Privacy

31816 readers

309 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

Telegram is still leaking user IP addresses to contacts (techcrunch.com)

submitted 1 year ago by igalmarino@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

1 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 1 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Kissaki@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Is it a leak if it's a necessary technical part to a functionality?

The main issue is that it's not obvious to non-technical users. They can't asses what sharing IP address means either though.

The reason Telegram leaks a user’s IP addresses during a call is that, by default, Telegram uses a peer-to-peer connection between callers “for better quality and reduced latency,” Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn told TechCrunch.

“The downside of this is that it necessitates that both sides know the IP address of the other (since it is a direct connection). Unlike on other messengers, calls from those who are not your contact list will be routed through Telegram’s servers to obscure that,” Vaughn said.

To avoid leaking your IP address, you have to go to Telegram’s Settings > Privacy and Security > Calls, and then select “Never” in the Peer-to-Peer menu, as shown below.

Telegram defaults to using p2p for calls, for contacts only.

It's not a thorough privacy default, but otherwise seems fine to me. If you want p2p it needs to be enabled, and if you don't it needs to be disabled. No-contacts and no-calls receive no IP.