this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025
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Greetings!

A friend of mine wants to be more secure and private in light of recent events in the USA.

They originally told me they were going to use telegram, in which I explained how Telegram is considered compromised, and Signal is far more secure to use.

But they want more detailed explanations then what I provided verbally. Please help me explain things better to them! โœจ

I am going to forward this thread to them, so they can see all your responses! And if you can, please cite!

Thank you! โœจ

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[โ€“] juli@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Telegram for random public chatter/file storage(with password lock), talking to strangers without giving them your number. Signal for personal/private conversations.

Spread your data (encrypted or not) around, so a single entity doesn't own your digital life. Your device can handle 2 apps and don't give them permissions willy nilly. Geez, every one of these posts just wants to start a flame war.

[โ€“] logging_strict@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

In Telegram, you never have to expose your phone number. If you like walking into traps then of course you can.

But can make minimal efforts to not be a degenerate avoiding this obvious easily avoidable trap.

How to avoid exposing your phone number

Make a group called i'm not a complete utter idiot. Whenever you have a friend wanting to connect, make a group link, send it to them, have them join. After joining have them send a message in the group. Just, "Hi". Nothing more. Less is more.

Look for that message and click on the person's name. You are now connected. Send them a personal message, "Hi!".

You can also add them as a contact without sharing your phone number.

Your friend will probably be a degenerate and expose their phone number. Teach them how to go into settings to always hide it.

Try not to call them a degenerate, degenerates hate that.

Also try not to think of them as a degenerate, they will already know that and be proud of it and not understand why you don't share their enthusiasm.

So control what thoughts you project into the ether. If you have to change the topic in your mind to something involving flowers singing birds and clouds.

That's a neat trick, thanks for sharing

[โ€“] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago

If you have a safe, but cannot open it, do you own the contents inside? Signal has no way of accessing your data, I would argue they don't own it.

[โ€“] Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Signal supports username based chatting.

[โ€“] dessalines@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Behind those usernames, are phone numbers (meaning real identities) stored in signal's database.

[โ€“] Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As far as I know telegram requires a phone number too.

And the conversation was about "talking to strangers without giving them your number", not without giving signal nor telegram your number.

[โ€“] dessalines@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There are far better privacy alternatives to both: matrix, xmpp, simplex all work well and don't require phone numbers or US-based hosting.

[โ€“] logging_strict@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

You are right. But just not a fun person capable of seeing the humor in this.

Everyone is listing the features of both and not choosing wrong on purpose!

I like sending all my conversations to Russia. It makes me laugh.

As long as i have someone wasting their time trying to snap out of their sleepy deer in headlights stupor after listening to a coder talk about coding.

I also love doing this on facebook messenger too.

Everyone worries about censorship. One thing that is never censored is a coder talking about coding. Cuz the DEI hire head explodes after one second of listening to that.

Try it! It's magical.

Where do you want to place the goal post?

We talked about comparing 2 applications. Commenter wasn't up-to-date and implied a falsehood, I corrected it as it is important for the discussion. Then you talk about something completely else and in context, implied a falsehood, I corrected that as it is important for the discussion. And now you are talking about something completely else again.

Please express your opinion. You can do it in this thread, even if it is off-topic, I don't care, but please stop acting like you are responding to me.