Telegram...
Oct. 16th, 2015 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starseerdrgnI should give this story here as well now.
Effectively, Telegram has ensured that I will never use their product again.
Not too long ago, I woke up rather early (for my schedule), and decided to try and use my Android phone again. I have been without internet for a few days, so I have not been in a good mood.
I placed my mobile SIM into my HTC One, and noticed several notifications appear. One of them was for Telegram…from a family member. This made me freak out, as I had not given him any information to find me there.
Of course, that was when I remembered one thing about Telegram: if you have someone in your phone's contact list, and they have a Telegram accout, they will be added to your Telegram contacts automatically. There is no way to opt out of this feature on either client's side, and is in fact done on the server side. This particular feature should NOT be implimented in anything which calls itself secure.
I am transgendered, and polyamorus. Tracing anything back to me will make that clear very quickly, and that includes my social network profiles, which are detatched from my legal name as best as possible.
Given that my real name was attached to those other accounts, it was easy to tell who I was. They warned me, as they are part of the furry fandom as well, and know how dangerous such information is among our family.
This should not have happened, period. No service should automatically add people to someone's contact list without an opt-out, especially when it is based on information which is difficult to mask or change.
For a service that states it is secure, Telegram is far from worthy of that title. I highly suggest that anyone who uses it find s better solution, like XMPP, or even Yahoo! Messenger.
Effectively, Telegram has ensured that I will never use their product again.
Not too long ago, I woke up rather early (for my schedule), and decided to try and use my Android phone again. I have been without internet for a few days, so I have not been in a good mood.
I placed my mobile SIM into my HTC One, and noticed several notifications appear. One of them was for Telegram…from a family member. This made me freak out, as I had not given him any information to find me there.
Of course, that was when I remembered one thing about Telegram: if you have someone in your phone's contact list, and they have a Telegram accout, they will be added to your Telegram contacts automatically. There is no way to opt out of this feature on either client's side, and is in fact done on the server side. This particular feature should NOT be implimented in anything which calls itself secure.
I am transgendered, and polyamorus. Tracing anything back to me will make that clear very quickly, and that includes my social network profiles, which are detatched from my legal name as best as possible.
Given that my real name was attached to those other accounts, it was easy to tell who I was. They warned me, as they are part of the furry fandom as well, and know how dangerous such information is among our family.
This should not have happened, period. No service should automatically add people to someone's contact list without an opt-out, especially when it is based on information which is difficult to mask or change.
For a service that states it is secure, Telegram is far from worthy of that title. I highly suggest that anyone who uses it find s better solution, like XMPP, or even Yahoo! Messenger.
