So we want free apps that offer everything and don’t take your data or advertise. It must also have constant security updates and a fleet of developers keeping it running. Good Luck finding that unicorn.
I actually like this development. I’d much rather pay for a service with money over my privacy.
Signal literally exists. Free.
It’s only free because they’re trusting users to donate. That method of generating income for their developers could stop working at any time. Lots of FLOSS projects struggle to find kosher funding.
Come on dog this is literally just ‘yeah well what if we imagine a hypothetical world where MY argument is right, how about that?’
Large open source projects like Signal don’t really rely on individual donations, but instead survive off wealthy supporters or sponsors.
It’s only free because they’re trusting users to donate.
No, they sell their technology to Meta and Microsoft. WhatApp’s encrypted protocol that was rolled out several years ago is Signal’s. That’s also why Signal will never match all features of those messengers. They cannot drive WhatsApp and such out of business because that would mean Signal is out of business.
No. Everyone can use Signal technology for free in their own products. They are not selling it to anyone. Yes, some time ago moxie helped to integrate their encryption algorithm in WhatsApp and that’s that. Very likely that he / the foundation got paid for that service, but it’s not like Signal is funded by selling their technology to anyone. And for sure it’s not like they can’t match WhatsApp features because then WhatsApp would go down the river and they run out of funding…
I don’t know what to say but stuff like this makes me kinda angry. You read about moxie helping implement their encryption in WhatsApp at one point, and then came up with this story that Signal is somehow mainly funded by meta and Microsoft and can’t compete with their products because it would put ms and meta out of business and endanger their own funding this way. Like, please don’t make up stories like that, OK? It’s not a nice thing to do.
If you are really interested here are some actual facts on the matter:
On February 21, 2018, Moxie Marlinspike and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton announced the formation of the Signal Foundation, a 501©(3) nonprofit organization. The foundation was started with an initial $50 million loan from Acton, who had left WhatsApp’s parent company, Facebook, in September 2017. The Freedom of the Press Foundation had previously served as the Signal project’s fiscal sponsor and continued to accept donations on behalf of the project while the foundation’s non-profit status was pending. By the end of 2018, the loan had increased to $105,000,400, which is due to be repaid on February 28, 2068. The loan is unsecured and at 0% interest.
Source: wiki. Took me five seconds to google that. Again please don’t spread made up stories, thanks.
No. Everyone can use Signal technology for free in their own products. They are not selling it to anyone.
Everyone can use the AGPL version but they also sell proprietary versions to customers.
I don’t know what to say but stuff like this makes me kinda angry.
You are angry because I read official Signal announcements and documents that clearly says that Signal / Open Whisper Foundation is working with commercial partners?
You read about moxie helping implement their encryption in WhatsApp at one point
“To amplify the impact and scope of private communication, we also collaborate with other popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, Google Allo, and now Facebook Messenger to help integrate Signal Protocol into those products.” – https://signal.org/blog/facebook-messenger/
“In collaboration with Signal, Microsoft is introducing a Private Conversations feature in Skype, powered by Signal Protocol.” –https://signal.org/blog/skype-partnership/
Those commercial partners don’t need to comply with the AGPL and release their entire app source code under AGPL as well because: “You hereby grant to Open Whisper Systems and to recipients of software distributed by Signal Messenger a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, and distribute Your Contributions and such derivative works, as well as the right to sublicense and have sublicensed all of the foregoing rights, through multiple tiers of sublicensees, provided that in all cases, Signal Messenger will make Your Contributions available under an OSI-approved open source license.” –https://signal.org/cla/
In case you don’t understand the Signal CLA: While contributions from outside participants will be open sourced, Signal has any right to make and sell proprietary versions.
Non-profit open source foundations with commercial offshoots are completely normal. For a somewhat similar case but without the CLA see Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation.
Source: wiki. Took me five seconds to google that. Again please don’t spread made up stories, thanks.
Luckily, everything I wrote is the truth. Too bad you only googled for 5 seconds and not 30. Please read linked official Signal documents/announcements carefully and calm down. Thanks.
You shifted your goalposts from “they’re working together so they can’t compete because (somehow) that’d drive them out of business” to “they’ve cooperated with other companies to make their services more secure” and are somehow acting like you were right.
