Introducing Telegram Passport

by kelvich • 8 years ago

145 81 8 years ago

I’m not sure if I’d really trust any platform to store my personal documents without encrypting them myself before the upload.

But I’m always amazed at the pace at which Telegram keeps improving its feature set and UX. I haven’t experienced a messaging platform that’s anywhere close to it on these aspects. And for these reasons alone, it still remains my primary messaging application (while I keep checking the competition to see where they are).

reustle3• 8 years ago

Would Telegram and others please stop using phone number as a primary source of identity? It's 2018, I have a data only sim and I have no desire to have a phone number.

amaccuish• 8 years ago

Add signal and whatsapp (not that i use whatsapp) to that.

jfornear2• 8 years ago

Intentionally building Chatdog (https://chat.dog) to not require a phone number.

Jtsummers2• 8 years ago

If I could only upvote this more. I still want someone to take signal's protocol and do a BYOK approach. Let me use Keybase or something similar to handle identity management. Additionally, each device (or app instance) gets its own key. Signal and WhatsApp already do encrypted group messages. Treat each of my devices as different "users", who present with the same name.

It's a tractable problem.

(NB: Not necessarily keybase, but they do have a technical solution to the problem in place already.)

saltedshiv• 8 years ago

Keybase has chat. Available on desktop and at least Android

swirepe2• 8 years ago

I think everyone wants phone numbers to prevent people generating billions of accounts to spam people with.

Kadin• 8 years ago

That seems like a pretty crummy way to solve that particular problem.

ossguy• 8 years ago

Agreed that such services should stop using phone numbers. In the meantime, you can get inexpensive numbers from https://jmp.chat/ - useful for 2FA as well.

reustle3• 8 years ago

Yeah I use Google Voice for this purpose, which isn't _really_ 2fa anyway (because it's my google account).

cube22222• 8 years ago

That's technically not two factor if you only need to know a password to get access to the one-time code.

It's two passwords, both are something you have to know, there's nothing you need to have or be (sms and biometrics respectively)

_pdp_• 8 years ago

I cannot up-vote this more.

Many people don't realise that they don't own their phone number! It is possible to own a phone number but it is not widely available just like domains are. Hence it is a stupid idea to use it as an identity.

jfornear2• 8 years ago

I recently learned this the hard way. I changed my phone number after moving cities, and AT&T just leased my old number to someone else!

tribler• 8 years ago

With a self-sovereign identity, you are in control. Our IETF draft + running code: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pouwelse-trustchain-01#sec... Our goverment even sponsors this work. Decentral, no need for Russian servers.

sshb• 8 years ago

You are forgetting social graph embedded in phone book.

No one else would give you social graph that easily.

Klonoar• 8 years ago

I just keep a rando Skype number for this kind of stuff. After the first login Telegram will typically ping your other active devices anyway.

bmarquez• 8 years ago

Using a phone number does let the app quickly build a social graph of your friends using it. But email could do the same thing, with higher risk of fake accounts.

It could be worse, an app could say "You must sign up with Facebook"

marcus_holmes3• 8 years ago

Same. I'm nomadic at the moment, and have to change sims with each country. I don't have a permanent phone number (or address). I know I'm in a minority, but still... it's like

things businesses assume about people: 1: they have a phone number. 2: they have an address. 3: the country they are in at the moment is the country they live in

cageface2• 8 years ago

Project Fi from Google has been a lifesaver for me while traveling. I get to use the same number everywhere I go and don't have to do the new SIM dance in every country I visit. It can also be very handy sometimes to have internet access minutes after hitting the tarmac.

They've also expanded it to support more phones recently. I think having a Fi phone, even if it's not your primary device, makes a lot of sense for nomads.

yosito2• 8 years ago

This is possible? Or do you technically have a phone number but just don't use it? Also, don't lots of situations require you to give a phone number? How do you handle that?

reustle3• 8 years ago

It's a Google Fi data only sim, so nope no real phone number. I do have a number through Google Fi and Google Voice, which usually works for 2fa but not always. The phone number goes directly to voicemail always.

dvfjsdhgfv• 8 years ago

In cases like these I usually buy a pre-paid SIM for a few cents, verify the account and throw the SIM away. I can continue to use my main data SIM then.

crtasm• 8 years ago

Then in the future the number gets recycled and someone else suddenly takes over your account.

