After techniques like Twitter pulled to ban Trump and thousands of other far-right accounts, millions moved to programs like Signal and Telegram for their encrypted messaging services.
There is one rub though: Telegram, unlike Signal, does not have end-to-end coding by default.
End-to-end encryption means that only the sender and recipient of the message can read the message. Even the server it hosts, such as Signal or iMessage on Apple devices, cannot decrypt and read what someone has written. If the servers were ever hacked, hackers would not be able to read the messages either. It is then safe to say that end-to-end (e2e) encryption is an essential element to secure messages.
As New York Times Technology Reporter Mike Isaac pointed out on Twitter that those who combine Signal and Telegram are doing it wrong because of this difference:
a few things:
signal and telegram get a bit confusing in a recent coverage, but it’s pretty different
signal is a classic end-to-end encrypted messenger product
Telegram acts more like a social network + messenger and is not e2e by default
– rock king (@MikeIsaac) 14 January 2021
“Sein is [pretty] a classic ‘messenger’ product, encrypted end-to-end, “Isaac explained. Telegram acts more like a social network + messenger and is not e2e by default. ‘
According to the frequently asked questions, a user needs to make a Telegram chat ‘secret’ in order to encrypt e2e. Telegram has public, private and secret chats; secret conversations are only between two people. This means that the private group conversations of Telegram are not e2e encrypted, and therefore they are more exposed to
How does Telegram’s coding compare to other messaging systems?
Signal, as already mentioned, has standard e2e coding. Of the most important messaging programs, however, it appears to be the only one (at the time of this publication). Facebook Messenger is not automatically encrypted e2e. Like Telegram, one has to make the conversation ‘secret’.
Whatsapp, which owns Facebook, has an end-to-end encryption for chats between family and friends, but the rules are getting darker when it comes to business chats. The app was planning to turn its business chat coding into a policy update on February 8, but due to setbacks, they moved it to May 15.
Whatsapp messages between friends and family are encrypted end-to-end by default. However, your Whatsapp messages to businesses may not be end-to-end encrypted on May 15 if the business provides access to third-party providers, such as the parent company Facebook, for hosting purposes. When you start a conversation with this type of business, you see a light blue message at the top explaining what kind of privacy you can expect. If the conversation with the business is encrypted end-to-end, you will see a note at the top of the conversation in yellow that says.
To sum up: signal is always e2e encrypted. Whatsapp has e2e for friends, family and currently business; some business chats will change in a few months. Facebook Messenger and Telegram is not e2e by default. One has to make the chat “secret” on one of the two applications so that it can be so. In the case of Telegram, this means that only conversations between two people can encrypt e2e.
There you have it. Go ahead and choose your messaging service wisely. (Hint: make it signal.)