First, isn’t it good for them to work with other companies to improve other services? Doesn’t that help more people?
Second, there’s no fucking way they’d drive Google and Facebook out of business just by offering a superior service. Even if they did, wouldn’t that be good for them? How did you even come to that idea in the first place?
You shifted your goalposts from “they’re working together so they can’t compete because (somehow) that’d drive them out of business” to “they’ve cooperated with other companies to make their services more secure” and are somehow acting like you were right.
I see you’re new to PR speak. If Signal’s commercial cooperation was solely “to improve other services”, all Signal code would be BSD-licensed and available for free to incorporate into any proprietary service, not AGPL + CLA with sublicensing clause. That’s not shifting any goalposts, that’s basic comprehension of PR speak and what such licensing models are for. Signal is working with Facebook/Meta, Microsoft, and in the past also Google when Allo was still a thing.
Second, there’s no fucking way they’d drive Google and Facebook out of business just by offering a superior service. Even if they did, wouldn’t that be good for them? How did you even come to that idea in the first place?
Not Google or Facebook as whole but their chat services. Those companies would have absolutely no incentive to pay Signal money for proprietary licenses. Google Allo is already dead, so Google is not paying any longer, unless Signal tech is incorporated into another product.
Dual-licensing with a CLA is nothing uncommon, neither is a non-profit being attached to a for-profit.
Signal literally exists. Free.
Signal has fewer features than non-premium Telegram. Both are open source, neither can be used with alternative servers (unlike Matrix).
Signal is peer to peer no?
It is not
Sounds like the best open source projects out there. How bout we use our tax money to fund great free software for everybody?
People like you are really good for my business and I love it. Thank you🥰
Signal uses donations to keep running. That’s one of the reasons why they don’t need to do this kind of crap. Kinda like Firefox.
It’s sad to see that slowly but surely the Internet gets divided into the more and more useless giant sector and the free and open sector, which just doesn’t get the attention it needs to be attractive enough for most to switch over. And then there’s also this weird shadow area where I often hear those pirate chanties from…
Firefox wants to rely on donations but in reality 90% of their funding comes from an advertising company.
Firefox doesn’t even accept donations. Mozilla Foundation does, which is a related nonprofit, but it crucially does not fund any firefox development and legally cannot do so.
What, related nonprofit that can not legally fund Firefox development? What are you talking about? It’s literally developed by them.
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation.
Yeah, you should look up what Mozilla Corporation is and who employs those Firefox developers.
Mozilla Foundation owns the trademarks and runs the infrastructure. Firefox developers are employed by for-profit Mozilla Corporation.
PS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia
Yep… And you can’t donate to Firefox development. You’ll only fund the nonprofit and its goals, the money doesn’t go to Mozilla Corporation who do the actual development.
Damn, I didn’t know that. Now I’m sad.
Talk to anyone who works for a nonprofit. It’s really hard to find enough donors sometimes. You end up relying on a few really rich people because most of the community can only donate a couple bucks.
If every Firefox user donated $4 per year they’d be a billion dollar company and wouldn’t need Google’s deal
That’s just sad. I hope my ~20$ a year that I donate to a few of my most needed OSS-projects are helping somewhat.
Google they mean
And almost no firefox user wants to admit that, among the other things Firefox is flawed for. But, “IT’S NOT GOOGLE” is their only rationale.
Not being chromium based is quite a big deal, however.
I’ll stick with Signal thanks
Signal can block voice messages? How?
I definitely prefer premium over my personal data being the product for “free”.
As I get older I’m appreciating paid electronic services and content when done responsibly in exchange for a private ad-free and well done experience. But it’s taking a lot to get over my decades of conditioning assuming everything on a computer and internet should be “free”.
I’ve enjoyed my kagi premium search trial and seeing the prices is a bit much. But getting really good search results and having the webpage or search run so fast and seeing my ad blocker greyed out because there were no ads and trackers to block is surreal this day and age.
I just wish we had a better way of trusting telegram. The only thing encrypted by default is secret chats. I’d buy premium if it made all chats including group chats started by the user encrypted by default.
