Telegram is Not Better Than WhatsApp
In 2020, Telegram, a “secure” messenger app became popular in Bhutan for two reasons. First, in June of 2020, the Indian government banned several apps which included WeChat, Bhutan’s old favorite. People thought this meant WeChat was a compromised app that needed to be replaced. Or they thought the Bhutanese government would follow suit and ban WeChat here too. Second, in January of 2021, WhatsApp announced that it would be sharing data with Facebook. The announcement was a reminder/clarification of sorts about data-sharing that WhatsApp has done with Facebook since 2016. But that did not matter. Users on social media swore to leave the platform and find alternatives. Over the next 72 hours, over 25 million users registered on the platform, including many in Bhutan. But the truth is that Telegram is not the secure messenger it markets itself to be, and people should not feel more secure about this app than WhatsApp.
End-to-End Encryption
Think of end-to-end encryption as a secret coding method. Your friend writes or records a message for you (End 1). This message is converted into a secret code and sent to your phone (End 2). Once the file is on your phone, the message is decoded back into plain English/Dzongkha. The decoding mechanism needed to translate the message is only shared by the two ends (your phone and the sender’s phone). No one in the middle has access to this decoding system. What that means is even if someone were to intercept the coded message, they will not be able to translate it. This encryption system is what makes a lot of these “secure” messenger apps safe. So, any app that markets itself as such should have that system in place by default. WhatsApp does. Signal does. WeChat doesn’t, and it might surprise you to know that Telegram doesn’t either.
To be fair, there is a way to turn on this End-to-End encryption on Telegram, but there are still a couple of issues to contend with. Firstly, when you market yourself as a “secure” app, your users will expect the security to come by default. So, most users will not know that the app isn’t end-to-end encrypted and they would not bother turning on the feature. Secondly, turning on the feature is not intuitive. Instead of a single button to press that turns all your conversations into end-to-end encrypted, you must do it individually. Click on a contact’s name, click settings, then click “start secret chat.” On your chats screen, you’ll have two chats with that contact: one with a “lock” on it. This is end-to-end encrypted. The other isn’t. Third and most problematic is the fact that none of your Telegram groups are end-to-end encrypted. There is no way to turn on the feature either. So, if you fled WeChat because you were worried about security issues, then Telegram was more of the same.
Storage
If you’ve ever used WhatsApp from your computer, you’d know that it requires your phone to maintain an internet connection at all times. This is because WhatsApp stores all messages on your phone and not on a central server. So, when you’re using WhatsApp from your computer, the computer is connecting to WhatsApp via your phone. This is different from how Facebook’s Messenger works, which can be used from any device and the entire history of your chat will be available. It is also why once you’ve deleted a picture you received on WhatsApp, the only way to retrieve is from your phone’s backup. With Messenger, you can just go back into the same chat and retrieve the lost image. This central storage system means that there is a copy of all your conversations with the company. In the event a hacker can access your login details, they can read all your conversations. Telegram and Messenger are examples of this type of storage. On the other hand, WhatsApp uses phone storage and is, therefore, more secure.
Metadata Storage
Metadata is data about your conversations, like your contacts, how many times you’ve contacted them, how long you contacted them for, members of groups you’re in, your location, their location, IP addresses, etc. This is the data that WhatsApp shares with Facebook. It is different from data about your conversations like the content of your messages, which is still off-limits for WhatsApp. Telegram also collects and stores metadata. So, if the reason you’re fleeing WhatsApp is that you don’t want your messenger app to collect that sort of data in the first place, then registering for Telegram is not the refuge you were looking for. Instead, if your issue was that Facebook would have access to your metadata but you’re okay with Telegram having it, then Telegram is fine. If it is the first case, and you’re looking for an app that does not collect data at all, then you’re looking for an app like Signal.
Signal
Signal is a private messaging app that is backed by security experts and advocates like Edward Snowden. The app is backed by a non-profit organization, meaning unlike WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) and Telegram (owned by the same Russian brothers that own VK), Signal is not trying to make money off its users. This app uses local phone storage like WhatsApp, uses default end-to-end encryption like WhatsApp, and does not store any data, not even metadata. In 2016, the US government subpoenaed Signal. Since the company doesn’t collect any data, the only information the US government received was the date of creation of the account and the last time the account was active. Nothing else.
