Why Telegram is insecure (2015)
So, here's the thing I'd like somebody to explain to me. Telegram encryption spec is published, and the client is open source. This means you can verify that the server is following the spec by creating a clean room client implementation. You could even create a green field server implementation if you wanted.Telegram regularly has contests to break its encryption with a reward of 300K USD https://telegram.org/blog/cryptocontestIf it's not secure, then surely people would be cashing in on that sweet money. So, why is it that we constantly see articles talking about how insecure Telegram encryption is, but nobody is showing a proof of concept attack or collecting the prize?Unless somebody puts their money where their mouth is and shows an actual exploit with code, it seems like pure FUD to me. On top of that, it appears that attacks on Telegram often come from people associated with Signal in some way. Signal is endorsed by NSA who have a history of promoting weak encryption that they have found backdoors into. I hope everybody still remembers this debacle https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2014/10/new_evidence_of...