I totally agree with you, but it’s the damn cable model all over again.
Pay us so we don’t have to make money by selling you stuff.
Hey, we can still make money by selling them stuff.
The issue is that is that now they have your billing address and credit card number
privacy dot com.
That place keeps working for less and less services. I used to use it for everything
Yeah, problem with the fremium model is that they usually still collect and sell information on their premium users just the same as their free users. The premium just add some semi-essential features that they cut out for the free users. And finding truly 100% premium services that don’t sell personal data is rare these days because that’s where the money is for now, information. I don’t mind paying for a good service, but I won’t both pay and share my personal information, that’s just paying twice.
Kagi is really, really good.
It is time for Signal.
I don’t get how people expect services to stay free while also being against any kind of subscription or ads and barely donate to support these projects.
This isn’t an essential feature they’re paywalling. I don’t even remember the last time I sent a voice note, let alone get one from a stranger. Feels more like a thank you from the devs for supporting them
I’d understand paying for an active feature, like to SEND voice messages, but not having to pay to restrict spam sent my way.
This is VOICE MESSAGE we’re talking about, not calls nor chats. You can already block calls from non contacts and create a folder to only show chats from your contact.
How many voice message spams have you received that you feel like this is a deal breaker and how is Signal an appropriate alternative in this regard, when it doesn’t even have as many privacy options including this one?
If it wasn’t useful it wouldn’t be paywalled.
But spam pays the bills?
Also it’s not like voice messages auto play, so this really isn’t a necessary feature
And thats why I switched to Matrix and set up a Telegram bridge.
signal is the perfect messaging app for normies
I would generally agree with you, if it could allow you to sign-in on multiple devices, and share message history. I understand why it doesn’t do either one, but it does cripple the experience
Technically, you can sign in on multiple devices and share history. I share between my phone and multiple desktops. You just can’t do it between two mobile devices.
But… you can’t sign-in on multiple devices and see the message history there?!
You can once they have both been set up, the history from that point on is shared.
Yeah you can. I have it synced on desktop, phone, laptop. The kicker is that it will only have messages starting from when you synced and log in. If I added a new device, it would not see messages from yesterday, however it will start syncing from all devices from that point on.
signal is the perfect messaging app for normies
But Signal doesn’t let me restrict receiving voice messages either. I only found options regarding calls, not voice messages.
No. History is not synced between devices. Did not use it on windows? - deliniced and after relink you have no history again. It annoys with entering a password. Migration to a new phone backup to s file, somehow copy the file to a new phone, restore - not for normied.
signal has same e2e encryption as WhatsApp and requires your phone number: same level of privacy,much worse user experience, much less features. Not a great option for normies.
its a sacrifice one must make. also whatsapp is closed source so e2e is as good as nothing
I will never understand why people switched from WhatsApp to telegram. Tg is just Russian WhatsApp.
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Also, never sold any data to any authorities, all the security issues came from users not paying attention to privacy settings. The stigmatisation of telegram as ‘russian messenger’, even though the team that made it and maintains it left russia a long ago, prevents this software from getting its rightly deserved popularity
privacy should be enabled by default and not through some hidden settings
Telegram’s default settings are still way way better for your privacy than whatsapp which doesn’t even has any additional layer of security unlike tg
Good privacy brings inconvenience, don’t even think this compromise could ever be avoided. Convenient WhatsApp has nothing to do with privacy, whatever their PR department might want you to think.
This compromise is unavoidable, and every user should be forced to make the choice. Every kind of defaults is bad. Can you imagine that a messenger app that forces you to choose your place on the scale of security-convenience during onboarding process gets wide adoption? Me neither…
Telegram defaults are very sane for common users, and they have very easy and convinient way to start a secure chat. Best available messenger app so far.
privacy should be enabled by default and not through some hidden settings
What’s hidden about Settings > Privacy? We’re not talking about editing some INI file or crawling through the Windows Registry here. I agree with you that some defaults can be better but claiming those are hidden is just wrong, man.
Telegram is in every way better. My primary reason for prefering Telegram over anything else are bots (API specifically). I mean bots functionality is so awesome that I can’t properly describe how awesome it is. <3
People might argue you could just use Discord if you want bots but Discord is so bloated an sluggish in comparison to Telegram’s minimalist native clients for every OS (even Linux).
