Hands-On Tech 271 Transcript

Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Hands-On Tech. Let's take a look at a secure messaging platform and see just how secure it is. Stay tuned.  Hello and welcome to Hands-On Tech. I am Mikah Sargent and today we are once again taking your tech questions and doing our doggone best to answer them. If you have questions, you can send them to me, mikah@twit.tv. And hot@twit.tv is how you get in touch.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:32]:
And today's question comes in from Clint. Here's what Clint had to ask. Clint says: Hi. I was wanting to know some things about the Telegram messaging service. I have some questions about this platform as I would like to use Telegram on my Windows desktop. I was curious whether Telegram is safe to use. As a normal user. I do not have a VPN and I was wondering whether I should use one to use Telegram.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:58]:
I the reason I am asking is that I want to make sure my IP address does not get hacked. I was also curious to know whether there is a security feature on Telegram that can hide my IP address from spammers and hackers. What are your concerns and your positive feedback? I have never used Telegram before, so I do not mind a lengthy explanation. Thanks. Does Telegram have great security features? Is it true that doing a video call is free? From what I understand, lots of popular people use Telegram. But where is the company located and is it a legitimate company? Thanks, Mike. Is it okay if I call you Mike? Well, first and foremost, Clint, thank you for asking, but no, you may not call me Mike. I am Mikah.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:40]:
I appreciate you asking again. As far as your questions go, we need to kind of dig into it because there are some misunderstandings here and I think that we need to kind of reframe things to better help you understand how Telegram works, how messaging works, and also just in general how you protect yourself online properly. So let's talk about this. We got to reframe the idea that your IP address can or can't be hacked. The fact is it can't. It's a common misconception. Absolutely. So I understand where that comes from.

Mikah Sargent [00:02:15]:
But an IP address isn't something that gets hacked. It's kind of like a return address on an envelope. So every website you visit, every service you connect to, and every online game you play, frankly, it already sees it. It's semi public information and it's that way by design. So what is the worst case scenario if someone is able to view your ip? Well, the worst that someone can typically do with your IP alone is sort of figure out your approximate location. It's Usually your city or the region that you live in. Very rarely is it your home address. Of course, they could attempt to flood your connection with junk traffic, but your router's built in firewall is more than likely to block unsolicited incoming connections off the bat.

Mikah Sargent [00:03:01]:
Right? So you really don't need to worry about that either in most cases. And you know that router is doing its job of blocking and handling the vast majority of that risk. And in fact, your ISP also has a vested interest in making sure that the IP address that you have, which is also very likely assigned to other people as well, is protected. Now, that said, when it comes to messaging, the real threats to worry about on any of these platforms, it's not your ip. Instead, it's scams, it's phishing links, it's impersonation, it's malicious files. And we're going to talk about that. So first and foremost, hmm, does Telegram expose your IP address? Well, for regular messaging in the platform, Telegram's standard chats, its groups, its channels, they're all routed through Telegram's servers. So frankly, the person you're texting never even sees your ip.

Mikah Sargent [00:04:04]:
You could message a stranger all day, every day, every week, every month, and frankly, they would learn nothing about your connection. That said, there is one exception, and that is voice and video calls. Because by default, Telegram actually uses a peer to peer connection for calls so that you're going to have a more direct call with your contact. The reason they do that is because you get better quality. You also get reduced latency. And then this direct kind of device, device connection does mean that that other device does technically know your ip. But I remind you again that your IP is very likely being shared with other people. The only instance in which that is different is if you have specifically requested in some way an IP address of your own.

Mikah Sargent [00:04:55]:
And not every ISP is going to provide that. All right, back from the break. And we are answering Clint's question about being able to use Telegram safely and securely. And we were just talking about how when you do a voice or video call, things are a little bit different and you may run into issues in a more protected form because technically, the other party's device knows your ip. So what do we do about that? Well, the fix, it's built right in. What we can do is we can go into on Telegram, the Settings app, and we can go to privacy and security, and then we can go to calls. Let's find calls here and here. We can say under peer to peer, never what that does is it makes it so that Telegram will relay all of the calls that you do through its servers, which means that your IP is not revealed.

