Whenever I glance at darknet forums, people there always use Telegram for instant messaging. This seems like a strange choice for their use case, considering that Telegram is neither secure nor private[1], being centralized with Russia-controlled servers[2], phone number registration, no encryption for personal chats by default in mobile client and no encryption at all in desktop client[3], etc.
So why do they use Telegram instead of actually secure and private alternatives, like Delta Chat, XMPP+OMEMO, etc.?
Because it is secure, that is why.
It really, like really really, isn’t.
Encryption not open source or auditable, encryption not enabled by default, entire platform captured by Russian oligarchs years ago. It is as secure as people sending all of their private messages to me to pass along to their contacts, and me saying “trust me bro, I won’t look”.
criminals disagree. If Signal were so secure, they would be using Signal instead.
Maybe you don’t know they use it because it’s secure?
Everyone know criminals use telegram because it isn’t secure.
You can fuck right off back to the FSB with that misinformation.
https://proton.me/blog/is-signal-safe
Is that the same FSB that is trying to ban Telegram right now?