maemo.org - Talk - Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app

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Re: Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app

Quote:

Originally Posted by malkavian (Post 1412487)

Sure? They even talk about location of their servers around the world. Or maybe you are talking about the control of the servers (wich are closed source and cannot be implemented (except by reverse engineering)).

Obviously. Why do I care if they have servers in the US east coast AND the US west coast? They're controlled by the same person/entity. That's my definition of centralized.

Quote:

Originally Posted by malkavian (Post 1412487)

And the world could end, but it is not predicted yet. Free sowftware community could then fork last GPLv2 version and do reverse engineering for the servers.

Unlike the world ending, cloud providers disappearing has happened way too many times to count. And when that happens, so do all your contacts.

And why would free software community fork _their_ software, when there are existing and working clients and protocols that are just better? And the existing ones even have open server implementations!

Quote:

Originally Posted by malkavian (Post 1412487)

Having an open protocol wich can be implemented wherever you like and with promises of good privacy protection is great and much better than actual situation. Telegram is getting very popular, and while defeating Whatsapp is difficult, maybe is doable. Most of people don't worry about privacy or openess but about not having to pay 1$/year. It's stupid, they pay much more for the mobile service, but I don't care while I get an open, widely used and privacy respectful IM.

Well, Telegram is not open, not widely used (yet), and hardly privacy respectful. In which way does the situation improve????? I just don't see it.

Re: Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app

Quote:

Originally Posted by coderus (Post 1412512)

and i'm stopping answering in this thread, because i see many peoples are paranoid and dont ever try to read. all new encypted protocols = evil. datacenters = evil. OTR and XMPP are god bless.

It is often the case that "new encrypted protocols" developed by for-profit companies tend to be more smoke-and-mirrors than actual cryptography.

To deny that would be naive.

And why does my data need to be stored in datacenters I don't control, when it can be stored in datacenters I control? That's more secure than most cryptography.

Re: Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app

Quote:

Originally Posted by javispedro (Post 1412570)

And why would free software community fork _their_ software, when there are existing and working clients and protocols that are just better? And the existing ones even have open server implementations!

Because free software community members have friends and family that don't care about software freedom or privacy so if they want to communicate with others, they need to use widely used IM software. You are lucky if all your contacts use jabber, but it's not the case of most of us. If the best world is not possible, it's good to at least have a better one, isn't it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by javispedro (Post 1412570)

Well, Telegram is not open, not widely used (yet), and hardly privacy respectful. In which way does the situation improve????? I just don't see it.

Telegram clients, protocol, and API are open. Servers are not open. Promised privacy is fine. Obviously you can distrust what they say, but ¿why you trust the jabber server you use? Do you know personally to all people that have access to that server? Have you read the code and monitored the binary generation and use of the jabber server software you use? If you can't trust anybody and/or anything...

Why anybody will take the care to promise privacy and openess, while most people use the less open and less privacy protector of the IM softwares (Whatsapp)? They just want to get the data of the paranoids and free software community members? Are we so important to make that evil movement to get our precious data? Maybe , just maybe, other reason could be that they are saying the truth and doing their best...

Re: Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app

Edward Snowden is everywhere :D

Re: Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app

Sorry for my absence, I haven't forgot the project, just stashed for a while.

Some updates on what I've done so far:
The official libraries provided by telegram are in java, but java isn't the ideal language to develop this project on maemo. This telegram client that I managed to compile is not meant to be a library so is not quite straightforward to reuse the code. I've made some tweaks to this telegram client and I been able to use it as a library in a Qt C++ project, and show a list of contacts in a gui, but only that for now. As soon as this project takes shape I'll upload the code to github, meanwhile it's just too messy to share.

Re: Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app

Quote:

Originally Posted by malkavian (Post 1412677)

Because free software community members have friends and family that don't care about software freedom or privacy so if they want to communicate with others, they need to use widely used IM software.

Wrong thinking. This way, you're embracing *worse* methods of doing things, getting at the same level that uneducated and clueless folks (no matter if those are actually friends, family, or whatever). Education is they key - if you have friends and family that use things hurting their privacy, morally, it would be good thing to at least warn them and explain why it's bad thing to do.

If they don't listen - well, their problem. But it doesn't mean you must jump into acid pool, just because everyone else is doing it. Personally, I respect others decision to sue whatever crap they like, but I also demand them to respect my choice of using different things. So, if they want to contact me, nothing stop them from signing up on jabber - I'll gladly help with the process.

Someone, who would be above to sign-up in transparent and privacy-safe service to stay in touch with me - because he is too used to skype/whatsapp/whatever, and ignore fact that not everyone like giving their privacy away for free - could hardly be called a friend.