Mikah Sargent [00:06:06]:
That said, audio and video quality is probably going to dip slightly, so just be aware of that. So, yes, the IP hiding security feature that you asked about does exist. It's free and it takes about 10 seconds to enable. Yay. Telegram, of course, has its own explanation in the Telegram faq, which we will include as a link in the show notes. Your next question was, do you need to use a VPN in order to use Telegram? No, that's the short answer. A VPN is not required to use Telegram safely and it doesn't protect you from the actual risks on the platform. The risks on the platform, again, are scams, phishing, malware, and those are going to come through the app itself, not your network connection.

Mikah Sargent [00:06:54]:
So that's more about you learning the things that you need to do to keep yourself protected online. So maybe there's a little confusion about what a VPN does. Well, it does hide your IP from the services that you connect to, so you could technically use a VPN before connecting to Telegram's servers, which would then make it so that Telegram doesn't know who you are. It also hides your browsing activity from your Internet Service provider, your isp. So if those things matter to you more generally than a reputable VPN is going to help you out there, it's a fine addition, but it is a general privacy tool. It's not a requirement to use Telegram and it's not even a necessity for more privacy and security per se. With the understanding that in all of this, Telegram's servers may be involved in the communication that you do. With that peer to peer call setting switched to never, other Telegram users aren't going to be able to see your IP regardless of whether you have your VPN turned on.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:00]:
Now, this next question, a little more complicated, right? Because you've asked, is Telegram actually secure? Well, it's complicated. You know, I kind of. Telegram has a good reputation, depending on who you talk to, or a bad reputation, depending on who you talk to. Great security features, as Telegram claims, or as, as you know, you talk about here. It deserves a bit of an asterisk because Telegram doesn't use end to end encryption. By default, those standard chats will actually do server client encryption. What does that mean? It means that messages are encrypted between your device and Telegram's servers, but Telegram itself has the ability to decrypt them. It has a key.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:55]:
Now if you compare that to Signal or WhatsApp, where every conversation is end to end encrypted, that means that the company doesn't have access to it. It does that automatically. And that means that the company cannot read your messages even if it wanted to. And that's why many security professionals suggest signal over Telegram. As for WhatsApp, that's a whole nother ball game in terms of the owners of that company. Telegram does, by the way, offer true end to end encryption, but it does so through a feature called secret chats. And these are chats that will encrypt texts, photos, videos and files so that only you and the recipient hold the keys. It is the version of end to end encryption and the contents are never stored on Telegram servers, but you gotta manually start one for each conversation and it's only available in those one on one conversations.

Mikah Sargent [00:09:47]:
It's not available in group chats. And I think here's the kicker for you specifically given that you're talking about using this on a desktop. Secret chats are available in Telegram's iOS, Android and macOS apps, but believe it or not, the Windows app and the web version do not support them. So on your Windows desktop, every conversation you have will be a standard cloud chat that Telegram can technically access. And here's one more thing worth knowing. As I was researching this to make sure that you know, it was not, I wanted to make sure that my understanding of Telegram, which was about not having end to end encryption by default, was not the only thing involved here. And it turns out that there was more to talk about. Telegram updated its privacy policy back in September of 2024 and says it will now share users phone numbers and IP addresses with law enforcement if law enforcement has a valid court order confirming that the user is a criminal suspect.

Mikah Sargent [00:10:48]:
So for a law abiding user, yeah, that's non issue, but it is still something to keep in mind. It's a bit of a reality check against the idea that this is a totally private app. That's the reputation there, but well, the actions are a little bit different. You can read more about that policy at Telegram's website, which again will include a link in the show notes to the privacy policy. So here's the bottom line when it comes to security. Telegram, it's perfectly safe for everyday chatting, for communities, for channels, but if your major priority is maximum privacy, well then Signal is going to be the better tool there. You asked about video calls and phone calls. Yeah, they are free.