It’s not better in every way. WhatsApp is encrypted by default, Telegram not.
Why tf is this downvoted if it’s true? Telegram’s own encryption is a joke, you can’t enable it in group chats or through desktop clients. There’s also part fo ToS that states you can’t use your own encryption in Telegram, which is pretty suspicious of a supposed privacy-friendly messenger
Because it is not true. WhatsApp maybe encrypted but not if you allow apple/Google backup and there is multiple known cases of backdoor.
And telegram is encrypted. The End to end encryptions has to be activated in 1 to 1 messaging if wanted. But, still, messages are encrypted for other messaging. Also, in my country my phone number is directly liked to my name, by law. As such, Telegram offer way more privacy and security than Signal or WhatsApp as there is the possibility to use a username and hide the phone number.
And anyway, most of people don’t really care. Telegram is better as it offer way more features.
WhatsApp has an e2ee backup option and according to Signal WhatsApp doesn’t have a backdoor. Telegram does not encrypt group chats, which is terrible for privacy and security. Hiding the phone number is a solid feature, I admit. But it hardly protects you from the government, especially if you become a high-profile target.
That is the biggest reason I don’t trust Signal. They implemented Whatsapp’s encryption and while technically the encryption hasn’t been broken, the way it works forces you to leave data on your device, which has been proven dangerous in practice for the kind of people it sets out to protect.
Plus the best stickers ever.
Telegram by default does not send end-to-end encrypted messages (only in secret chats) and thus can be considered very unsafe as the server owner can literally read all your messages.
They give the user the impression that they are similar secure to e2e encrypted messengers but really are not since most users just start a normal chat.
This also means that, in theory, surveillance is very possible and likely as the russians are not really to be trusted by anyone. Privacy nightmare.
Telegram is owned by a person born in Russia, but has long moved out and lives in
GermanyDubai, where Telegram’s HQ is locatedIIRC the reason they don’t do e2e encryption is because you can access the information from the desktop without having access to the phone, you cannot do that with whatsapp, every desktop connection must pass through the phone, and that’s mighty annoying.
Yeah, you need to trust them that they will save the data in their servers in a secure way, but they have not betrayed the users’ trust since they are running, and several people trust them.
Not true. You can do that with Signal.
Well, the fact that telegram normal/group chats are not encrypted is not true either. I think I know how is signal doing it, and I wish telegram upgraded it’s services, but for now it’s without any kind of doubt the most seamless chat service I have ever used, with the integrations, stickers and all that. I’ll give signal a try though, GL moving all the friend group chats though.
> Well, the fact that telegram normal/group chats are not encrypted is not true either.
It’s not encrypted in any way that actually matters.
> it’s without any kind of doubt the most seamless chat service I have ever used, with the integrations, stickers and all that.
Yeah stickers are not high up on my list of priorities.
Well, for starters, Signal doesn’t have a web version so I cannot use it in managed pcs, bummer. In any case, I’ll check it out but I highl doubt that the user experience will be even close.
WhatsApp by default backs up to Google drive, which is laughably insecure.
I don’t know how good is WhatsApp’s e2e implementation, I’ve heard good things about protocol though. But I do know Telegram protocol documentation contains all information needed to implement e2e capable Telegram client, and their e2e is really good, I’ve seen it done by my friend and as I’m a programmer and am interested in cryptography, I followed his work very closely.
I still do not trust e2e group chats, it’s a shaky point in security protocols. There was some kerfuffle about WhatsApp being able to silently add invisible listeners to group chats, wasn’t there?
Telegram very explicitly chooses the right amount of security and makes user aware of inconveniences this level of security brings along. WhatsApp lies in user’s face, making you think it’s secure and convenient.
edit: btw I’m Telegram premium subscriber and love it. I subscribed for the ability to convert voice messages into text. I am aware of privacy concerns, voice messages get sent to some 3rd party for this to work. Pretty often this speech-to-text works not very good, I expect it’s much better for English language though. I still love my Telegram premium, for being able to support developer and to lower the chance of being the product. Cost is negligible, benefits are tangible.
