue:

This enables anyone who has sufficient network visibility and a bit of dedication to identify traffic originating from a given user device.

IStories found evidence that all network communication to and from Telegram’s infrastructure go through a company linked to the Russian FSB. This would provide the kind of network visibility that combined with auth_key_id would allow it to identify traffic coming from specific users, globally.

Why exactly did Telegram create a proprietary messaging protocol that uses this “surprising and unnecessary protocol design choice, present neither in Signal nor WhatsApp”?

Maybe it was just a huge coincidence, compounded by other huge coincidences. You tell me. You have the opportunity to blow this article wide open.

The fact is that the FSB is only a threat to those with Russian citizenship or who live within the Russian Federation

Two things:

1. Your focus on FSB this, FSB that is based on your refusal to read past the title
2. Maybe you missed it, but Russia is engaged in a war of aggression against Ukraine (a country where people use Telegram). Not only is this a good reason for Ukrainians to not use it, but the post makes a compelling case that nobody should (see: network effect).

There are reasons for Westerners not to use Telegram.

And if you read the blog, you’d have seen them.

It’s hard not to be condescending when you proudly wallow in self-induced ignorance.

Telegram’s dangers extend not just as far as Russia’s sphere of influence, but also the spheres of influence of every country that has secretly been collecting data with their express assistance. We discovered recently that Pavel Durov was hiding this fact for a long while…

Assuming everybody in this community is an nth-generation American citizen, maybe the FSB itself doesn’t endanger you. But this blog post was not written with only you in mind.

I would encourage you to read more than the title of a blog post before you critique it. At least skim around. 😉

OP is notorious for not giving a shit about privacy (and has posted conspiracy site spam before), and this article continues the trend. PCMag gives DeepSeek a 2/5 rating but Google Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT get 4/5 with no heading criticizing privacy.

It gets worse: PCMag cites a Trump administration special committee report as evidence Deepseek isn’t private. I could go on for a while about how both Google and OpenAI get special treatment from the US, but hopefully it’s clear that they (like OP) only see danger stemming from the geographical location of the servers and not their actual harm.

PCMag describes DeepSeek data collection as “fairly standard for chatbot data collection,” but then claims “other serious privacy concerns” before linking that report.

Meanwhile “OpenAI collects a significant amount of data,” it “was not forthcoming” with data breaches, and the author doesn’t “recommend sharing anything too sensitive with ChatGPT.”

Strange DeepSeek gets the “not secure” label and ChatGPT does not.

SimpleX is run by a Trump apologist and “white genocide” believer who believes the protests are fake and/or literally Stalin.

Edit: “all child abuse is horrible. But…” Evgeny is especially concerned about “genocide of young white girls” specifically, wondering “can Elon Musk help?”

Firefox exists in name as a thin wrapper over the Apple iOS WebKit engine. I personally don’t think that counts, although it’s arguable I guess.

There is no Tor Browser for iOS. There is an alternative, but it is notably hacky and flawed, due to iOS itself. The app also originally cost money in an attempt to recoup Apple’s developer licensing costs, before becoming free in 2017.

(IMO, this paints a picture of antagonism between Apple vs its users having nice things in general.)

AltStore (classic) is something I’ve tried, but it’s incredibly janky and painfully limited and, last I checked, kinda costs money every month. ?AltStore PAL operates only in Europe and at the express allowance of Apple itself.)

Again the antagonism of Apple against the iOS user rears its ugly head:

Apps installed with AltStore expire after 7 days, at which point they can no longer be opened…

Due to restrictions by Apple, you can only have 3 sideloaded apps installed on a device at a time.

And the file system with Apple iOS is not something I have a lot of experience with, but my expectations are below sea level…

If you’re expecting anything remotely like an Android experience on Apple’s devices, you’re going to have a horrible time. Anything even vaguely resembling your own file system, or non-Apple browsing engine, or alternative app store is basically nonexistent. And the way Apple squeezes indie developers means you’ve got less choice between decent apps even if you look on their store.

Among other missing apps, you get no Syncthing, no Firefox, no Tor Browser, nothing remotely like F-Droid or Obtainium…

… And as far as I can tell, there’s no such thing as an alternative to the Apple App Store (which mandates an identity and a signin), which isn’t also run by Apple…