WhatsApp lets you set a pin number to prevent this. Can't remember if Signal does similar..?

agentdrtran• 8 years ago

I really wish telegram would focus on being a messaging app and not whatever this is. I'm not going to trust them with my info.

wmf3• 8 years ago

They're not going to. They're trying to follow the example of WeChat and build tons of other features on the identity layer created by messaging.

procinct• 8 years ago

Any reason in particular you choose not to trust Telegram? Or you're just (rightfully) distrustful of sharing that info in general?

zaarn2• 8 years ago

Personally I don't trust telegram because of their funding source.

Additionally their first encryption protocol was extremely wonky and most people I know would correctly call it unsafe for use in a chat messenger.

Their second version is a tiny bit better but neither has been verified by any proper cryptographer I know.

Additionally Telegram as an App seems more like a Toy rather than a proper chat app, the stickers are big and completely destroy the flow of a conversation last I checked it. Other features are like this too.

Lastly, to my knowledge, end-to-end encryption is not enabled by default, neither for private messaging or groups. That's just a no-go for any chat application for me.

nehemiahjacob3• 8 years ago

Remember, it's not a mandatory thing, you can continue to use telegram just like whatsapp.

But telegrams apps and Bots are growing exponentially and the developers unnecessarily keeping a basic work flow outside telegram, which is painful.

ryanlol3• 8 years ago

Telegram has a history of including fairly obvious backdoors in their products https://habr.com/post/206900/

Why should anyone trust them for identification or for storing sensitive documents?

(And no, that DH behavior cannot be explained away as a simple mistake)

csydas• 8 years ago

I feel that your post is being a bit dishonest, as it ends with the following:

UPD: The story ended well. Vulnerability is corrected, documentation and applications are updated, treasure hunters of bugs are motivated, which has already yielded results (1, 2). It is necessary to pay tribute to the developers of Telegram, who immediately reacted to the article.

It's hard to say that it's not a mistake when the author of the article itself describes their response as "immediate".

Durov and Telegram have more or less shown their mettle; there was no money or profit in standing up to Russia, but they went ahead and did it anyways when it would have been easier to buckle. Yes, it has flaws in its implementation, but so far they've proven that when push comes to shove, they're willing to fight for their politics and to keep on fighting against such regimes. Once this changes, sure, it's fine to lay into them, but right now it really looks like they're true to their word.

ycmbntrthrwaway• 8 years ago

It's hard to say that it's not a mistake when the author of the article itself describes their response as "immediate".

It is an obvious backdoor.

They justified XORing in arbitrarily string into the key you have established with DH with the fact that your phone may have bad random number generator. But it obviously gains you nothing. If the server is honest, then it does not read your secret chat anyway. And if the server is malicious or compromised, it knows the string.

So even if it is possible to overlook the possibility of XORing in the difference of keys and evading MITM detection, it is very unlikely that no developer (for example, someone who coded it into the server or one of the clients) have seen that it gains you nothing in any scenario you can think about.

When users started to asking developers for the explanation in the comments, W_K (main developer of the protocol, brother of Pavel Durov) stated that they "don't know" who added this feature in its current form. Shortly after, he stopped using his account or answering any questions at all: https://habr.com/users/W_K/

Upd: regarding the remark in the end of the https://habr.com/post/206900/ that "the story ended well", Telegram team is responsive etc.

Keep in mind that they paid this guy. Adding such updates to articles and publicly confirming that the bug was fixed is almost surely a part of the bug bounty agreement.

ryanlol3• 8 years ago

None of this addresses the fact that there's no other realistic explanation for this besides an intentional backdoor.

aprao• 8 years ago

Wonder if this was influenced in part by the fact that Telegram is the messaging service used by most ICO organizers. Could help in the KYC process that is becoming more commonplace.

derefr2• 8 years ago

If this is to deliver your ID for the purposes of KYC laws, then that’s somewhat sensible, I suppose.

