Off topic, but a few years ago French police were checking cars of Brit tourists and if they found a satnav with camera warnings, they fined the person €1000. I think the fixed systems were an easy target, even though AFAIK none have an audio output. Only phone apps and similar have audio camera warnings.
So excessive behaviour by police is not unknown.
Nothing whatever can be done about telegram. The code could even implement a VPN, like some browsers (e.g. FF and VyprVPN) are now offering, albeit at a price.
Unless you are very stupid, you can‘t get caught using these apps.
Under routine circumstances, police is of course not allowed to check your phone to see whether you use anything that allows you to avoid speed cameras.
Clipperstorch wrote:
They are not banned in terms of you must not install them but while driving you must not use them to avoid speed cameras. The fine is only 75€ so break-even is easily achieved.
How exactly is usage of said app determined?
Frans wrote:
At least Germany didn’t ban apps that warn car drivers for speed cameras on the road.
Of course they are verboten. They are not banned in terms of you must not install them but while driving you must not use them to avoid speed cameras. The fine is only 75€ so break-even is easily achieved.
Malibuflyer wrote:
Along these lines – and it would be really funny if it wouldn’t be so sad – the German federal police just announced that they consider “flooding Telegram with complains” (sic!) to interfere with their operations if they can not ban them. Shows how helpless they are in front of these new thing called “internet”…
If I were Telegram I would write a bot which automatically faxes back a receipt for every single complaint. Hit them with their own weapons!
This takes me back to the days of PGP key signing parties… :-)
Airborne_Again wrote:
but that would be difficult to pull off.
Not on the internet 
Malibuflyer wrote:
If [a] key pair is generated per session, E2E encryption is no more than a marketing gimmick: Whoever gains control of the server immediately has access to the clear text of all newly started conversations.
Fortunately, there are algorithms such as the Diffie-Hellman key exchange which work even if the channel used to exchange the keys is entirely public, you could broadcast the key exchange on 121.5 and the resulting connection would be still secure.
There are also approaches which prevent man-in-the-middle attacks (where the man-in-the-middle establishes a secure connection with both parties); certificates is one of them, but Telegram solves this by allowing both parties to compare the E2E key using an independent channel, e.g., sitting next to each other, over the phone etc.
Nothing is 100% secure and all of this involves trusting telegram software to do what it says it does, but the existence of a server or other elements of the communication chain controlled by a potential eavesdropper in itself is not an issue.
johnh wrote:
All strong authentication etc ensures is that you are talking to the same “person” as last time, or the time when you exchanged credentials.
If – and only if – you a) use the very same credentials you used last time and b) you have a way to ensure that you have really been talking to this person in the beginning.
Both is not at all ensured with Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.:
Even if the two of us sit next to each other and we observe that I type a message and you receive it in “no time”, we can’t know that we are actually messaging to each other – it might well be that I am messaging to a “server” and that is forwarding the message to you.
And even if that worked well the first time, there is no easy way to check which credentials you actually use when sending a message. At least in WhatsApp (and I believe it is not much different in Telegram), a user can not see which key is applied to a so called “End 2 End encrypted message”.
johnh wrote:
For example, I am pretty sure that the Peter who wrote the above is the same guy who runs the forum and posts frequently.
But how can you know that I did not capture the server tonight and now I am the one using Peter’s credentials?
Of course, we could all be in a conspiracy
That’s how they hid the whole lunar landing fiction. And what about how all the birds have been replaced by FBI drones? It must be true because it says so on the internets, and lots of people must be involved in covering that up.
