Bug? No, Telegram Exposing Its Users' Precise Location is a Feature Working as 'Expected'

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Bug? No, Telegram exposing its users' precise location is a feature working as 'expected':

A researcher who noted that using the "People Nearby" feature of popular messaging app Telegram exposed the exact location of the user has been told that it's working as expected.

[...] Using a utility that fakes the location of an Android device, Ahmed Hassan was able to discover the distance of individuals from three different points, and then use trilateration to pinpoint exactly where they were. He was able to retrieve exact home addresses using this method, which is not technically difficult.

Hassan reported the issue in the hope of a bug bounty only to be told: "Users in the People Nearby section intentionally share their location, and this feature is disabled by default. It's expected that determining the exact location is possible under certain conditions."

"If you enable the feature of making yourself visible on the map, you're publishing your home address online. Lot of users don't know this when they enable that feature," Hassan said.

He also believes that there is a widespread problem with malicious users faking their location, joining local groups, and spamming users with fake Bitcoin investments or other frauds - evidence, he claims, of poor application security.

In its FAQ Telegram claims to be "more secure than mass market messengers like WhatsApp and Line" based on its security protocols, but does not address the risks from malicious users.

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