Bugs and Suggestions

I wouldn't really ask for joining our servers with the official, just the opportunity of having our own, and shifting from ours to theirs. I am no expert but I can't really see how this could create security flaws that the system don't have yet. You could access to the data that is stored in the server you're connected, that's it. Why would anyone not want this?

Also, if at some point Telegram was successfully censored in a country, people would be able to make their own servers, to talk between them. I really wish those who down-voted this suggestion explained why they wouldn't like this :/

Anton die Ameise 🐜 Dec 23, 2020

Agree but there have to be at least some standards regarding privacy and so on and official telegram should then approve them.

Krond Dec 23, 2020

I guess the truth is that once this becomes possible _there would be no privacy standards_.

It's quite easy to request something for free, instead of investing in taking care of it. I guess the whole platform should be designed differently instead. Take look at Matrix or Wire for example.

The biggest problem is server security. Right now it's only you and Telegram who can store your messages. With private servers here comes MITM attacks, packet stealing etc,etc,etc, and all your messages may end up in more then one location. Good for some governments but not quite good for you.

Ilja R Dec 23, 2020

Cheesetaco

it is possible now with direct proxy in telegram

this feature will be maybe published for business later, for money. This would be a good idea for monetizing telegram that must be done soon

Krond

I meant keeping the official server separated from each server, not really a federation where all servers are connected. Just being able to make my own server and tell people I work with (for example) to get connected to it. I wasn't talking about connecting my own server to Telegram's official servers or anything like that. If you get connected to a server that isn't the official, you better know who's hosting it, obviously. I don't see how this could make telegram less safe. Most of people will use the official servers anyway. Just treat the option to change from the official server to a custom server like an advanced option and that's it. Am I missing something here?

Well, if you are talking about "really private place" be usable for companies… that might be it. Because running the farm correctly means a lot. You can't be secure as Telegram just by running the same code.

Let's take Belarus for example. Imagine state cut off all Telegram connectivity leaving people with no means of using Telegram. Let's put aside obvious choices like switching to Viber/WhatsApp/Discord/etc. Setting up server for the people would mean setting up server inside the country, so it will be vulnerable to corrupted officials, or whoever has a clue bat. There's even no need in hacking into, you just need to own the admin. Same goes to Russia, same goes to literally any country out there.

Ok, now let's look on the corporate side of things. There might be requirements to selfhost anything you need, but that generally means it's not safe to selfhost whole telegram service, as it includes a huge number of functionality that even might be harmful for locked installations due to the way they require and use internet. The problem comes from the other side: I don't recall any project surviving the free/corprate divide. Jabber died due to being too open and thus very hard to change, it ended up having number of "extensions" which were mutually incompatible. The other good example would be Chrome - that locks up the codebase totally preventing any changes that are not part of the final product. For example, FreeBSD ports are rolling 5MB of patches to build it without any chances of committing them upstream. Telegram choose GPLv3 as a code locking solution which is coming as a industry standard for a vendor-locked code novadays. So this leaves a question open: what would be a balance between open server and open code, and how would Telegram protect it's IP while starting the monetization adventure.

I'm not against the idea tho… just want to make clear this is not an easy choice for Telegram. And that it might get a lot of consequences.

What you're saying is true, but we would still be using the official Telegram servers for most of purposes (it'd be the only way to stay connected to the rest of the world), only really invested people or companies would prepare their own servers, and most of the time, they wouldn't even have to modify the code, just run it for themselves. At the same time, the community would check for security flaws and help Telegram to become safer.

R Dec 23, 2020

It is better to have possibility to use local MTProxy for local users (messages, calls, videos, file transfers). It can solve a lot of troubles when global servers temporary inaccessible.

Tinro Dec 24, 2020

Ilja R

Agree👍👍

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