Thread: Telegram on N900- a free,cloud-based, decentralized and heavily encrypted WhatsApp like app
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malkavian is offline malkavian
2014-02-12 , 22:25
Posts: 461 | Thanked: 358 times | Joined on May 2010 @ Bilbao (Basque Country [Spain])
#29
A GUI wouldn't be needed. It has got an open API and open protocol, so it could be integrated in N900 messaging like jabber, skype, msn... wich would be great

Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
Yes, it has an open client (which is not what is used for the official ones)
Open clients for various platforms, open API, and open protocol. Official clients are open too, with GPLv2 licence. https://telegram.org/apps

Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
But despite what their owners are saying, it is fully centralized, and it is not federated.
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)).

Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
The owners can do anything, including but not limited to changing the protocol, the rules and the license.
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.

Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
The service may at any later date start including features you don't like (e.g. someone 'leaks' russian signals intelligence has 'influenced' some of its design) and you won't be able to move from the service without losing communication with your existing contacts.
The actual situation is that most of the people use Whatsapp and only we, the geeks using other things... 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.

Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
And obviously let's not enter into the fake security features. The best that can be said is that they're not worse than Whatscrap. And that's not saying much.
Maybe their protocol could be broken, and his prize for whoever cracks their protocol isn't doable because of the asked conditions. There are criticism about that, and some unclear debate, but for sure, his security is better than Whatsapp easy crackable one.

Originally Posted by javispedro View Post
Out of curisity, so what's attracting you to this service, versus, opening an account on any jabber server and using the client that's built-in in _every_ Maemo/Sailfish version released to date?
Mainly, the people. I am using Whatsapp (Yappari, thanks Scorpius ) in my N900 with restriction of the contacts I send to Whatsapp Inc. to synchronize and without using it in open wifis. Most of my friends don't use another thing and some got angry with me when I tried to convince them about other alternatives, privacy concerns, openness...
 

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