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Telegram's encryption seems hard to break, all the so-called 'Crypto Contest' ended and no one was able to get the prize (which was one time 200 000, and then it was 300 000):

https://telegram.org/crypto_contest
https://telegram.org/blog/cryptocontest
https://telegram.org/blog/cryptocontest-ends

An interesting article about Telegram and its creator, Pavel Durov:
http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive ... aging-apps

Since Pavel Durov is an enemy to censorship and to Putin's regime and since to me he seems to be sincere I can have some trust in Telegram.

Yes, Telegram requires a telephone number, but in contrast with other similar programs Telegram does not require to be installed on phone first in order to use it on PC. This is extremely useful for people who (like me) do not have and do not plan to have a smart phone.

Telegram is among the secure messaging systems I like- Tox, Bitmessage, RetroShare. Once I tried for a while GoldBug but it was not very easy to use.

smaragdus wrote:no one was able to get the prize https://telegram.org/blog/cryptocontest

I didn't dig into this too much but two questions:

* How did a freeware project get 300k for a crypto challange?
* Why did it end? If something is highly secure, shouldn't the challenge be ongoing?

I'm not saying that the effort doesn't impress me or that I have any expectation of perfect security, just something that grabbed me.

@webfork

Pavel Durov - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov - is a rich guy and can afford to shed money on Telegram. I don't trust anyone but I do not think he is in collaboration with the 3-letter agencies. At least I can trust Telegram more than Skype (in fact I do not trust anything created/owned by M$).

Since you are from Texas I am curious to ask- do you remember ZipLip, the once revolutionary encrypted web-mail service? As far as I can remember ZipLip was based in Texas and that's why I am asking you. It was a great service for its time but it was closed in 2004 under the pressure of the 3-letter agencies.

One last question- have you ever tested any of the many Tox clients?

smaragdus wrote:... more than Skype

Yeah I feel confident Skype is not secure and not just around but also their continued use of RC4 in the protocol, long after it's been listed as insecure.

smaragdus wrote:do you remember ZipLip

Nah, I never heard about that.

smaragdus wrote:One last question- have you ever tested any of the many Tox clients?

Negative. If you'll notice I list a GPG key in my sig but do you know how many GPG messages I've exchanged, including with developers of GPG programs? I can count them on one hand.

I should offer a cash prize.

@webfork

For me Tox clients show some promise and one day Tox protocol might become a real alternative to Skype. Once I tested several clients- Isotoxin, qTox and Toxy (all portable) and I chose qTox because it supported both audio and video chat plus message history, but at a certain point the portability was broken (qTox didn't respect its own portability settings). After several bug reports and some chats at Tox IRC channel someone finally got to work on fixing it and I saw that the issue was closed but I haven't yet tested whether the portability is really restored. qTox hasn't even reached a Beta yet but it is stable (I can't remember it crashing). When it becomes a bit more mature I suppose I will write about it here. Anyway, I will post a screen-shot here (of an ancient version of qTox, but at least it is really portable):I have Bitmessage and use it very rarely but I feel better having such a utility in my tool-box.

smaragdus wrote: ... one day Tox protocol might become a real alternative to Skype

Interesting stuff. I hope it does.

@webfork
I wrote a short introduction to another Tox client for Windows- Isotoxin, which seems to be truly portable:
http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/ ... =4&t=22264
Right now Isotoxin supports only text chat, audio calling and file tranfer but video calling is also planned.

This has happened 3 or 4 times- Telegram loses its settings and when I maximize it from system tray I see its welcome message (Start Messaging). A friend of mine experienced the same issue. I don't know whether this is a bug or a deliberate behaviour to check phone numbers from time to time. In this regard Tox clients seem to be more reliable.

It is obvious that there is a campaign against Telegram messenger:
http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/01/whatsa ... n-android/

Facebook also removed Telegram page:

Facebook seems to have taken down our page for no apparent reason. We're trying to figure out what happened and how to take it back. (This was the address, in case you were curious: https://www.facebook.com/tlgrm). So for now, if anyone on Facebook is telling you they're us, they are not.

Source - https://telegram.org/faq#facebook

There were also accusations that Telegram was ISIS main communication tool. It seems that the 3-letter agencies unable to crack Telegram are eager to discredit it starting a slandering campaign.

There were also accusations that Telegram was ISIS main communication tool. It seems that the 3-letter agencies unable to crack Telegram are eager to discredit it starting a slandering campaign.

It's in a weird way it's a kind of advertisement; if I was trying to find secure tools, I'd look for something state actors didn't like.

Sort of the Streisand effect in action.

hi
love this application even seems no stealth
will be added in the database?

giulia wrote:will be added in the database?

Feel free to submit something.

Behold the Telegrazilla!

Telegram purged the change log- compare it after the purge and before the purge. I don't like this.

In version 0.9.49 a very dangerous, even malicious feature was introduced:

Edit your messages everywhere within 2 days after posting (press the up arrow button to edit your last message)

For me this is evil- this "Edit" feature can be used for all kinds of manipulations- imagine editing of e-mail messages in someone's mail-box. I won't update to version 0.9.49 and I think I will dump Telegram for good.