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

I've already ported the command line client for Telegram, now I'm working on a GUI build on top of this client for the N900.

This build it's really in its early stages, so don't expect much functionality.

Implemented features

1. Chats window
2. Contacts window
3. Basic send and receive text message with "checks"
4. Some notifications
5. Portrait for contacts

To be implemented

1. Multimedia messages
2. Contacts managment
3. User registration
4. Emojis
5. Portrait for contacts
6. Better interface design
7. ......
8. ....

How to install:

• Download the file from Here
• Extract TelegramN900.tar.gz to /home/user
• Install requiered libraries (libconfig, libreadline, libssl)
• cd /home/user/TelegramN900
• ./TelegramGui
• The command line client runs in the background, you can issue commands from there too
• If it's the firs time you run the telegram client, you can follow the instructions on the command line to register

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

Nice, might have a look at it. I liked their FAQ, clean words all over. I never used Whatsapp, nor other similar craps, because of closed source and zero privacy.

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

Sounds very Maemo to me!
Any app that makes encryption easier and snooping more difficult is good for freedom. The NSA already distributes crypto gear for NATO type countries, we want our own gear.

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

can you make an github repo for project? i want to get it working for harmattan with QML UI ;)

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

good news, keep going and let us know if you'll make GUI )

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

This is hardly better than Whatsapp itself. It's still one server, managed by one company, who gets access to all phone numbers in your address book.

Use Jabber dammit, not only it is an actual standard, it's even builtin in the N900...

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

I would gladly use Jabber, but whastapp became a standard over here, I'm forced to use it. At least telegram looks more concerned about privacy, and it's open, but you're right, they still have a db with the phone numbers.

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

Yeah, but being forced to used Whatsapp does not imply being forced to use Telegram or any other similarly closed service ;)

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

I think Whatsapp gained it's popularity because you don't need a new id to add your contacts (the phone number is used as id) so if people are to migrate they would choose some similar app.
I agree with you, I care about privacy, buy nowadays when there are companies that have a lot more sensitive information about you (like fb, g+, etc.), the phone number seems not a big deal.
Anyway my motivation to do this port is just the personal challenge it represent and making an app useful to someone and my beloved N900.
By the way, If you or anyone have an idea of making an app fully open that could replace Whatsapp or other similar apps I'm glad to collaborate :)

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

NerdKnight, any news about GUI?

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

Not much progress so far, I've been mostly looking into the command line client source to see how can I reuse it. It will take some time, I work on it on my spare time.

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

¿Any news? I'd love to use it in m N900 :)

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

Hi,

thanks, NerdKnight for the work with Telegram Messenger CLI. I try to execute the client you compile but I have some problem with the decrypt. I try to explain what I do.

1.- download your binaries and source code for arm

2.- copy bin/telegram to /usr/local/bin
copy bin/tg.pub to /etc/telegram/server.pub

3.- sudo apt-get install libmpc2 libmpfr1ldbl libgmp3c2 libutils2.22

4.- nano .profile with PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin/

5.- when execute telegram
$ telegram -k /etc/telegram/server.pub
dont find libconfig.so.8

6.- sudo apt-get install libconfig8

7.- $ telegram -k /etc/telegram/server.pub

telegram: mtproto-client.c:435: process_dh_answer: Assertion `decrypt_buffer[14] == 2' failed.
Signal 6 received
telegram(print_backtrace+0x18)[0x10f7c]
telegram(sig_handler+0x20)[0x10fb4]
/lib/libc.so.6(__default_sa_restorer_v2+0x0)[0x402c5950]
/lib/libc.so.6(abort+0x180)[0x402c5b6c]
/lib/libc.so.6(__assert_fail+0xc8)[0x402bd620]
telegram(process_dh_answer+0x7a4)[0x1a53c]
telegram(rpc_execute+0x19c)[0x1ed2c]
telegram(try_rpc_read+0xc4)[0x17600]
telegram(connections_poll_result+0xdc)[0x17b2c]
telegram(net_loop+0xf8)[0x11cec]
telegram(loop+0x1fc)[0x12a9c]
telegram(main+0x5c)[0x103f8]
/lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0x108)[0x402ae974]
telegram[0x10438]

What I miss? Am I doing anything wrong? Need any gcc-4.8 or binutils lib?

Thanks a lot.

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

Seems like NerdKnight forgot about this project... )

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

These days the number of users is increasing very quickly at Spain, 200.000 more every day.

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

I would really appreciate this effort. Telegram is having a striking success here in Spain :):):)

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

compiled telegram-cli for sailfish with no problems.

