Telegram Groups Invite Links: Top 1,000 Groups of 2018 (So Far)

A Quick Review: What is Telegram? What are Telegram Groups?

Telegram is advertised to be a private and confidential chat application. It’s basically a text messaging service that aims to keep conversations private through a secure encryption module. But a security company says it found a flaw that literally demolishes the hardly built reputation of this application.

Apart from text messages, Telegram can also display multimedia messages. It’s available on major platforms, such as Android, Windows and iOS. It was created by Nikolai and Pavel Durov, the brothers responsible for Facebook’s largest alternative VKontakte – a Russian type of Facebook that attracts plenty of westerners as well. Released in 2013, it was advertised to be a safer and more reliable alternative to traditional messaging applications, like WhatsApp.

According to Telegram Groups, over 200 million people use the application on a monthly basis to send billions of messages. It gained notoriety in multiple countries as one of the most efficient free applications, yet it failed to take the US market over, partly because of its association with the Russian VKontakte. It’s managed and maintained by a nonprofit group based in Berlin though.

The app is described to be privacy oriented, mostly because of the MTProto – a proprietary protocol that no other application can use. Its primary role is to encrypt any kind of information between those who send messages and receivers.

Furthermore, the application also comes with a secret chat feature that allows setting a particular timer for messages to self destruct. Even if the receiver has already gotten the message, it will destruct by itself even if not open. According to the developers, there are no traces left on any device. In fact, they offer a $300,000 prize to whoever can recover a message that was encrypted and deleted with Telegram. Believe it or not, a security firm has actually found a way to go around this feature soon after it was released.

But this isn’t everything! Given a few flaws, Telegram is not as safe as its 200 million users might believe. In fact, it was proven to have quite a few flaws that nobody talks about in the marketing campaigns. It’s not a myth or a campaign started by the competition, but the unfortunate truth backed by facts. Multiple experts in encryption and security have expressed their points of view regarding Telegram Groups. Its security issues might even become obvious to regular users at times. Simply put, this app just doesn’t stand up to the expectations.

So, assuming you’re one of the users, what should you know about it?

The Automatic Encryption of Chat Group in Telegram

The first main flaw is the fact that Telegram will not encrypt chats by its own, but it offers a feature that must be activated. Obviously, most users are not aware of it, so it’s never ticked. This kind of feature was strongly advocated for by the FBI over the years, so most apps actually rely on it.

According to Christopher Soghoian (American Civil Liberties Union), most Telegram users naturally assume that they communicate in a safe and secure way. They automatically believe that their chats are encrypted, yet they have no idea that they need to turn the encryption on by themselves.

With all these, Telegram sticks to the rules. It follows the laws and regulations, so it makes a solid application. If you ask experts about it, they’ll agree that they’d prefer an automatic encryption instead. It’s not a major thing, but it’s a regular standard for the front running text applications lately. Apps like Signal and WhatsApp can provide automatic encryption. On the other hand, when users don’t know that they must turn encryption on, this feature becomes completely useless and affects Telegram Groups’ credibility.

If you think about it for a minute, what are the reasons to prevent default encryption? Besides, the irony is in the fact that this app is advertised to be one of the most secure ones out there, with encryption among its main priorities. If you go through its FAQ, it claims to be more secure than WhatsApp as well – not something that encryption professionals would agree with.

Furthermore, WhatsApp is known to rely on the most secure encryption module available right now. Plus, everything is encrypted by default – not just text and multimedia messages, but also calls.

Analyzing Encryption Protocols for All Members in the Group Chat

Just like any other app on the market, Telegram had to go through the critics’ rigorous analyses and exams too, especially when it started gaining popularity. The encryption protocols have been drastically tested to figure out how safe and efficient they are. But then, even if you do turn encryption on, chances are it won’t protect you too much due to the numerous flaws discovered. Whether it comes to governmental programs, surveillance programs and even wannabe hackers, chances are users are exposed to numerous dangers.

Chat Groups in Telegram relied on a technique that didn’t bring it any benefits at all – rolling its own encryption. What does it actually mean?

Simply put, developers relied on the MTproto module. It’s a patented protocol that no other company can use. It’s not open source, so it can’t be thoroughly verified. Therefore, there is no real proof regarding its efficiency. Alan Woodward (University of Surrey) analyzed Telegram and denounced the secretive protocol, which leaves no room for transparency. No one knows how it works or what it does for users’ protection.

The reputable professor agrees that new security protocols will always be received with skepticism, especially if there are no details. Most commonly, cryptographers tend to release all the information, as well as the algorithms in order to gain credibility. With Telegram Groups, experts are left in the dark.

