Unironically, McAfee may be a greater threat to US national security than Kasperky. McAfee is actually used by the Department of Defense[1], and Kaspersky is not. Given how bad McAfee actually is, I think that that makes it worse.
I found it always fishy that telegram applauds itself for being a secure messenger but decided against encryption by default. With the flick of a switch every doubt would go away but alas.
The 3-letter US agencies do not have direct access to Telegram's servers, they do have when it comes to Whatsapp (or to any other US-based company). The same goes if you're a Russian doing anti-government stuff in, well, Russia, it's better to put your fate in Whatsapp's (and Meta's) hands, presumably the US agencies won't come after you for being against the Russian government. It's a classical game of arbitration (for lack of a better word).
I agree with your logic, though a paranoid person might point out that they don't need access to telegram's servers; access to the app store or to automatic OS updates would be enough.
You agree to the logic based on a false premise that the 3-letter US agencies do not have direct access to Telegram's servers which are located in the US (among other places).
I've been amused by the number of technical people that prefer Signal vs just not shutting up about the messaging app they use and not pretending like they're some sort of authority on the topic instead of someone who deals with SOC2 compliance daily.
(This is actually independent of you or Signal, I just find it amusing that people throw their security brand™ behind some app and it's just them picking the one they like most of the time.)
Telegram is fine if you just use it for 1on1 conversation with encryption enabled. The same goes for whatsapp (encryption is enabled by default). If you are looking for secure group chats signal would be my choice because it skips the server (WhatsApp sends all group messages to a server before distributing it). There are also more exotic providers like threema, matrix and many others but the onboarding for non technical users is harder, though they also have advantages like not needing a telephone number to sign up. For the general public I would use Signal mainly because it’s directly in the middle of security and ease of use.
End-to-end encrypted by default doesn't mean much if you don't trust the third party providing the software that does the encryption. One automatic app update can enable leaking of encrypted communication.
The bigger problems for me would be the appstores because they could implement a mitm. Telegram and Signal have their client sources open so you at least can check and compile them yourself but if I would handle data that was so sensitive that I can't trust any other entity I would just self host matrix or xmpp and chat with myself...
Who also promised to cooperate with russian government in exchange for lifting the ban on the app.
And even if he didn't, if you run the most popular messenger app in Russia you can't simply hide behind "citizen of some other country". KGB is known for poisoning/shooting people abroad for much less, and especially if you have family or close relatives back in your country of birth you really have little leverage to speak of.
The White House campaign to explain its Russia policy on social media did so via Chinese properties Zoom and TikTok. I don't think we can rely only on domestic production right now.
Russian citizens != Russian government. The Telegram development team is not on good terms with the Russian government last I read. With that said, it still operates within the borders so it's subject to government control (just as any US-based messaging service is subject to US government control). It's always a cat-and-mouse game between those who want free, unfettered, unmonitored communications and the governments that feel threatened by that kind of freedom.
You are thinking from a completely different perspective.
There's nothing for governments to allow people to communicate freely. Telegram is one of the few platforms that allows that... and this is a good opportunity for the US government to do that.
