 Alright, what's up guys? I want to clear up a misconception that I've been seeing all over the place recently Because I know a lot of you guys watching my channel. You have this misconception too, and I want you just I don't know It's one of those things that's about deceptive marketing. I suppose it's about the application telegram Telegram if you don't know it is a messaging application that can run on your phone It can run on your computer it a lot of people I know use it in place of having text messages and It's the thing about it is I'll go ahead and have the punchline up front and that is telegram bills itself as being a secure messaging application It's really not really any more secure than if you were using AOL chat over HTTPS Okay, which really means any kind of you know chat service out there telegram is no more secure than any of them Here's the problem. Here's the thing with telegram And I'm not gonna knock telegram, but I actually I'm gonna knock telegram So let's be clear telegram Will advertise themselves as being encrypted. Oh, we have an encrypted Messaging service and it's secure and it's private and blah blah blah, and that's what it's billed at billed as it's billed as Oh, well, don't use text messages because they're not secure use us instead. Okay, and yeah text messages I wouldn't trust them either. There's a lot of unless you're using signal or one of those actual end-to-end encryption services In general, they're not trustworthy, but telegram is no better And this is what I mean telegram first off is encrypted in a highly trivial sense That is it is encrypted in the same way that every website with HTTPS is encrypted basically That is your message is encrypted on its way to telegram servers It's also encrypted on the way from telegram servers to its recipient Let's say I send a message message to Billy now if you're an actual privacy Concerned person or just someone who doesn't want constant metadata being mined off you or something like that You sort of expect oh if I'm using a Secure messaging application if I'm using encrypted blah blah blah services I expect no one it's up for me and my recipient to be able to read my message Telegram does not work like that because Although it is encrypted on the way to telegram servers and the way on telegram servers from them to your recipient Telegram can manifestly read your messages They have the keys and they openly have the keys to read any messages on their platform that means Individual messages that means group messages that means your pictures that means your phone number Which you gave to telegram when you signed up that means all of that stuff It is not a secret it is you know They can read it as easily as AOL could read AOL messages, okay, and they don't pretend to hide that now telegram does have a Particular mode like a privacy mode like a private shatter I forget exactly what they're called which is a one-to-one thing that you can have with one other person and that could be an That could be a legitimate into end encryption, but in most cases and for all group chats no telegram Group chat is secure the thing you need to remember about that They're like that not any of that stuff can be read by telegram and there have been other services in the past Mon you discord is a good example because discord It's the same kind of concept as telegram actually basically exactly the same But its privacy is basically no better than Skype that is they have all your data They can look at it whenever they want they can do whatever they want discord in the past has a doxxed people It is given people's information out and not just people who are violating the law people. They don't like people Yeah, I you know who have chats that they don't like stuff like that That is what discord does it's what it can do and telegram it can just as easily do that now I don't know off the top of my head know if telegram has done something like that in the past But don't assess danger that way assess assess danger in terms of potentiality they have the ability to do it and Honestly, if you're using a service that is advertised as being encrypted secure blah blah blah blah You would sort of think that this is what it would it would be general like real into an encryption But it's not they are being deceptive in how they advertise themselves. Okay? So the the other annoying thing about telegram is that a lot of people will say oh telegram is a free software application It's an open source. It is all free software. You can download the tele Teleger the telegram messenger application and it's all free software So you don't have to worry about proprietary spyware blah blah blah not true absolutely not true now. It is a GPL it is it has a GPL license Now if you look out there, you probably know that telegram actually has a bad habit of releasing Releasing source code late for their binaries, which is highly suspicious, but let's just take their word for it And assume that they're being all nice and good and that's the right source code and blah blah blah blah The thing is if you have a free software application on your computer Telegram and your friend has a free software application on their computer also telegram it actually doesn't make a lick of difference because that Telegram is entirely centralized in telegram servers That is your free software application is sending your encrypted quote-unquote message to a server that runs a Proprietary server-side variant of telegram, which is not open source to be clear Which has the ability to decrypt anything it can do anything at once? And so it's just as if you were running that on your computer. That's basically what how it is So just because you and your friend might be running free software Applications that are blah blah blah encryption all of that kind of stuff. There are more variables at play You have to think about how your data is being actually used now. This is one of the reasons I think people should be just generally suspicious one of advertising. I mean telegram It's an it just annoys me particularly because there are a lot of other, you know Let's say like WhatsApp or whatever for that normies use that is a blatant spyware program. They just openly Yeah, it's proprietary. We look at all your stuff whatever but the thing is telegram is not necessarily any different It builds itself as being all privacy and security and encryption and all that kind of stuff and it has a free software Client side application, but that doesn't really change anything It's just as liable for them to look at what you're doing on your computer What messages that you're sending and stuff like that So that's the thing that sort of annoys me about telegram Now I actually have telegram installed on one of my computers I use it some people in my social circle use telegram so I'll have it But if you are under any illusion that your messages are secure, they're just not if you want to send secure messages Talk to someone in real life. That would be the best thing but you signal the SMS the text message application That's good into end encryption and let's see what else, you know send emails with your Encrypted emails with your GPG payer or whatever There are many other options for actually having secure communications. Telegram is just not it got to tell you It's not it and it's a good example of how you can sort of fool people by saying blah blah free software blah blah But it's nothing just don't trust them. Just don't trust people to talk about encrypt In fact, don't even trust yourself. Don't trust me saying this. I might just be making this up. You can't trust me either Sorry coronavirus Anyway, that's it. Yeah, don't trust anyone not not even yourself. See you guys next time