Moreover, the professor claims that new protocols should be created only if they come with something new. They should be designed by experienced coders. Without any of these ideas in mind, there are literally no reasons to create a new protocol.

In other words, rolling its own encryption has seriously damaged Telegram reputation because no one can understand the reasons. The encryption industry has extensively audited current protocols in the attempt to find any imperfections.

Some of them seem perfect at the moment, such as the one used by WhatsApp or Signal – Open Whisper Systems. It works perfectly and leaves no room for mistakes. When you have something so deeply researched and proven to be efficient, why would you try to roll your own protocol?

Cryptography professor Matthew Green also criticizes Telegram’s protocol ideas, as well as the way its developers worked. The official blog explains the secrets behind its so called efficiency. Practically, Telegram has a team of smart mathematicians with brilliant ideas in terms of security and cryptography. No matter how brilliant they are, they’re not cryptographers. These are just two different professions and industries. They invented their own protocol and implemented it in the app without giving any details. No cryptographer would ever do that.

The professor hasn’t actually researched the protocol – well, no one can. He doesn’t claim it’s broken or inferior; he just admits that no one knows anything about it, which makes it even weirder.

The Deleted Messages in Normal Group Chats Are Never Really Deleted

Telegram has a feature that allows users to set timers for their messages, so they get automatically deleted with no traces behind. A security researcher has proven the Telegram Chat Groups wrong by claiming attackers can retrieve such messages even after deletion. The company has counterattacked researcher and entrepreneur Zuk Avraham from Zimperium by claiming the encryption works flawlessly. However, if an attacker receives administrative access to the respective device, no security measure can actually protect the victim.

Avraham proved Telegram wrong by actually hacking into an Android device. He used an old version of Android and broke into a smartphone with Telegram installed on it. He gained administrative control over the smartphone with root access. At that point, he figured that anyone could go through the messages sent via the Telegram Group. Even after a particular message is supposedly deleted forever, he could still retrieve it from the device and read it.

Markus Ra of Telegram agreed that once someone has root access, no one can stop the attacker. No application is secure at that point. Rooting a device clears multiple security and encryption features implemented by the manufacturer. This is the main reason wherefore most users don’t get full access to their phones.

According to Ra, encryption is reliable when the attacker fails to gain access to keys. If they have access to the system’s memory, they will have a key to anything related to the phone. No Android application can actually claim protection against root access.

But Avraham went back to the original specifications and features. Such messages should be permanently deleted. They should leave no traces behind. Can the app do that? Apparently, this statement is wrong. Furthermore, Avraham blames the company for doing too little for its customers and overpraising an encryption protocol that is not as secure as it seems.

Encryption and Security Scores for the Telegram Groups

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) is a rights advocacy group specialized in maintaining an unbiased scorecard related to such applications. The group analyzes multiple factors, such as encryption, security, authentication features, audits, access to keys and so on. Telegram and seven other similar applications had the highest score. In fact, Telegram scored higher than more reputable messaging tools, such as Google Hangouts, Facebook, Blackberry Messenger and even the classic AIM.

However, EFF representative Joseph Bonneau mentioned that if Zimperium’s claims about retrieving deleted messages are true, then users have a problem. He clearly stated that once an attacker gains root access to a smartphone, no security measure can stop the problem. He added that Telegram should have actually implemented automatic encryption, as well as a feature to make sure that a deleted message cannot be retrieved no matter what.

Bonneau’s statements are general and have many if’s. It makes you wonder whether the EFF actually researches such apps in small details. The group couldn’t figure whether deleted messages can truly be restored, so most of its studies are based on plain tests and developers’ specifications. At this point, the top position that Telegram earned becomes irrelevant.

Matt Clemens of Arxan Technologies claims there are certain measures that developers can implement in the attempt to protect their apps. Such measures are so efficient that they can even prevent the kind of attacks Zimperium used for the test. Protecting a code against reverse engineering has never been easier, but it seems Telegram rushed to release the app and forgot some basic aspects.

The specialist agrees that the programming language is usually the aspect that makes the difference. Moreover, there are certain techniques to make an app aware that the smartphone has been compromised. At this point, the app can shut down by itself and become unusable. If such measures would have been implemented, most of these rigorous tests would have made Telegram Group a solid alternative to WhatsApp or Signal.

Lacking Data of the Chat Group? Is It for Real?

Apart from criticizing Telegram’s secret protocol, Alan Woodward has mentioned earlier that the application leaks metadata at a speedy rate. His statement was based on a security researcher who simulated an attack and could see when the victim was online or offline. Simply put, attackers can find out who you talk to and when you use the application.