Every service has a product they sell, if a service is free — you are the product.
Need I remind you WhatsApp is owned by Meta? Free service from creators of Facebook and our mutual respect to their privacy practices, all in the same sentence, yeah.
Telegram by default does not send end-to-end encrypted messages (only in secret chats)
When I tap the new message icon in the lower right corner, Telegram asks me which type of message I want to send. There is no default there. Maybe other clients do it differently from the main Android client but here there is no default.
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What are the kids using nowadays? Signal?
Signal
Matrix
Kids? Instagram
I think it’s more TikTok these days
I guess I meant Kids=the cool kids.
It’s not as safe to hook up with your dealer on Instagram, silly.
You shouldn’t really hook up with dealers anyway. Just buy your drugs and leave—don’t bang them! They are notoriously exploitative.
How do you think you get free drugs, my man?
Yes Signal is goog
Telegram is an infinitely better user experience then WhatsApp.
Signal all the way
As I remember it, nobody had cared about Telegram until Signal started gaining some traction as a more private WA alternative. Telegram just rode that wave, plus I suppose it has better support for large groups I guess? The fact that those aren’t even encrypted just gets lost.
Whatsapp doesn’t have even a tiniest bit of telegram functionality, most importantly, bots. The person who made this post bitches about weirdly specific functionality that doesn’t affect you at all. I have a telegram premium (which is dirty cheap) and I never knew I could ban sending VMs, nor I had any reason to do so. Even in the free version you can restrict people who can write to you (e.g. only your contacts), if you don’t like to get VMs from your friends, just tell them. Also, security-wise, we all know that whatsapp gives your data to whatever US authorities ask and tg never did anything like that. All the security risks came from users not paying attention to privacy settings, like exposing their mobile number.
I have a telegram premium (which is dirty cheap)
Is it cheaper than USD 4.99 per month? That’s the cost I could find online. Premium is not available where I live, so I cannot just take a look.
Telegram has much better Windows/iPad apps, open source client, faster, more customizable, support for sending lossless-files, etc. It’s a much better app, and not owned by Meta
yeah go to matrix instead, or signal
Enjoying Matrix, there seems to be an actual focus on privacy. We’re using it for the development comms for Kbin. Feels like an alternative version of discord
I really hate whatsapp design for some reason
Telegram is not Russian. The creator is, but that is about it.
I think they are referring to the large Russian user base.
I think they are referring to the large Russian user base.
Telegram is one of the very few ways for uncensored communication and news gathering.
I wasn’t insinuating anything either way. Just observing.
TIL telegram is Russian and bad. dang.
It’s not. The founder is russian and created vKontakte but basically had it taken away from him by Putin. He’s outspoken against the regime and just because he’s born in Russia shouldn’t mean he should be seen as part of that crappy government.
No. He was born Russian, but has moved out of it after his other social platform VK was confiscated and now owned the Russia. He lives in
GermanyDubai, where he placeed Telegram’s HQ.oh this makes me feel much better about staying on telegram, thanks for the info!
It has the absolute best and fluid user experience of all messengers I’ve tried so far, especially in conjunction with the desktop client.
Telegram is literally what WhatsApp wishes it could be. Also Pavel doesn’t get along with Russia.
My eyes are bleeding…
Never noticed because I’ve never received a single voice message in the 5+ years of using it. Then again, I only use it with friends and not large communities. I’ve had spam messages, but they’re rare and just text talking about crypto.
I keep forgetting why sometimes I even use Telegram. It’s just there. I don’t want their dumb subscription.
You can use it without premium.
I just use telegram for the occasional bit of sailing the high seas
I avoided using telegram when it asked for my phone number.
I avoided using telegram when it asked for my phone number.
So you don’t use Signal and Element either?
Element does not require a phone number. Signal does, and yes I don’t use it for that reason.
Element does not require a phone number.
That’s true but it asked for the number (at least last I tried it) and that was what the quoted part was about.
Element does not require a phone number.
Neither does Telegram since last year: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/7/23498236/telegram-fragment-phone-number-crypto-verification-monetization
Nope
Just use another Client.
I switched all of my friends and family to telegram in 2013. I deleted it 2 months ago. 10 years.
