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FBI Warns Americans to Start Using Encrypted Messaging Apps (gizmodo.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M] to c/cybersecurity@sh.itjust.works
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[–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

MTProto is not end-to-end. MTProto is their obfuscated client-server transport encryption.

What the commenter above is referring to is Telegram defaulting to saving your messages on the server in plaintext. You can use a "secret chat" which enables end-to-end encryption, but that is separate from MTProto.

Your sentiment is correct though. Messages should not be visible in plaintext to the server.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I dont know much about it, but Wikipedia says that MTProto is specifically for "secret chats":

    For encrypted chats (branded as Secret Chats), Telegram uses a custom-built symmetric encryption scheme called MTProto.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)#Architecture

    Maybe Wikipedia is misleading here

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago*

    You're right, it is misleading. There are different "flavours" of MTProto. See here:

    https://core.telegram.org/mtproto

    This page deals with the basic layer of MTProto encryption used for Cloud chats (server-client encryption). See also:

    • Secret chats, end-to-end-encryption

    • End-to-end encrypted Voice Calls

    (The major difference is simply whether the server and client share a key or two clients)

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