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404 Media reports that a bunch of cybercriminals are ditching Telegram in the wake of CEO Pavel Durov's arrest: https://www.404media.co/in-wake-of-durov-arrest-some-cybercriminals-ditch-telegram/
I've seen the same! The crew behind a one-time password stealing operation called Estate (I profiled earlier this year: https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/13/cyber-criminals-stealing-one-time-passcodes-sim-swap-raiding-bank-accounts/) wiped its channel and ditched Telegram, citing the messaging app's recent moderation changes that allows anyone to report private groups.
"Telegram can't be trusted anymore," wrote the OTP bot crime crew.
Ignoring the context.
Don’t pirate over Telegram, it’s no longer safe in terms of privacy and legal safety.
This kind of confusion illustrated by Telegram users is exactly why it was the right thing to do for privacy when Signal removed support for SMS because it’s not encrypted. People still whine endlessly about it, but most users are not very savvy, and they’ll assume “this app is secure” and gleefully send compromised SMS to each other. All the warnings and UI indicators that parts of the app were less secure (or not at all in the case of SMS) would be ignored by many users, resulting in an effectively more dangerous app. Signal was smart to remove those insecure features entirely.
Yeah. You can’t offer a half-secure and half-private platform and expect your average person to be able to figure out which half is which, which leads to crazy misconceptions, misunderstandings, and ultimately just a bunch of wrong and misleading information being passed around.
I’d argue, though, that Telegram probably did this on purpose, and profited GREATLY from being obtuse and misleading.
That’s why I stopped using it. They require a phone number, phone numbers require kyc with an ID around here, and there’s just too much illegal shit on there.
It’s of course possible to get a more pseudonymous experience, but honestly, what they offer isn’t worth the hastle.
Meh, you never could trust them.
Group chats were NEVER encrypted, so I’m surprised that people are just now figuring out that if it’s not encrypted = people can read it.
If it wasn’t a 1:1 “secret chat” encrypted message, then congrats, you weren’t as opsec-y as you thought you were.
This kind of confusion illustrated by Telegram users is exactly why it was the right thing to do for privacy when Signal removed support for SMS because it’s not encrypted. People still whine endlessly about it, but most users are not very savvy, and they’ll assume “this app is secure” and gleefully send compromised SMS to each other. All the warnings and UI indicators that parts of the app were less secure (or not at all in the case of SMS) would be ignored by many users, resulting in an effectively more dangerous app. Signal was smart to remove those insecure features entirely.
Yeah. You can’t offer a half-secure and half-private platform and expect your average person to be able to figure out which half is which, which leads to crazy misconceptions, misunderstandings, and ultimately just a bunch of wrong and misleading information being passed around.
I’d argue, though, that Telegram probably did this on purpose, and profited GREATLY from being obtuse and misleading.
That’s why I stopped using it. They require a phone number, phone numbers require kyc with an ID around here, and there’s just too much illegal shit on there.
It’s of course possible to get a more pseudonymous experience, but honestly, what they offer isn’t worth the hastle.