Talk:Telegram (software)

Non profit????

The very large ICO documented here

• Even as Bitcoin Languishes, Telegram Raises $1.7 Billion Ahead of Largest ICO Ever Fortune Magazine, Lucinda Shen, March 30, 2018

raises questions about the claim in the lede that Telegram is a non-profit. Investors don't invest this type of money in a non-profit. Don't have time now, but this needs to be looked at. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 12:20, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

OK, some of this is crystal clear. The firm is not a non-profit, so we certainly cannot say that it is in the 1st 3 words of the article. See

• Dewey, Caitlin (November 23, 2015). "The secret American origins of Telegram, the encrypted messaging app favored by the Islamic State". Washington Post. Retrieved 31 March 2018.

I'd also like to point out that I've been reverted on this 3 times now, so the next time the reverter will be in violation of 3RR, and I will report it. Edit warriors generally can't count, so I've been accused of edit warring. For the record, I've reverted him just now for the 3rd time. Blatant falsehoods simply cannot be left in the article. Now please calm down and discuss this rationally. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:14, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• The messenger itself is non-commercial. Telegram Messenger LLP is a commercial company. They make a profit with cryptocurrency Gram, not with messenger. Federal Chancellor (NightShadow) (talk) 09:43, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
  • So we are in agreement that the company is *not* a non-profit. I did notice that you just reverted somebody else in the article. 4 reverts is still 4 reverts, I suggest you self-revert. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 11:37, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
    • Article about the messenger, not the company. Read carefully, it is not relevant to the topic. I'll remove it again tomorrow.Federal Chancellor (NightShadow) (talk) 17:57, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
      • Nope, the article is about the company and its product. Otherwise we couldn't discuss the company's "CEO" or "employees" or state "Telegram is registered as both an English LLP[31] and an American LLC.[32]". Even the term "non-profit" refers to a type of organization. Nice try though. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:20, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
      • Just to underline that - please check out the wikilink and the refs, which all refer to non-profit organizations, in the text you reverted back in. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:26, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

"Telegram is a non-profit"

"Telegram is a cloud-based instant messaging service." It's about the messenger, not the company. Why did you remove it? Federal Chancellor (NightShadow) (talk) 18:51, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Please stop talking nonsense. You removed it [1].[2], [3]. I've only removed the part about them being a Nonprofit organization. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:21, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

No, I returned it: "Telegram is a non-profit(!) cloud-based instant messaging service." Also see WP:CIVIL. Federal Chancellor (NightShadow) (talk) 21:42, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Given all this confusion, is the matter important enough for the opening paragraph? I think it's not. Being non-profit is unorthodox enough to be covered right at the top, but companies (messaging or otherwise) are generally assumed to be structured in a traditional for-profit way. So not being non-profit hardly merits the premium real estate.

I agree with Smallbones that we should not use the term "non-profit" for Telegram since it implies a very different type of organization. I also agree with NightShadow23 that Telegram's structure does not exactly match the standard for-profit model either (it's self-funded, has no VC money, operates from a cloud of shell companies constantly switching places). From what I could read in their FAQ, it doesn't seem to claim they are non-profit. Rather, there's a mention that "making profits will never be an end-goal for Telegram" (emphasis mine) – but it is open to the possibility of Telegram making money "to support the infrastructure and finance developer salaries". There is no contradiction to this in the leaked ICO Primer, which states on page 17 that "more than 80 percent of collected funds will be spent on equipment, bandwidth, colocation, and user verification costs [for Telegram and TON]. The rest will be allocated for wages, offices, and legal and consulting services." (Of course, this Primer has to be taken with a grain of salt due to its questionable status as a leaked document, but still).

So there are definitely many ways of looking at this issue. I think it's best if we cover it properly in a different section of the article and keep only the crystal-clear stuff in the opening section. I guess I'll make a bold edit to resolve this now. Thanks @Smallbones: for bringing up the topic and @NightShadow23: for making some good points! JudgeGregg (talk) 12:13, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

References

The ICO and the company

It's time to put in enough info into the article that the ICO and the non/for-profit status of the company make some sense. The best article I've seen on the ICO is at the NYTimes

• Popper, Nathaniel (March 4, 2018). "Virtual Currency Offerings May Hit a New Peak with Telegram Coin Sale". New York Times. Retrieved April 4, 2018.

Of course I'd like to have more references, but let's not use trade publications like Coin Desk. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:16, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

I've removed the claim that the company is a non-profit corporation again. We simply cannot state '''Telegram''' is a [[nonprofit corporation|nonprofit]] as the first 4 words when we know that it is a for-profit company. I've used the SEC Form D that the company filed as a ref, but the Washington Post article would be just as good a ref.

