this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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Yes this is a Telegram client and yes it will break the Lemmy's downvote world record but I still find this one very nice and "actively" maintained. There are not many good Telegram FOSS forks without Google integrations and similar stuff out there.

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[–] dingdongitsabear@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 months ago (3 children)

do any of these forks support E2EE? I don't mean the OG "private chat" thingy that Telegram supports.

I mean like an add-on, the way pidgin had an OTR plugin that enabled private comms over Google's unencrypted XMPP servers.

as a consequence, that would also encrypt everything in the cloud and prevent your chat history being ingested for LLM training and whatnot.

[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That would require the other user to use the same app as you right? Could be interesting.

[–] wurstgulasch3000@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

At that point why not use a different app that supports E2EE natively?

[–] dingdongitsabear@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

because Telegram's UI/UX is second to none; possibly iMessage or whatever it's called is close, albeit with way limited functionality. Signal and friends look like a PoC from 2015 in comparison. also the apps, on mobile and on desktop, have a low memory footprint with no bloated electron crap, the cross-device sync is phenomenal and there's the virtually unlimited cloud storage. if an addon could piggyback off of that, that would be spectacular.

however, OP's insight as to this being against ToS is obviously a deal breaker. seeing as how they're adamant about leaving all your shit unencrypted in the cloud I'm looking for other havens, begrudgingly; I've been a user from the early days.

[–] semperverus@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The options are basically:

Matrix if you want a Discord-like experience

XMPP if you want a whatsapp/google talk like experience (both of those are based on XMPP)

Signal if you want hyper-secure chat and don't mind some mild inconveniences in things like registration or desktop apps.

All three support or can support E2EE.

[–] dingdongitsabear@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

well yeah, just a simple private/public key solution for encrypting chat and cloud. transfer your private key to a forked desktop app and access your encrypted chat history from there as well.

just basic stuff, not something for people running from nation-state actors, but to prevent LLM ingestion and mass surveilance. but OP says that's against Telegram's ToS, so no dice here.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

E2EE is prohibited by Telegram's TOS (you can't make any feature that requires users to use your client to access it).

[–] nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Whoa, they not only won't implement it, but will work on not letting anyone else do it. They're more shady than I thought.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They're not shady. They just don't want to lose the market share and I think if they made Telegram really secure, there'd be even more illegal stuff on it and the government wouldn't like it.

[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

"They're not shady." Begins to describe the shady shit they do

[–] I_CAST_BEAM_OF_BATS_I_CAST_BOLT_OF_BATS@hexbear.net 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't trust any of these apps that are used by the DEA and trying to get a phone number out of me one bit

[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago

Glad I'm not the only one

[–] timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How is it "shady" to not want to lose market share and keep illegal stuff off of it?

You could argue it's "shitty" (perhaps, but it is their servers after all) but I don't find it shady.

[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago

How is it "shady" to not want to lose market share and keep illegal stuff off of it?

Market share shouldn't be a concern with encrypted chat. If it is then I don't trust it.

If you're making an encrypted chat, you're going to have illegal things on it. If only the chat owners have the keys then that shouldn't be the server owners concern.

[–] semperverus@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

I would strongly recommend libaxolotl/OMEMO over OTR, far stronger algorithm.