Well, they haven't really relented, you still have to sign the agreement saying they can use your data. It's just that they wheeled out a spokesperson to say 'but we really won't - honest, if you are in the EU'.
It claims that Telegram has always been encrypted and whatsapp originally wasn't.
There is no way to interpret that to make it true. Telegram chats are not e2e encrypted by default. They're encrypted between the server and the client, but whatsapp chats were also even before they implemented e2e encryption everywhere.
The same way I know that signal is - trust in the various groups that have incentives to set up encryption correctly and to break it if set up incorrectly.
He also claims that Telegram is not server-side open source, because then Iran and China could run their own versions of Telegram and he doesn't want that.
As much as I like Telegram because of its GUI and features, Durov often says half-truths like that. (And do not forget all the TON stuff.)
Please don’t end a comment with an aside that references non-ubiquitous events using a non-ubiquitous abbreviation. I have absolutely no idea what that’s referring to.
TON - Telegram Open Network. Blockchain-based technologies that also included the cryptocurrency called Gram, but is way more than just the cryptomoney. I highly recommend reading the "technical paper" if you have time and technical understanding. It's absolutely fascinating (was written by Pavel's genious brother)!
Durov decided to develop it and got billions of euros for that. It had some delays, but otherwise looked ready.
But then USA came in and said using jaw-dropping argumentation and forbid Telegram from running it ANYWHERE in the world!.. So Durov had to officially abandon the project.
Currently TON is still being developed by non-Telegram teams.
I hate how Telegram runs around telling everyone they are "encrypted". They pray on people who don't know the intricate details of encryption. Which is, understandably, most people. This post I'm making right now is exactly as encrypted as a Telegram chat.
We appreciate the prayers (pray), but not the predation (prey). (I have seen the phrase "pray on" used in a religious setting to refer to physically touching someone while praying for them.)
If the beginning of that sentence is referring to 2011, then there's a five year gap until full e2e was implemented that the comment pretends never existed.
Your interpretation (that you claim make Durov's statement not fully honest) is doing actually the exact opposite. It shows that if anything, Durov didn't write information, that - if written - would have shown Whatsapp in even worse light.
He implies there was no encryption during those five years, when in fact WhatApp had exactly the same level of encryption during that time as Telegram has by default.
It looks like the signal.org website always sends back a gzipped response even when the client doesn't accept gzip. Maybe that's the issue. I'm personally not having any problems on iOS.
In China WeChat (controlled by Tencent) refuses to open links to Taobao (controlled by Alibaba), giving some fake technical failure message. It has been like this for half a decade.
They have already relented for EU countries already after I got a message I will have to accept their new terms. Probably still moving to Signal.
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