Secret chat

[vahid9]

I would be wonderful to create and send secret chats on telegram desktop.

[franzalex]

You're not the only one who would like to see this feature. As at the time I was posting this reply, there were 15 open issues asking for this.

Unfortunately though the developer does not intend to implement this in the near future.

[Choochmeque]

Cutegram has this feature ) So you can use it )
BTW, it also has Telegram theme ;)

Come to dark side =)

[Aokromes]

Cutegram crashes a lot XD i tried to use it to avoid images preview but crashed every few minutes.

[Choochmeque]

@Aokromes, thanx for information. We will do our best to reduce crashing.

[pwseo]

It seems like the best shot at this would be to fork tdesktop and implement secret-chats there. The main developer doesn't seem to care for Telegram's ability to "Encrypt" and "Destroy" messages (taken from their main website, under the "What can you do with Telegram?" header).
Sadly, I'm not a good enough programmer to do this (I can only hope this inspires someone).

The excuse given in other issues (which were closed) makes no sense; first, if one uses Telegram in both a mobile phone and a tablet (just an example) there will already be different secret chats in different devices and second, if one thinks people might get confused by seeing different secret chats in different devices, one would solve that problem by educating people on the reasons for such a behaviour, not by removing such a vital feature from some clients.

Until then, I guess I'll stick with cutegram, which, despite its flaws, seems to better reflect the whole concept of Telegram than Telegram's own official client.

[DerRidda]

I hope closing all these other issues means that this feature is being implemented.

[ZFake]

Telegram's most emphasized feature is security, it even could be said that it's main guideline of it's philosophy. So what is exactly TD's deal then — is it to create an inherently insecure implementation of Telegram?

[ntrlshrp]

Adding +1. My first and unqualified enhancement preference for Telegram Desktop (Ubuntu) is Secret Chats. Whether or not these are (1) device specific secret chats, (2) potentially group secret chats, or (3) potentially confusing, is of secondary importance. Thanks for all hard work!

[rene-s]

+1 ... Please start a bounty program if there are not enough funds to develop this. I like Telegram and I would like it even more if there were Secret Chats in the desktop clients. Regards

[topkecleon]

There is no justification for leaving out one of the most important features of Telegram of an official Telegram client. +1

[Tiim]

👍

[MACSOMIC]

to be honest this is one of the featuers thst brought me to telegram thanks for the hard work guys!

[lkhrs]

We need to keep the Telegram apps all on the same page in regards to features. There's no excuse really for having a fragmented feature set here.

[AAljmiai]

Well, I think this is vital feature that spouses to be in all platforms especially on Telegram desktop

[leshow]

Without e2e encryption you guys are just an instant messenger, there's a ton of those already in existence. I installed the client for the sole reason that your advertising led me to believe there was e2e encryption, and there isn't. I won't use your service until that changes.

[telegramdesktop]

@leshow Well, for me personally neither one of "tons of those" is good enough compared to Telegram (that was the reason I've started this desktop client app in the first place).

Uniting cloud sync for messages and attachment across all mobile, tablet and desktop devices, very fast and reliable mobile apps, file sharing up to 1.5GB (for a single file), group conversations for up to 200 members, message history search (from the cloud — for all ever sent messages right after sign in on any device). All those features together are not in any other (known to me, maybe) "just instant messenger". Your right not to use it, of course.

[leshow]

@telegramdesktop your main page suggests you can have "private conversations". Correct me if I'm wrong, but with the backend not open sourced, and e2e encryption not implemented, there is no way to verify that "private conversations" really are private? And while I can see you have a bounty for security flaws. Not being able to see the source means we're just sort of taking your word for it that things really are secure.

[fbis251]

How complicated would a port from the (Java based) Android app be?

[Aokromes]

It's faster to port the feature from https://github.com/Aseman-Land/Cutegram

[Choochmeque]

@Aokromes, +100!

[aphirst]

Hang on, so the justification for not having the secret chats in the desktop client is that they were designed for mobile connections and processing hardware? Doesn't this mean that they would work even better in a desktop client? And regarding the syncing functionality, that already happens now with the mobile clients - so unless there's something I'm egregiously overlooking, the desktop client is currently simply strictly inferior ?

