Main points
- Signal founder Moxie Marlinspike criticizes Telegram for its lack of privacy due to the centralized storage of messages on the company's servers without end-to-end encryption by default.
- Telegram is accused of collaborating with Russian structures, which undermines its reputation as a safe messenger.
Signal called Telegram the opposite of a private service / Collage 24 Channel/Depositphotos
The privacy debate around Telegram has flared up again. After Pavel Durov's latest statements about freedom and data protection, the founder of Signal responded harshly, questioning the very foundation of the platform's image.
Can Telegram be considered a private messenger?
The founder of the Signal messenger, Moxie Marlinspike, in a recent interview directly stated that Telegram has nothing to do with private messaging. According to him, the service is a cloud messenger, where all messages are stored in the open on the servers of the company, which fully controls this data, writes Cybernews.
Marlinspike stressed that Telegram has built a strong image as a “secure” app, even though end-to-end encryption is not enabled by default. It is only available in Secret Chats mode, which the user must manually activate. In regular chats, messages are stored on servers and can be technically accessible to the company.
He also effectively called Telegram a copy of WhatsApp, but without the mandatory encryption used in the Meta product and Signal itself. Unlike Telegram, Signal works on the principle of data minimization – the company does not physically have access to the content of users' correspondence.
Signal President Meredith Whittaker has previously also denied claims that Telegram is a private service, stressing that the platform collects a significant amount of data and offers limited encryption that is not standard for all conversations.
Need more evidence?
Marlinspike also mentioned the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France in 2024 on charges related to criminal activity on the platform. He noted that French authorities requested access to the data as part of legal procedures, and Telegram was technically able to provide this information.
In his opinion, the key difference is that Signal does not store such data, and therefore cannot transfer it even by court order.
The situation was complicated by an investigation by IStories, which reported on the connections of companies that service Telegram's infrastructure with Russian structures and intelligence agencies, including the FSB. This further undermined the service's reputation as an independent and uncompromising platform for secure communication.
What do we have in the end?
Ultimately, the conflict over Telegram goes beyond technical nuances. It's about a fundamental difference in architecture – centralized data storage versus a model where even the developer doesn't have access to the correspondence. And it's this difference, according to Marlinspike, that determines whether a messenger can be called truly private.
Watch one of the episodes of Marlinspike's big interview, where he talks about Telegram: video in English