Something similar had been added, which I've removed as well. It's just a PR style restatement of the non-profit claim, straight from the company blog. It is a copyright violation. Quoting from our article, "Unlike other popular messengers, Telegram doesn’t have shareholders or advertisers to report to."

Quoting from the company blog "Unlike other popular apps, Telegram doesn’t have shareholders or advertisers to report to."

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:47, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

References

Languages

While the official site's FAQ page only mentions 8 languages - this information is outdated and in fact there are already more languages available. For example, when I open the latest version of Telegram app on my smartphone - I can already see 14 languages available for selection, all of these are listed on this Telegram's page. I'm not sure how to properly handle this fact but I think this information (the fact that Telegram apps already support more languages than listed on official FAQ page) would be pretty helpful for people reading this article, especially since everyone can technically verify it by downloading the app and looking at the "Language" section menu within the app itself.108.30.101.121 (talk) 16:37, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Ban in Russia

Somebody should update the article because Telegram is now officially banned in Russia and there is a pretty interesting backstory about that [4]Also, please, reflect the changes in File:Countries_where_Telegram_is_blocked.svg.

Security

Security researcher Moxie Marlinspike [...] criticized the first contest for being rigged or framed in Telegram's favor and said that Telegram's statements on the value of these contests as proof of the cryptography's quality are misleading.

Maybe would be better to add an info that Marlinspike is the creator of a competing messenger app. Security researcher sounds like he is a neutral individual. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.25.21.165 (talk) 17:21, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 19 February 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved. (non-admin closure) Iffy★Chat -- 15:51, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

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Telegram (service) → Telegram (software) – Much better suited and more consistent ממשמזמן (talk) 15:02, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose for now - it's a company as well as software; the software, company and protocol are all bundled up into one pile. "Service" isn't ideal, but I can't think of a better disambiguator - David Gerard (talk) 17:14, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Strong support it can't stay where it is, the original paper telegram is also a service. Telegram (instant messaging app) would do it as well. Anyway, must be moved. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:16, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support a move of some kind per In ictu oculi. Proposed title may not be ideal but it's better than the one we have now. PC78 (talk) 19:19, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support per nom --Ortizesp (talk) 02:46, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Support, but would prefer Telegram (messaging app). "Service" could apply to traditional telegrams, and so is unclear. "Software" is not as WP:NATURAL, WP:RECOGNIZABLE, nor common as it being referred to as a "messaging app". -- Netoholic @ 03:46, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment: In my opinion, "messaging app" sounds a bit too unformal. --ממשמזמן (talk) 14:09, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
• Comment: For anyone interested, there's a similar move/merge proposal of this topic at BlackBerry Messenger and Instant messaging. --ממשמזמן (talk) 14:25, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Telegram and TON - should not be here as it is now

TON was never confirmed on any source or social media officially affiliated with Telegram. It should be clearly marked that available information about TON is based on unconfirmed information and therefore cannot be taken as trustworthy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Username4442 (talk • contribs) 16:34, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

they literally submitted the forms to the SEC, so either they're involved or they lied to the SEC - David Gerard (talk) 06:46, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Server-side code

Publishing the server-side code would allow anyone to audit the server's code and verify that it works correctly and handles user data securely, instead of relying on Telegram's claims that it's indeed secure.

This is technically wrong since there is no way for "anyone" to verify that the actual code running on the server matches the published code (assuming it were public). The sentence makes it sound like Telegram is withholding an important "transparency factor" when, actually, publishing the server-side code would not give any more guarantees to the users. Also, having the server-side code is not necessary for things like e2e encryption (once you verify that your client is only exchanging the key with the other person and not sending any more information to the server, it doesn't matter what the server is doing). William Di Luigi (talk) 12:27, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Brazilian Judge and Prosecutor chat leakage

The Intercept leaked telegram chats about a huge case in Brazil:

https://theintercept.com/series/secret-brazil-archive/

Glenn Greenwald reports here that the leaked file is bigger than the one in Snowden case.

There is no information about how the hack occurred, but I imagine it could had been by SIM swap, and the chat could had been retrieved from Telegram server.

–Arthurfragoso (talk) 19:46, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Is wikipedia a commercial site for unsecure sites?

Most links on the References form of the Telegram entry are from sites, that

1. distribute APKs which are officially not supported 2. have NO visible WhoIS entries (like apkmirror.com, where the owner is nowhere visible and NO, google is not the owner) 3. distribute most likely malware/adware in their downloads

Could an admin kill the entries, please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:16B8:6F5E:9900:B02E:6B8A:4425:20E1 (talk) 03:02, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Notable users

I think this article could be improved by a 'notable users' link section. Thoughts? ChristopherCantwell (talk) 02:49, 21 July 2019 (UTC)