The arrest in France of Telegram frontman Pavel Durov may have created a political storm between France and Russia, but it has also thrust his rogue messenger into the headlines—new installs are now soaring as it flies from app store shelves. So, should you quit your more mainstream messenger for Telegram? Security experts will tell you absolutely not—but I’ll give one reason why many still do.
First to those negatives. The primary one is simple: security and privacy. Telegram does not really fit the “encrypted messenger” description it’s usually given. It has an old-school approach, encrypting traffic from your device to its servers, and from there to those you message. It is not end-to-end encrypted in the same way as WhatsApp, iMessage, Google Messages, Signal, even Facebook Messenger.
That means Telegram staff can access your content if they want to and have the right credentials—the only thing stopping them is Telegram’s self-ascribed policies. There is no technical impediment. The encryption architecture itself is homegrown. As crypto expert Matthew Green commented: “I hope that the arrest of Pavel Durov does not lead to him or Telegram being held up as some hero of privacy. Telegram has consistently acted to collect huge amounts of unnecessary private data on their servers, and their only measure to protect it was ‘trust us.’”
The second major negative is just as straightforward—be careful of the company you keep. Telegram is the nearest we have to a popularized dark web. Nearly a billion mostly regular folk are rubbing shoulders with criminals, hackers, terrorists and child abusers. Despite the lack of technical security and privacy, the platform is a honeypot for those operating in the shadows. That’s all down to its lack of moderation and controls—the very reason Durov is stuck in France at the mercy of its judicial system.
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But that brings us to Telegram’s real differentiator—Durov’s platform is not about security, it’s about secrecy—it’s a place where you can hide in plain sight. Unlike WhatsApp, iMessage and the rest, you can easily run a Telegram account with genuine anonymity, and you can be sure that whatever metadata is collected is not being used for any good purpose that may catch you out.
You may recall the fiery argument between Elon Musk and WhatsApp some months ago, which started as a claim that content was being harvested, then shifted to the fact that content is private but metadata is collected. And that metadata can be used to catch certain behaviors, and it can be shared—on request—with the authorities. You can become a person of interest based on the network you operate within, if not the content you share across that network. You can also be isolated and removed.
That is not the case on Telegram—it is an island operating within its own enclave and to its own rules. Durov’s platform offers unlimited groups and channels, which can have as dark a purpose as you may want and which enable likeminded, anonymous users to message one another and share amongst themselves as much as they wish.
Telegram does collect metadata, but it is not using that for the same purposes or sharing it or trying to link users to other identifiers. Signal doesn't track metadata either, but the platform is tiny in comparison and does not offer the same blind-eyed openness. Again, don’t focus on the privacy of content, focus on anonymity.
That’s not bulletproof. Threads can still be pulled if you’re not careful. A recent Check Point investigation into a malware developer proved exactly this. But in that case, the opsec was appalling and the bad actor deserved to be caught. The very nature of those posting openly on Telegram consequence-free tells you all you need to know.
I can assure you that if you want to message anonymously, Telegram is your best bet among any of the leading options. This despite Signal warning that “Telegram is notoriously insecure and routinely cooperates with governments behind the scenes while talking a big game about speech and privacy.”
Burner devices or virtual numbers, posting behind a user name, not using a mobile device but a VPN’d Wi-Fi connection, turning off any locational data on the device used, creating a fire gap with other identifiable data and apps on the device.
You can achieve something similar with other platforms, but it’s painful. With Telegram, it’s enabled and even encouraged. In what the platform describes as “a new era of privacy,” it explained, “you can have a Telegram account without a SIM card and log in using blockchain-powered anonymous numbers.”
On other messengers you need a working (real or temporary) phone number to activate the account. That number is your unique ID and you’ll need it or a passkey linked to a real cellphone account to reactivate as required. That number is currently the only way you can be found and linked on the platform, as opposed to Telegram’s user names. Albeit this is a feature WhatsApp looks like introducing at some point.
But with other messengers, the metadata around your network of contacts and your behaviors can be captured and shared—it can also be harvested. The focus is on securing your content, it’s not on hiding your identity.
It is bemusing that regular folk flock to Telegram and have surged its install base to around a billion users. It dwarfs the likes of Signal and competes at the same level as Meta’s hyperscale platforms and Apple’s and Google’s stock messaging apps. But once there, you can easily peruse a side of life you’re unlikely to see elsewhere.
The irony, of course, is that Durov himself used to keep himself much more in the shadows than today—less private jets, lavish Dubai lifestyle and Tucker Carlson interviews. It’s clearly difficult to enjoy the lure of the limelight when the app funding it all is described by Fortune as “an open air bazaar for illicit goods ranging from heroin to stolen credit cards to machine guns,” while The FT likens it to the dark web, with one of its sources describing Telegram as “social media for organized criminals.”
With Durov now charged with “complicity in spreading sexual images of children and other alleged crimes,” Telegram’s glossy veneer has never been more under threat. And while the platform says “it is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform,” it will be the lack of trying or taking any such responsibility seriously that may be its and Durov’s ultimate undoing.
So, should you quit your messenger for Telegram? I can understand why metadata collection and monitoring and data harvesting unnerves people. And Telegram is off the grid in that respect—at least for now, subject to the price of Durov’s freedom. But that’s not a reason to venture onto that very thin and often very dirty ice.