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

I also would love to use telegram on my n900!

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

what about harmattan? ((

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

+bump for Harmattan..

Is this just what I was waiting for or is it just evolution?

On on hand the company has the number db, on the other there are several advantages like sending any kinds of files, partially open source code as well as simultaneous access for the same account from different platforms...

the questions that remain unanswered to me is how they will cover their expenses.. Donations are mentioned in their FAQ, but it's not clear to me.

Still well worth a try

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

If you analize it objectively, it has no benefits over the rest of closed/crap IM systems.

Yes, it has an open client (which is not what is used for the official ones), but so have any of the IM systems which use XMPP as protocol (even Whatsapp technically has open clients, some of them available on this forum).

But despite what their owners are saying, it is fully centralized, and it is not federated. The owners can do anything, including but not limited to changing the protocol, the rules and the license. They can close the service at their whim and there's nothing you can do about it. 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.

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.


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?

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

Great Coderus thank for that :)

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

As a former jabber server owner, my sentiments precisely. However, what attracts folk to all these centralised cloud apps is ubiquity and automation - in the Whatsapp/telegram case, the address automation (the very thing "we" object to!). No looking up, searching, persuading friends to open account. Yeah, trivial I know, once you know how...

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

I just trust Durov and his initiatives. He is a person you can trust with no doubt.

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

how to install telegram in nokia n900 ????????
can anybody give me full information step by step.. thnk u.. :)

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

do you know what "cli" means?

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

there's a webapp zhukov.github.io/webogram/

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

And i'll wait for someone make GUI for this application...

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

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 :)

Open clients for various platforms, open API, and open protocol. Official clients are open too, with GPLv2 licence. https://telegram.org/apps

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)).

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.

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.

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.

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...

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

Did this ever happen? Even though... people would still use the official closed version (they probably wouldn't even notice the change - it would update automagically on their mobiles) or move to other WhatsCrapp... It always worked this way for hype-based apps.

I agree with javispedro herem that is nothing better than previous situation... "better" and "for geeks" would be own hosted and well protected+encrypted xmpp server. Unless your definition of geek is close to "person who follows all technical hypes regardless of whether the hype is clever or stupid", i.e. "sheep".

edit: i don't want to seem rude or attacking, that's just bitter truth based on my experiences

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

Redhat could also decide that their about 10.000 lines of code writed to Linux kernel are retired from it, but it's not probable.

Telegram founder is a person that have donated 1 millon dolars to Wikimedia foundation at 2011 (when he turned 27 years old). Maybe he have evil plans for Telegram, but I don't think so. He talked in an interview about financing Telegram servers with donations and/or premium contents for Telegram.

If you get all people to your jabber server it will be ok for me. While you don't get it, I'd like to be in contact to my friends with a not perfect but better system. I prefer unprobable risks to actual problems.

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

did you ever read telegram protocol and api?

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

No but the info is on their web. Which is the problem?

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

This guy is an entrepreneur who appears to have made his millions from social networks. Social networks normally make their money by exploiting user data. With Big Data analytics nothing ever gets deleted. You'd be foolish to assume that they are not storing every single message that passes through the Telegram servers. That data will become very valuable (if not already) but I guess we all have different interpretations of what constitutes as being trustworthy.

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

I only see you don't know who Pavel Durov is. You only see "*** **** blah-blah *** SOCIAL NETWORK..." aha! :D
you dont ever know anything about telegram protocol, but discussing it :D
strange peoples around me :D

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

I'll admit I don't know a lot about him but I do not only see "*** **** blah-blah *** SOCIAL NETWORK...". There is nothing wrong with social networks when they are done right (i.e. open and distributed where the user has 100% control of their data) but as far as I can tell, his one doesn't fall into that category.

The point I am trying to make is that the data passes through a centralised server. The Telegram protocol is irrelevant to that argument as it does not disclose anything about the back-end and even if it did, you don't know what's actually running on the server.

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

just Pavel never sell/open data centers for NSA/whatever. thats a difference between Facebook/vk and between whatsapp/telegram ;)

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

Maybe he won't sell data to any government agencies but that still doesn't deter from the fact that he owns, controls and holds the destiny of your data, not you.

Even if he was the most honest guy in the world, his centralised servers would become a target for government agencies so your data would never be safe.

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

about telegram: your data on cloud datacenters (and its not just one datacenter ;) are heavily encrypted. and with physical access to disk drives you cant read anybody conversations. only you can reand your conversations, untill you not telling your password to everybody

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

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.