Mikah Sargent [00:11:34]:
You heard right. Telegram offers free one on one video Calls and group video calls. That includes screen sharing and it does so on mobile and desktop. There's no per call fee, so the only cost is what you pay for your data, which of course is something that is for many people, not an issue. Telegram does sell an optional Telegram Premium subscription, but that's going to give you things like bigger uploads, faster downloads, and so those aren't a requirement when it comes to being able to do video calls and phone calls. You also asked, is Telegram a legit company? Well, I think everybody defines legit differently, so here's the information that I'll give you. It is one of the biggest messaging platforms on planet Earth. I believe there are a billion users of Telegram.

Mikah Sargent [00:12:24]:
It was founded in 2013 by two brothers, Pavel and Nikolai Durov. And as of 2025, the company is headquartered in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. That said, it has had a bit of a turbulent stretch, if you want to call it that. The founder and CEO Pavel was arrested outside Paris in August of 2024. Faces charges related to criminal activity that was actually conducted on the platform. And In March of 2025 he was permitted to return to Dubai while the French investigation continues. It is actually that arrest that prompted the data sharing policy to change. Okay.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:05]:
Lots of popular people, creators, news organizations and so many more use Telegrams. In particular its Channels feature because it's a broadcast platform. Right? But remember, if you build that, they will come. Popularity attracts scammers too. And so let's talk about some things that you might do to keep yourself safe. Back to the show, we were talking about what we can do to make things a little bit more secure, a little bit more safe on, on Telegram. Well, if you're going to use the desktop version, Clint, you need to download the official app only. Never use a third party Telegram mod or anything like that.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:49]:
desktop.telegram.org that's where you go. Don't go anywhere else. Don't trust it in order to make it so that you are protecting yourself with those calls. Remember, go to Settings, Privacy and Security calls and then where you have the option to change the peer to peer, change it to never. Also in Settings and Privacy and Security, there's an option for deciding who can see your phone number. Change that to nobody. In fact, we can take a look at all of these good little features here.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:25]:
So we'll head into Set it. Whoops. That's the search function. We'll head into Settings, we'll head into Privacy and Security. You can see that currently phone number is set to my contacts. We'll change that to nobody. That means that nobody is able to see my number. And then under who can find me by my number? We want to change that to my contacts.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:47]:
That's going to make it so that only the people who you've already added or are in your contacts, whether they've added you, are able to actually find you that way in Settings. And once again, privacy and security head into two step verification and turn that on. This is going to set up a password for you that will protect your account even if someone is able to get that login code. There's a guide that will also link to in the show notes settings, privacy and security calls. We can set that up as well so that that is set to my contacts. That means that only people who call you are the people who are in your contacts. Yay. We love that.

Mikah Sargent [00:15:30]:
That's what we want. We want to make sure that that's going to cut off spam calls entirely. Also very important, please be skeptical of unsolicited messages. If you're getting messages all of a sudden, Telegram support messages, all of that kind of stuff, asking for codes, crypto investment pitches, links from strangers. These scams are the genuine risk on the platform. It's not IP snooping, it's scams and spam and puppy dog tails. All of that is what you need to watch out for when it comes to protecting yourself while using Telegram. So ultimately it's your choice.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:12]:
It's a very popular platform. Lots of people use it. Now you're aware of what it is, what it can do, who owns it. And you're also aware of the difference between IP concerns and simple scam and spam concerns. And here IP is secondary, but you do have the choice to limit who can see your IP a little bit more. So, Clint, thank you for the question. I think it was a really good one and I appreciate you asking it. If you out there have questions for me, hot@twit.tv is how you get in touch.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:45]:
I'll be back next week with another episode. Thank you. Bye bye.