23 / 01 / 2021
5 Minute Read

WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal : Which App TVR will go for?

Hello dear readers,

You have surely heard about the buzz around WhatsApp lately…

Well, it is not just now that WhatsApp is sharing information with Facebook to “operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings".

In 2016, WhatsApp gave users a one-time ability to opt out of this. This will no longer be an option come Febebruary, 8th, 2021 (it has been postponed to May, 2021 and they are now pretending it will only apply to Whatsapp-Business accounts), which is why those who have been careful about their privacy are outraged now.

This whole episode says volumes about the general lack of trust in Facebook and, by extension, any of its associates. More importantly, it serves as strong evidence that people aren’t any more ready to put up with shoddy business practices.

More than 80% of Escort-girls are using WhatsApp as a communication tools. We at TVR, are using that App too…but by the middle of 2021, it will not be the case anymore.

Millions of people are currently shifting to Telegram. What does TVR think about it?

 

TELEGRAM : The new trendy App ?

Will TVR start using Telegram? Not sure…

What adds to the trust factor is that Telegram isn’t owned and operated by a company like Facebook, which has a reputation of being shady, and of questionable morality.

In terms of functionalities, Telegram won a lot of fans. While using Telegram, you can hide your number to people you don’t want to know it; hide your online status; use a nickname to call without revealing your number (very useful if you use it for work if you have to contact many people); and the desktop version seems to be great!

However, I wouldn’t use it to share sensitive data like passwords or banking infos or date with an Escort for example... Indeed, the end-to-end encryption is not by default (it applies only to Secret Chats that can be programed for unlimited self-destruction for the sender and the receiver, this will leave no hint of this message ever having existed.). But my question is : Why would they not activated E2E by default?

On the privacy front, Telegram can collect a decent amount of personal information, which it can keep for up to 12 months (may collect metadata such as your IP address, devices and Telegram apps you’ve used, history of username changes).

Finally, the company has the ability to read any of your Cloud Chat messages to investigate spam and other violations of their Terms of Service. They may share some of your personal data with other Telegram users you choose to communicate with and companies within the Telegram Group. If forced by a court order, they may provide your IP address and mobile number to the appropriate authorities.

Another point of apprehension is that Telegram recently annonced its revenue model, which involves serving ads to large channels. Although Telegram made it abundantly clear that the ads will be both user-friendly and respectful of your privacy, it’s getting increasingly hard to trust such promises after witnessing several companies backtrack on their word. While generating revenue is absolutely necessary to sustain a platform that hosts hundreds of millions of users, these new plans open the door to the possibility that ads may spread to other sections of the app over time...

How about SIGNAL ?

Signal's claim to fame is its privacy-first approach, which includes open-sourcing its code and enabling E2EE by default. As a matter of fact, Signal developed the encryption protocol that WhatsApp uses.

Still, the service has its limits, like the need to sign up with a phone number (rather than something like a username or an email address).

Having said that, Signal doesn’t collect nearly as much data on you as WhatsApp does. The App doesn’t log your IP address, and whatever little metadata it collects is also encrypted.

Using Signal, information is neither transmitted nor stored on Signal's servers but your message history is stored on your own devices.

In terms of security, Signal seems to be the safest option for TVR but we are not sure yet that it is the best for our Agency.

What will TVR go for? 

The vast majority of Escort girls doesn’t care enough about their safety. They pretend to but as soon as it is about money, more than a half will compromise on the safety just to make a few more bucks. That’s sad but that’s the way it is. We are different at TVR and take this matter very seriously.

For those worried of the app being able to read their messages, Signal — and even WhatsApp — is a better option than Telegram, but if you just want to take some distance from Facebook, both Signal and Telegram seem to make strong cases.

Despite of the E2EE messages of all these Apps, I want to remind you dear readers that software exist that can easily and efficiently get back a whole E2EE conversation which was supposed to be deleted. The police and secret agents for example have been using those tools for years now…

It is extremely difficult today to remain completely anonymous but still, we must do everything possible to preserve this anonymity. This is what we are trying to do at TVR.

By the middle of the year 2021, TVR will no longer be using WhatsApp. This was a decision taken a year ago already. We want to be able to use our own Blacklist App (which will automatically reject all numbers saved into our Blacklist system, as well as the unknown calls) which anyway will have been incompatible with the use of WhatsApp.

I still don’t know how we will operate exactly but we will for sure stop using WhatsApp. We will remain available via phone, email and SMS. For the Gentlemen we trust and whom we already know, our Models will be also available on their second number, a number visible by our Gold and Silver Members only. Via their second number, our Models will be using the App Signal, for the Gentlemen (Gold and Silver only) who want to reach them out that way.

The more technology evolves, the more it attacks our freedom and our privacy. I never had Facebook or Instagram. I never had a social media account because it never interested me. I realize today that this is definitely one of the best decisions I have made in my entire life.

Janet for TheVelvetRooms 

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