ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[royden yates <royden.yates@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 1 Dec 2015 16:57:17 +0100
Michal Karnicki <michal.karnicki@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Let me start by addressing the link provided in the first
> e-mail.
> 
> It is sufficient for a Telegram client to change setting to
> not show "last seen" and hence not emit the "online/offline"
> messages. It is also true Telegram for Ubuntu doesn't
> currently provide such setting - and Randal has filed a bug
> for this [1] (thank you sturmflut for instructing on the
> proper bug title). Therefore, I believe it's a bit of
> over-generalization to claim Telegram (as a product) is not
> "safe" in itself. I don't want to get too much into this
> particular thread - but the article assumes your friends are
> the ones stalking you - you need the users phone number and
> the user's friends phone numbers. Additionally, you can simply
> turn the thing of (hopefully soon in our app as well), and no
> more there are presence notifications sent.
> 
> Going back to the bug, which Matthias has filed a while ago,
> we have reviewed it and I'm glad to say we found a middle
> ground. To avoid everyone having to open the site, I will
> simply re-state the comment here:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> In a private conversation with Matthias I said I hoped we
> would revisit this matter when Telegram 2.x was out. Now that
> it happened, and this bug report has been brought again to my
> attention, we have reviewed it. We have a solution that I
> believe would satisfy the requirements set by the bug
> description.
> 
> The proposed solution is the following:
> The application may provide a setting to turn off "send
> message read notifications for received messages". The user
> who chooses to do that will in turn not see "message read
> notifications for sent messages". I think it is fair and that
> is a solution we are happy to go ahead with.
> 
> While we will do our best to continue maintaining and
> hopefully growing Telegram for Ubuntu, we are currently short
> on cycles. Therefore, we would be more than happy to accept a
> merge proposal with this feature, we simply can't commit to it
> at the moment as there are more higher priority bugs right
> now. But I am changing the bug status from "Won't fix" right
> now.
> 
> Have a great day,
> karni
> 
> [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/telegram-app/+bug/1521391
> [2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/telegram-app/+bug/1475915
> 
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 7:15 AM, Matthias Apitz
> <guru@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: El día Monday, November 30, 2015 a
> las 10:32:18PM +0100, sturmflut escribió:
> 
> > Good evening dear list,
> >
> > I don't consider this discussion on-topic. Canonical "just"
> > ports and ships an open-source Telegram client for Ubuntu
> > and has no influence on any design decisions the Telegram
> > team made. Read notifications are such a design decision,
> > the "last seen" status can be hidden and adding a switch for
> > it should be a topic for a bug report.
> >
> > Anything else should be discussed in the appropriate
> > Telegram forums.
> >
> > Also if Canonical have at any point made official statements
> > about privacy or security issues in Telegram then I have not
> > gotten that memo, please refer me to it in private. As far
> > as I can see Canonical do not even mention the words
> > "private" or "secure" in the app store description.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> The full discussion and the statements of Canonical re/ the
> read notification one can read in the archives around July
> this year and in LP in the issue:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/telegram-app/+bug/1475915
> 
> Thanks
> 
>         matthias

It is more a Telgram than Ubuntu issue - nonetheless, Telegram's
position seems somewhat contradictory - why offer the
ability to suppress detailed last seen status (as they do) only
to insist on an "integral feature" such as the "read" status that
undermines the former?

Makes no sense to me.

And ideally, both features - "last seen" and "read" should be
selectable for specific contacts or classes of contact, but that
definitely is for Telegram to decide.

R