[bladeSk]

@telegramdesktop While it's true that Telegram is probably better than any other IM app out there, encrypted and self-destructing messages are one of the key "selling" points, at least according to the official website. So however you justify it, omitting secret chats means going against that philosophy. +1 for me as well.

[brawaru]

@Brawl345, sorry, but...

[Brawl345]

@DaFri-Nochiterov No, I want to get e-mails on this issue, not on things like "+1"... Your picture is total bullshit

[Choochmeque]

[mkae]

@kehugter, exactly! I signed this useless petition with an appropriate comment. This is going to lead nowhere. One needs an incentive for the developer to implement secret chats, forcing is definitely not going to work.

In the end this is about finding an alternative for Telegram altogether! Signal works, but can be - compared to Telegram - sometimes much slower. And yes, there aren't these nice stickers. The best, though is, that it is bot-free territory! ;-)

[JacobCZ]

@kehugter @mkae Well, there sure is one more option... Let's assemble a team of people versed in C++, fork the client and implement this feature ourselves.

[mkae]

@JacobCZ Yes, that's the other option and I think this had been pointed out already somewhere further up. It's more likely that this will lead to a result than pressing a developer who has other priorities.

[JacobCZ]

@mkae It actually has happened once already, but unfortunately, all the people involved decided not to do it in the end...

[mkae]

@JacobCZ, I remember there was some talk a while back about taking code from another Telegram client and including it here in tdesktop... Well, all you need is dedication and believe in a platform. And the jury is out whether Telegram is a platform with future if they care more about bots and lark like that - instead of coming up with a better encryption method (not only SHA1), encrypted groups, e2e encryption per default, etc.

[JacobCZ]

@mkae That's a good question... I'm afraid that since the invention of OTR chats over Jabber, not much has been improved. I can't imagine a single person that could benefit from ability to chat encrypted, who would prefer some stupid stickers and minigames over it...

[mkae]

@JacobCZ, speaking of minigames. That was the ultimate news for me. Yes, Telegram, go ahead with stuff like this since that's indeed the future!!!

The past year is in such stark contrast to that what their mission seemed to have been a while ago. Security for the user and so on. Forget it. OTR, Signal and whatnot seems more like an option these days. ;-/

[JacobCZ]

@mkae It's kinda sad tho. Shit, even Viber is doing it better lately...

[stek29]

@mkae

coming up with a better encryption method (not only SHA1)

not only SHA1

only SHA1

I hope you're kidding.

[mkae]

What makes you think I am only kidding?

IIRC the encryption is indeed - for performance reasons - not the best...

[stek29]

@mkae it may be not the best, but it's not "only SHA1".

[john-preston]

@mkae What do you even mean by "only sha1"? %)

[mkae]

What I understood back then when I read about it was that one should use a more sophisticated encryption algorithm but that SHA1 was chosen for performance reasons. That's all I know.

[john-preston]

@mkae Well, you didn't understand well enough. SHA1 is not an encryption algorithm at all (so it can't be "the only encryption" that is used), it was chosen to be a message digest (like a checksum) for performance reasons, but this doesn't affect encryption safety.

[mkae]

OK. Then I missunderstood that bit.Anyway, doesn't matter, it doesn't belong to this whole discussion and I apologize for having drifted off topic here.

[LuKePicci]

Instead of wasting time trying to get this feature developed on tdesktop from my point of view it's better to invest time into working on Unigram development. Tdesktop has proven not to be as good as expected into supporting Win10 as a new UWP could do, and I'm quite sure there are lot of people capable of porting the e2e encryption in C#, so if security really matters let's move on to a new fresh application less focused on funny useless features.

[paoletto]

@LuKePicci From your point of view indeed. From MY point of view, of all ideas, this is the most stupid. Why would someone waste time into a Win10 only application in C# when Telegram Desktop is a cross platform app, which would bring secret chats virtually everywhere, once implemented?

[ghost]

[LuKePicci]

@paoletto I definitely understand what you say but keep in mind that Mac users already have their own app which is fully functional and also implement e2e. Tdesktop on windows is not so good if you try using it on modern devices with hi-dpi, touchscreen and always on power states. It may sounds like a dumb reason but if you get a chance of trying Tdesktop in such a situation you will surely understand (maybe not agree) my opinion.

[0xferit]

Give up Telegram, it's dead for security point of view. Use Tox, which is a decentralized, end-to-end(no exceptions) encrypted protocol for messaging.

