Bugs and Suggestions

> Telegram is a messaging app and just like the other messaging apps it requires a phone number to register

Wire, Matrix, Threema, or Session are messaging app/services and do not require phone number. Signal is going to remove phone number soon

> Also, allowing people to register just by using their mail would
facilitate scammers & spammers and will lead to a general chaos as
well.

Regarding spammers, I think that it depends. We can also think of a solution where accounts created by e-mail aren't able to write at all, but they can read. So they technically can't spam.

> The 3-months period to lift the restrictions makes no sense, why the hell should I wait 3 months after signing up?

You can sign up and read only. After a certain period of time (3 month, 2 years, who knows) you can try to solve an automatic turing test, if you pass it you can ask to Telegram Support Force volunteers to verify that you are human and want to be unlocked from the spammed position. While you are marked as a spammed account, you can't write to non-contact people, but you can be contacted and you can reply. If this is still not enough for you, we can even think of a solution where you won't ever be able to have the spam mark lifted, so this phase is permenant. I'm also ok to that.

> The main reason that made you make this feature suggestion is
"people
not wanting to share their identity with intolerant parents"... A silent
signup feature was suggested, you should check it out:
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/82

No, that's what the person I asked to share my suggestion added. I thank
him/her for that, but that's not what I meant. The reason I want this
suggestion implemented is simple: not even Telegram should know who I
am. Phone numbers, here in Italy, are linked to real identity, by law.
I'm searching for a service that provides privacy and anonimity, and
Telegram can be that service, it just need to provide an alternative
method to sign up for very privacy-focused users, like other messaging
apps provide

Thank you for your comment, I'm available to further discuss this and
improve the suggestion together. Bye 👋

Deleted Account Dec 30, 2020

...

The fact that other messaging apps are adding the possibility to sign up just by using an email address doesn't mean that Telegram should follow the same path.

Having a read-only period after signing up still makes no sense to me. As mentioned in the FAQ, Telegram wants to be a super-fast and simple messaging app; limiting people to read-only for months or years just because they signed up using an email would just complicate things.

You can already read messages from public groups & channels using the official website (for example: https://t.me/s/telegram/3) without a Telegram account.

The turing test would require a massive work from Telegram developers (and also from volunteers). In addition, TSF volunteers are not qualified to deal with problems regarding user restrictions — there is already @SpamBot for that.

"not even Telegram should know who I am." — Telegram does not know who you are and never will. Phone numbers are used as an unique identifier and Telegram can't access the data mobile companies have about that phone number.

If you fear about being found or recognized using your phone numbers, just turn on your privacy settings ("Who can see my phone number?" and "Who can find me by my number?").

Unlike emails, there is a very limited amount of phone numbers all over the world. On the other hand, there are dozens of thousands of free email providers, while phone numbers are hard to get for free.

Additionally, Telegram has never shared a single byte of data to third parties or governments. Unless you are a terrorist, you should not worry about that.

> If you fear about being found or recognized using your phone numbers, just turn on your privacy settings ("Who can see my phone number?" and "Who can find me by my number?").
Additionally, Telegram has never shared a single byte of data to third parties or governments. Unless you are a terrorist, you should not worry about that.

Governments can force telegram to hand over the phone number of the owner. You say that Telegram does not share that information, but that's not how it should work. Why should I trust Telegram? How can I really prove that it was never shared? I can't. So the only solution to be really sure is simply not give even Telegram that information

s0ph0s ✊🏿🇵🇸🌻🏳️‍🌈 Dec 30, 2020

Telegram has not *yet* shared a single byte of data to third parties or governments. You've misjudged my primary reasoning here, I want this feature because it protects protesters in places like Hong Kong, where the CCP actually believes that they are terrorists, even though the protesters are speaking up to protect their rights. Telegram has already played a central role in the protests in HK, and [sadly not in a positive way](https://www.zdnet.com/article/hong-kong-protesters-warn-of-telegram-feature-that-can-disclose-their-identities/). Being able to create an account that is not tied to a phone number would have protected those protesters. And yes, I know there are now privacy settings that control who can find you by your phone number, and I've upvoted the other suggestions which expand on its functionality. But someday, there will be a government threat that Telegram can't ignore, and when that day comes, there needs to be a way for users to protect themselves.

Nayeem Ahmed Dec 30, 2020

Once I was travelling to another country and I had to reset my phone for some reason. I couldn't login to Telegram because of login code sent to my mobile number that I didn't have access to at that time in a foreign country.

So, it would be awesome if there any second way to get the login verification code like email or backup codes (That Gmail gives when 2FA using authenticator app is enabled)

And why not give the option to login using phone number and a password for already registered users?

Nayeem Ahmed

I think you are moving away from the initial proposal. The initial proposal wants that the telephone number should never be entered, neither during registration nor during login. Mixed registration and login solutions can be proposed, they are fine, but this proposal is clear: a registration and authentication method that does not require a telephone number as a requirement at any time, as the telephone number can lead to identification of the person

As mentioned in the FAQ (https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests), Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure. No single government or block of like-minded countries can force Telegram to disclose users data. Telegram can be forced to give up data ONLY if an issue is grave and universal enough (i.e. global terrorism) to pass the scrutiny of several different legal systems around the world.

It does not work like that. Just like you are connected to only a server when you are using Telegram, Telegram has your phone number in that server. Datas can be splitted, encrypted, whatever, but as some point those data needs to be retrieved and decrypted: in that precise moment, governement can access to server and read data.

"Cloud chat data is stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are controlled by different legal entities spread across different jurisdictions. The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data." (Telegram FAQ)

Telegram's uses a client-server encryption using a 2048-bit key shared by the client device and the server. The key is created upon user registration directly on the client device by exchanging Diffie-Hellman keys, and never transmitted over a network. (https://core.telegram.org/mtproto/description#authorization-key-auth-key)

This makes impossible for the government or other entities to intercept & access your data, unless you give them access to your device for some mysterious reason.

You can check how Telegram's custom protocol works (https://core.telegram.org/mtproto) and, if you doubt it's secure and think that someone can intercept & successfully decrypt your messages, just let Telegram know.

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