
Show HN: Telegram bot with filters to read Hacker News - iforaa
https://storebot.me/bot/hnrobot
======
reitanqild
Nice idea. Will test it out.

Telegram is one of my bets on a good, sane messaging platform for the future
(vector/matrix is another, tent and even twitter used to be)

~~~
Dzugaru
> Telegram is one of my bets on a good, sane messaging platform for the future

Why? It was made by VK (russian Facebook) devs and there are many concerns
about its security.

~~~
runn1ng
Well, it's about the same level of security as other messengers like Facebook
Messenger/Skype/..., it has a great robot API, is continuously updated on all
platforms, is adding features fast, it has a great GUI, it "just works"
everywhere.

Yeah, it's possible to have security like Signal, but then synchronization
between devices is PITA and the rate of new features is slow.

It was not done by VK. It was done by Pavel Durov after he escaped from
Russia.

~~~
embik
> Well, it's about the same level of security as other messengers like
> Facebook Messenger/Skype/.. [...]

> Yeah, it's possible to have security like Signal [...]

Actually, WhatsApp has implemented Signal's encryption and they worked
together with Moxie Marlinspike (the developer of Signal) who verified those
claims (or something along these lines. I'm not 100% sure this is how it
happened, please take it with a grain of salt). So at least one popular
messenger implements security that _is_ better than Telegram.

~~~
sz4kerto
BTW, if we treat any claims about privacy and security with extreme skepticism
(rightfully), then why do we trust Moxie and Facebook without being able to
verify their claims? (I'm not saying that Moxie et al. are untrustworthy.)

~~~
skrowl
The skepticism is right. The person leading the charge for "but but Telegram
rolled their own crypto, so you shouldn't use it" is actually one of the
developers of Signal.

Not a single working proof of concept attack on telegram has been released and
no one even claimed to have decrypted a single message.

I'm not saying Telegram is impervious to ever being cracked, but it's
certainly not cracked yet or at all proven to be insecure.

~~~
pfg
Being able to decrypt messages should certainly not be the benchmark you use
when evaluating crypto, especially when it comes to rather new protocols.
History has shown that severe theoretical issues that cryptographers have been
warning against for years (see: CBC and padding oracle attacks) will almost
always lead to practical attacks eventually.

Telegram has a number of those weaknesses, and many of its implementation
details don't paint a good picture in terms of security either[1].

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/72646884513381171...](https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/726468845133811717)

------
santiagobasulto
Is there any way to see the source code?

~~~
skrowl
I have source up for a similar bot in C# -
[https://github.com/ScottRFrost/TelegramBot](https://github.com/ScottRFrost/TelegramBot)

It's pretty quick and dirty, but enough that you get the idea. It doesn't read
HN, but it reads Beer Advocate, Bing, Calorie King, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes,
Weather Underground, and several others.

------
kamanhi3
lol This is exactly what I needed. It's a bit hard to read contents of HN
without filters. Thank you for sharing.

------
wizzard0
would be better if number of points was shown on comments button, to save one
line of text on mobile devices

~~~
iforaa
Comments button is optional

