Telegram has hit back at rival Meta-owned WhatsApp after chief Will Cathcart slammed the messaging app over its security practices. Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn has refuted claims made by Cathcart about the security of Telegram which was founded by Pavel Durov, says a report by GSMArena.
Telegram is marketed as an encrypted messaging platform that offers end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for calls and chats. However, WhatsApp chief Cathcart quoted an article by Wired and his own criticism of Telegram’s implementation of E2EE. According to Cathcart, these claims have not been independently verified and there are other flaws, for example, it is not enabled by default and E2EE is not available for group chats.
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According to the GSMArena report, Telegram has compiled a list of nine errors in the Wired article, which you can find over on telegra.ph (a minimalistic publishing tool by Telegram). The post ends with “This list is being expanded”.
Moreover, in his tweet, Cathcart also wrote: “They (Telegram) have built another API that seems to allow access to user content for mass surveillance."
Meanwhile, Telegram Premium, the paid subscription from encrypted messaging platform Telegram crossed 1 million subscribers, the company announced in December last year. This comes almost six months after Telegram started taking monetisation seriously and launched the paid subscription service.
The cross-platform, encrypted and cloud-based messaging platform currently has more than 700 million monthly active users (MAUs). Telegram Premium subscription costs about Rs 180 in emerging markets such as India and it costs between $5-$6 in most other markets.
"While it still represents just a fraction of Telegram’s overall revenue, Telegram Premium is growing steadily every day, and one day may even rival our ads," Pavel Durov, Telegram Founder, had said in a statement.
Telegram Premium allows anyone to acquire additional features, speed and resources. Other special features include creating up to 20 chat folders with 200 chats in each, adding up to 4 accounts in the app and pinning up to 10 chats.