/Estel

// Edit

I don't need to mention that often, after getting accustomed with FOSS tools even if just to stay in touch with me, such person gradually stops using crappy services, and starts convincing others to do it "right way"? ;) It was the case with Skype vs VoIP. suddenly, my whole family uses VoIP (and just few years earlier, I couldn't convince some of them to abandon Skype, even by "brute force" ;) ) and I haven't heard "Stupid questions" about skype account name since veeery long time.

Re: Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app

Quote:

Originally Posted by Estel (Post 1412839)

if you have friends and family that use things hurting their privacy, morally, it would be good thing to at least warn them and explain why it's bad thing to do.

Done.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Estel (Post 1412839)

If they don't listen - well, their problem.

And mine... They are sending my phone number to Whatsapp inc...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Estel (Post 1412839)

But it doesn't mean you must jump into acid pool, just because everyone else is doing it.

This is why I use a whatsapp client (Yappari) with another phone number and sync just the people I know they already have Whatsapp.

And this is why I want Spotbros or Telegram to get widely used. They are much better than Whatsapp in privacy concerns (and Telegram in Openess).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Estel (Post 1412839)

Personally, I respect others decision to sue whatever crap they like, but I also demand them to respect my choice of using different things. So, if they want to contact me, nothing stop them from signing up on jabber - I'll gladly help with the process.

I'm qualified as the freak, the paranoid. They say "wtf? Who the ****ing care about me saying stupidities in an IM" and similar... When my N900 usb port broke, I have been months talking to a bunch of friends by Google-talk, but lot of time I had to make phone calls to get informed of what are we going to do at weekend, because they just talk throught whatsapp groups and assume everybody has it. I used an old Android phone, and I didn't install official whatsapp because I don't want to send all my phonebook. I prefer to pay for phone calls or SMSs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Estel (Post 1412839)

Someone, who would be above to sign-up in transparent and privacy-safe service to stay in touch with me - because he is too used to skype/whatsapp/whatever, and ignore fact that not everyone like giving their privacy away for free - could hardly be called a friend.

Well, so now I have near no friends and no family. They simply don't understand the value of privacy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Estel (Post 1412839)

I don't need to mention that often, after getting accustomed with FOSS tools even if just to stay in touch with me, such person gradually stops using crappy services, and starts convincing others to do it "right way"? ;)

You're lucky. All the people I know here around (Spain) that thinks like me are in my same situation and for us trying to convince others is like fighting with a wall.

Re: Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app

Quote:

Originally Posted by malkavian (Post 1412677)

You may not entirely grasp the concept of centralization. Even if you were able to fully replicate the workings of Telegram's IM server, you would still need to migrate all your contacts to your $REIMPLEMENTED_SERVICE! Thus, again, why would a FOSS developer want to do that and not use Jabber???

That's exactly, BTW, my main problem with centralized services.

Compare the Jabber approach. If you distrust your current Jabber server, you switch to another one or even deploy your OWN one! You can still talk to all your previous contacts! Only those contacts who also distrust their current server would need to migrate

And as of today, not everyone uses Telegram (I don't know of anyone using it yet, even in Spain), so... why are you already assuming everyone uses it? This is a self-creating problem!

Quote:

Originally Posted by malkavian (Post 1412677)

why you trust the jabber server you use? Do you know personally to all people that have access to that server? Have you read the code and monitored the binary generation and use of the jabber server software you use? If you can't trust anybody and/or anything...

See above: I run my own server. Is there any other option that could give me more confidence?

Quote:

Originally Posted by malkavian (Post 1412677)

Why anybody will take the care to promise privacy and openess, while most people use the less open and less privacy protector of the IM softwares (Whatsapp)? They just want to get the data of the paranoids and free software community members? Are we so important to make that evil movement to get our precious data? Maybe , just maybe, other reason could be that they are saying the truth and doing their best...

No, they want to capture as many users as possible in the least amount of time, like any other dot com bubble startup. Because of network effects and because people never learn, those users will have a hard time leaving their network ("but all of my friends are on Telegram instead of $TELEGRAM_SUCCESSOR!"). And once they have everyone by their balls, they'll start adding dibous "features", make an IPO, buy a private jet, etc.

And since you are a fellow spaniard, I'm sure you remember the "MSN Messenger" era. Have you _counted_ the number of times "everyone" has moved from one IM service to the next one? What surprises me most is that on every one of those mass migrations users have _lost_ features yet they don't seem to realize.
Just to give an example, when I asked the "Why don't you use Jabber?" question in the MSN Messenger era, someone answered "because MSN allows me to play online Billiards with my contacts!".

Might be a right time to link this: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html

Re: Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app

Have you ever visited official web or read anything about telegram and telegram founders ideas? Startup? Making efforts unnecessary to get users quickly?