If, however, this is targeted at the providers who are actually collecting IDs as part of their AML compliance strategy, then there’s a much simpler solution here: just become the ID equivalent of a Certificate Authority. Dedup Telegram accounts by using a unique constraint on accounts’ validated ID documents’ extracted creds; and then allow sites to use Telegram for Single Sign-On. Boom—instant surety that each of your users is a real person, and not fifty bots laundering one person’s money; and no need for anyone besides Telegram to actually see your ID (i.e. a much lower chance of identity theft.)

Plus, if enough sites require SSO through an ID-document verifying identity provider, then even sites that ha d no legal reason to require it can free-ride off the benefit in user-deduplication it provides. Imagine, for example, a Reddit or a 4chan where users are still pseudonymous or anonymous, but where banning a user truly works, permanently, with no routing around it (unless you have the criminal connections required to buy yourself a new real-world identity.)

wmf3• 8 years ago

Companies that deal with money aren't going to use SSO; they want to own their login system.

derefr2• 8 years ago

Even governments are willing to use SSO if it's SSO using entities both they and their customers trust with their money, e.g. major banks. (At least, that's how it is here in Canada with https://securekeyconcierge.com.)

Given that Telegram is already a payment processor (i.e. something people trust with their money), it could serve a similar role, no?

bespoken• 8 years ago

I can't help not to trust telegram with my data, just gut feeling. You cannot use their service without giving your telephone nr. Now they like to have your ID's too. How can they honestly advertise "anonymus chat"? And the double ICO, over a billion fetched. So much money and data, where does that lead to?

nicpottier• 8 years ago

I have a similar distrust of Telegram just because of where they started. (and I admit that isn't logical) But I think I trust someone with lots of data AND lots of money than someone who only has lots of data.

nehemiahjacob3• 8 years ago

I wouldn't remember a time where telegram claimed anonymous chat. Sure encrypted chat, private chat, not collaborating with fbi for chat history are good things.

But telegram never advertised anonymity as a takeaway.

noncoml• 8 years ago

No, thanks

elvinyung• 8 years ago

The art is very interesting. Reminds me a lot of Fallout :P

deftturtle• 8 years ago

Their messaging application had horrible security in past, and there have been many discussions on HN about Telegram vs Signal. Why would I trust them for ID when their messaging was suspicious....

dgellow2• 8 years ago

Please, provide sources if you’re willing to say something like that.

verytrivial2• 8 years ago

https://gizmodo.com/why-you-should-stop-using-telegram-right...

amingilani• 8 years ago

This looks rad. Unfortunately, I won't be able to use Telegram Passport. I can't even read this post without a proxy because my government actively blocks Telegram without a publicly given reason.

I wish they'd spend more time figuring out how to get around the domain fronting problem.

Then again I'm rambling.

nehemiahjacob3• 8 years ago

Well done telegram, I'm concerned some weird government might give a hard time before collecting these sensitive details.

While every third party is doing these things everyday, Telegram is under the risk of getting targeted.

hkai• 8 years ago

The unintented consequence of this will be that now any website can easily demand real life ID. Ordinary, non-financial websites (think Reddit, Twitter, Hacker News) will require ID to log in, to protect against spam and make the community safer.

This implements the dream of authoritarian governments that internet access should never be anonymous. Russian government officials have long wanted to establish a similar authentication system.

Is Pavel with us or against us?

wmf3• 8 years ago

Many people don't use Telegram and presumably most sites can't afford to alienate that many people.

yosito2• 8 years ago

Upload all of my non-decentralized identification documents to a decentralized cloud? What could possibly go wrong?

aussieguy1234• 8 years ago

I wonder if its using the same "roll your own encryption" that the chat app is

verytrivial2• 8 years ago

A cryptocurrency, now this? How long before the delicious Telegram™ Steaks™.

corv• 8 years ago

Pretty much ripped off Civic https://www.civic.com

Wonder how the price of CVC is impacted today...

smoovb• 8 years ago

It takes a player with some size to move the needle on this one. And likely we'll have a few of these services. Civic still has a roll to play.

pndy• 8 years ago

I'd more happy if they would implement an option to turn-off link fetching and also ability to use their service without phone number.

As for this Passport - I'm not interested in this feature and I can't see where it would be useful for me. Not mention the security with just their assurances that nobody would have an access to my personal info - it's ridiculous to say least.

Introducing Telegram Passport

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