[skobkin]

@ferittuncer Does Tox already have transparent and stable multi-client-same-time support? Roster synchronization between workstations? All protocol and client version compatibility problems (like non working on some of the clients group chats) already solved? What's with mobile versions? Last time I tried to import my Tox profile from desktop to Antox the process failed.

It's not sarcasm. I really want to know which of these was solved.

[mmoya]

@ferittuncer and @skobkin please keep this civil and constructive. This is a board for discussing a concrete bug in Telegram, not for promoting and/or ask support for other software.

Saying it's dead for foo, use bar doesn't help to get secret chat implemented.

[0xferit]

Read this http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/49782/is-telegram-secure and this http://gizmodo.com/why-you-should-stop-using-telegram-right-now-1782557415 . Then you understand why dead.

We all came here for security right? So let's not deceive ourselves, no security for us here.

So they implement secret chat or not, doesn't change anything.

@skobkin Kindly, please check them urself, as @mmoya said, I should not discuss Tox here.

[john-preston]

@ferittuncer Please stop posting links where the only argument is "they made their own protocol, so it is not secure" and where is no mention of the secret chats at all (the thing, that is discussed in this issue btw) — this has nothing to do with logic in any way.

So if the secret chats feature and is it implemented or not doesn't change anything for you, please go to the Tox implementation repository and chat about it there — there is no reason for you to be here, like, at all.

[0xferit]

@john-preston The only argument is not "they made their own protocol ..." Read and see yourself.

Yeah you are right, I'm done here anyway, good luck and have fun with your awesome stickers.

[tomcpc]

It would be great to have Secret Chats in the desktop app, but I wouldn't like it if I were not able to know which client my contact is using. I have two concerns regarding this:

1. I'm not sure to what extent the desktop client would be able to keep all the features the Secret Chats have in the mobile versions, like notifying about screenshots, for example. I know very well that restricting the Secret Chats in official clients to the mobile versions doesn't mean that there is no way to circumvent some features, but I think it decreases the chance of less tech savvy users to do so.
2. I use Telegram in two desktops and two phones. Some people already find it very confusing when they get two secret chats with me. Getting three or even four would be a very likely scenario in my case with Secret Chats available in the desktop. Not to mention that Telegram's chat list already is a hell, with chats, groups, channels, bots... Thankfully, usually people only use one phone, so it's extremely rare for me to have more than one secret chat of the same contact in the same device.

If the users get the ability to know which client the their contact is using for each Secret Chat, I guess these things wouldn't be much of an issue. I have some ideas about how to handle this:

• Add a small icon to be displayed for each Secret Chat showing which kind of client the user is using, i.e, mobile, desktop, web etc;
• Give more info about the client being used in the Secret Chat details screen, like the name and version of the client;
• Give each Secret Chat a separate status indicator, this way a sender will know if the recipient is still using the device where a Secret Chat is and which Secret Chat he is more likely to get the message;
• Make Telegram aware of how many Secret Chats are open with a contact. This info could be added to each Secret Chat details screen - something like "You have 4 active secret chats with this contact, 2 in this device." - also adding the option to end Secret Chats of other devices would be cool;
• What about merging all the Secret Chats from a contact that are open in the device? Telegram could show all Secret Chats in one single chat and then the sender could choose to either send the message to the recipient's last active chat/device or manually choose the secret chat/device for which to send the message. In this case, each message should indicate somehow for which secret chat/device it was sent or received. An option to resend the message for a different secret chat/device cold be nice as well, and auto-destruction timers would have to be synced between all merged secret chats.

I know Secret Chats are still far from TDesktop, but I do hope when it gets there, it comes with some kind of solution to the multiple secret chats problem.

[stek29]

@tomcpc great ideas, except the last one.

[ghost]

@telegramdesktop after reading the entire thread, it is apparent that this discussion is no longer on whether the feature should be implemented or not, that is very clear.

But raises a new set questions:

1. Is supporting a core feature considered a sensible request?
2. If so, given a sensible request from users, why can't the priorities of a project re-evaluated?
3. If not and the pull requests will not even be considered... brrlah! is this a personal thing?
4. If not, this is about telegram. How to re-evaluate the team/project structure so that the client is full-featured?