And E2EE is only available on phones, circa a couple of years ago anyways

Telegram’s servers are located in US, Singapore, Netherlands (and maybe some other countries) from what I’ve gathered. And all chats that are not E2EE’ed are stored there, encrypted at rest at best with keys in the same database, or somewhere else that can still be accessed in automated way. Maybe it is not even encrypted at rest.

The point is, all those countries are either in 5 eyes or have information sharing agreements with 5 eyes countries. So as far as I’m concerned, TLAs can still have their fingers in those pies, in addition to Telegram’s overall shadiness and Russian ties. So maybe you get KGB strongman keeping a watch over your chats too.

This is not something I’d have much confidence in to be honest.

Switch to Telegram

You know it’s not even E2EE by default, and when it is it uses a homegrown algo that is not exactly well spoken of? (at least V1)

It is reasonable yet subpar under a threat model where you do not trust any single provider, which is a model I find appropriate most of the time.

You should not assume your password manager is unhackable.

That’s my main point. Perfect is an enemy of good indeed, but I feel that doing things properly the first time is a good idea in general, especially when it as easy as using a different app for your TOTP tokens. It’s a low hanging fruit really.

Please don’t use your password manager for TOTP tokens. It is called two factor authentication for a reason.

Until next time they try to push through something similarly stupid. Now it’s EU’s turn to make their mind too.

Me, at work, looking at my backlog of Baldur’s Gate 3, Armored Core, Blasphemous 2 and countless indies on Steam

Tbh I’d not be surprised if that’s the case. Last time I had enough time to spare to rice me some arches was all the way back when I was in uni :(

I barely have enough time to hotfix my dotfiles nowadays :/

Good

Texts are securely stored

Right, must be military grade encryption

• Settings -> General -> Language & Region -> Region
• Settings -> YOUR NAME -> Media & Purchases -> Account Settings -> Country/Region

Both must be changed to a different region to fully switch. Requires a valid payment method from that region (e.g. a debit card from that region). There are consequences to changing regions too, so be careful.

From my experience, sometimes you also need to contact Apple support to finish the change process. Otherwise it may just revert back.

Overall, Amazon surely knows where you are now and it will be set in your Amazon account, I suspect there is nothing you can do.

The best way to achieve what you want is to boot something like TailsOS and create a new account while under the VPN in that region. With a payment method from that region.

VPNs are not magic. Most big companies nowadays have means of detecting actual user locations, which is pretty trivial if you use an app or an operating system that leaks data when under the VPN.

Indeed

Books, online courses. Education in depth, ideally.

Yeah but… Brilliant has… a trial period. Seven days is plenty to realise that there’s next to zero educational value in that platform no matter how hard it is shilled online.

They are pretty poor courses anyway, why would you want them?

The last paragraph doesn’t have to be a problem though

It is not yet, but the trajectory implies it may become a problem down the road. We’re, sadly, living this decade, where you can no longer ignore where a certain service is heading and how it monetises itself.

Mandatory “don’t put Signal and Telegram in the same sentence” notice. Not to be a snob, but Telegram is not “secure and private”, all chats are not end-to-end encrypted by default, everything is stored on Telegram’s servers with “forever-ever” retention. The end-to-end encryption is opt in, uses a dodgy encryption algorithm and has some limitations in terms of who you can contact and from what device etc.

Telegram is owned by Pavel Durov who also created the largest Russian social media platform VK, which later was overtaken by Russian state as a tool for crowd control and propaganda. Even if we assume that Pavel no longer has any ties with Russia and its “government”, his biography should still raise at least some questions around whether one should trust Telegram.

And finally, Telegram seems to be going the “everything app” route lately, which makes it a one stop shop of personal communication, public channels, news, bots, stories etc. (you name it). While it is not a bad thing in objective terms, these features are not built with privacy in mind, as that would pose quite a technical challenge. This means that Telegram’s privacy and security will only be sacrificed more and more to get more of the social features out of the door.

/rant over/

The enshittification of the internet shall continue.

We will fight and we will lose, as depressing as it sounds. The vast majority of people just don’t and won’t care.

All good, the downvotes are not my doing :)