So today (or a day ago or whatever), Pavel Durov attacked Signal by saying that he wouldn't be surprised if a backdoor would be discovered in Signal because it's partially funded by the US government (or, some part of the us govt).

Let's break down why this is utter bullshit.

First, he wouldn't be surprised if a backdoor would be discovered 'within 5 years from now'.

- Teeny tiny little detail: THE FUCKING APP IS OPEN SOURCE. So yeah sure, go look through the code! Good idea! You might actually learn something from it as your own crypto seems to be broken! (for the record, I never said anything about telegram not being open source as it is)

sources:
http://cryptofails.com/post/...
http://theregister.co.uk/2015/11/...
https://security.stackexchange.com/...

- The server side code is closed (of signal and telegram both). Well, if your app is open source, enrolled with one of the strongest cryptographic protocols in the world and has been audited, then even if the server gets compromised, the hackers are still nowhere.

- Metadata. Signal saves the following and ONLY the following: timestamp of registration, timestamp of the last connection with the server (both rounded to the day so not on the second), your phone number and your contact details (if you authorize it) (only phone numbers) in HASHED (BCrypt I thought?) format.
There have been multiple telegram metadata leaks and it's pretty known that it saves way more than neccesary.

So, before you start judging an app which is open, uses one of the best crypto protocols in the world while you use your own homegrown horribly insecure protocol AND actually tries its best to save the least possible, maybe try to fix your own shit!

*gets ready for heavy criticism*