Telegram was so great. Always cutting edge, released so many features before anyone else, and the app always stayed extremely lightweight. What broke the camels back for me was them destroying transfer speeds for free users.
I have 1gbps internet connection, and videos and photos take FOREVER to download and send on telegram. Trying to send a short 30 second clip on telegram takes a good 90-120 seconds, even on the lowest compression.
Meanwhile snapchat and other apps take 3 seconds and look better?
They are trying to push their premium so hard, which is fine, gotta pay, but I’m sorry there’s no chance in hell all of my friends and family are paying $7 CAD each per month.
At this point I’ve just switched to RCS messages for all of my Android friends, and Snapchat for my stubborn iOS friends.
For a long time it was ran on money that Durov made from VK and it’s selling deal and had no ads, almost perfect development. It was a ton of money obviously, but we all knew it would run out sooner or later and then everything would change. I bought premium once because I wanted to support the project, and I still use it. Hopefully I won’t have to use anything else, because I hate almost any other messenger.
Edit: forgot “would”
EXACTLY.
Everyone else here is forgetting that Telegram is still pushing the limits and it’s still one of the best app for messaging (the best in my opinion though), if they’re recurring to this, it’s because money aren’t unlimited.
Shut the hell up you people: Telegram still isn’t invading privacy and using anti-user practice, the hell you complaining about?
Serious question - isn’t snapchat an absolutely horrible messaging experience? The messages literally disappear, the app is shit, and the messaging interface is shit. And you can see when someone is actively reading the message. I hate all of that.
Do people seriously use it for day to day messaging with people?
Well I don’t really care to save chat logs from my friends. If they send something “important”, I can save it in the chat so it never disappears, or I can screenshot it.
They only disappear after 24 hours unless you save them by tapping on them. Depending on your relationship, that could be a good thing. I mean Telegram added disappearing messages for a reason.
Yes, millions and millions of people use it daily. It’s the easiest way to send videos and photos to friends. I send so much stuff to my girlfriend and vice versa that doesn’t sit in my messenger and clog it up. Meanwhile my Telegram chats are full of tens of thousands of photos and 99.9% of them are garbage that I wish didn’t exist still like selfies of me making stupid faces.
I’m not acting like snapchat is private, or that screenshots don’t exist. They do, I don’t care. It’s just nice that if I send my friends a stupid selfie, or my girlfriend a lewd, they are not sitting in their messenger for them to come across a few months or years later making shit awkward.
That is fair, I respect that. I think I’m just used to being able to go back and reference something we said to each other from the past.
Thanks for the response!
WTF?
You can just turn off receiving all messages from any user. This is specifically for people who told their friends that they don’t want to listen to voice messages and want texts, but friends still use voices. Every one I know has a friend like that.
Well I don’t think you can turn off receiving voice messages in other messengers, either. It’s a weird premium-only feature, but eh, at least they’re not making things worse compared to the baseline.
What bugs me about Telegram is all the messages by scammers posing as pretty women. I seriously get one every day.
My friend who’s very non-privacy conscious gets these messages a ton, but I’ve never received one.
I assume it has something to do with him giving him number to some sketch company a while back
Ye I gave my number to a recruiting agency many years ago when I was looking for a job. The first time I received spam/phishing via Telegram they said they were recruiters. I blocked them but the spam keeps on coming from different accounts that get deleted on the same day
I never get those, can’t you just block them?
I do. But new ones pop up every day
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Annnnnnnnnnd…Signal!
Signal is superior in all the important security ways anyway. You’re not losing much except stickies and emotes or whatever.
Signal is only good at doing one thing, and that’s encryption. It lacks so many useful features that Telegram has.
Such as?
The user interface itself is amazing, true seamless multiple device support - including web clients (with your drafts synced on all your devices too), live location sharing, polls, live voice channels, good stickers, bots, public groups/channels, 2gb file sharing, video messages, usernames, etc.
Okay, so why are you claiming it “only does one thing well”?
Because the only good thing about Signal is it’s encryption.
Well, that’s subjective, but okay
I know, I only use Signal ! But tell that to all the others who explain to my why Whatsapp is so much better…
Normies are missing all Telegram has, and that’s not security.
