4 ms·

I really want to start using TextSecure (or Signal now I guess), but the only thing holding me back is it depends on Google Play Services. I love what they're d

I really want to start using TextSecure (or Signal now I guess), but the only thing holding me back is it depends on Google Play Services. I love what they're doing and can understand the decision, but still thinks it sucks a bit that the best option for secure communications is so tied into Google.

Arnt 11y ago
What does it send via googleplay other than "please connect to the server now"?
- sasvari 11y ago
  it does require to have the google play services installed in the first place. so for those who i.e. run cyanogenmod without the google play services installed, it's unfortunately not possible to use Signal/TextSecure.
  - suenamy 11y ago
    microg's GmsCore (an unprivileged open source reimplementation of Google Play Services) can do Google Cloud Messaging and should work for Signal.
    - ionised 11y ago
      This looks interesting. Thanks!
- ohthehugemanate 11y ago
  It sends messages through Google's messaging framework. Of course the messages are end to end encrypted, so there's no security risk. It's just really hard to set up a global push messaging framework unless you have the clout of, say, Google.
  - andrewpi 11y ago
    I believe it doesn't actually send the message content through GCM anymore, but just notifies the client that a new message is available and tells it to connect to Open Whisper Systems' server for the content.
lorenzhs 11y ago
It's mostly because there aren't any real alternatives. Building a world wide push messaging network is really hard (you have to deal with carriers a lot and convince them not to close your long running connections after 5 minutes). That said, the servers support websocket connections as well. I don't know the current state of client support. Also, a Chrome/Chromium extension is in the works.
- bad_user 11y ago
  Making push notifications work well is hard, so it's better to just use what's available. There are alternatives, but the alternatives aren't free at all. See: https://pushy.me/ https://pushy.me/
- devit 11y ago
  Just send heartbeats and reconnect if needed? Only real problems I see are hosting costs and preventing misuse, plus some minor coding work.
faded_rights 11y ago
See here for a version that uses websockets instead of Google services. It's usable on Blackberry OS 10 so should be usable on other non-google devices. http://forums.crackberry.com/android-apps-amazon-store-apk-files-f413/textsecure-working-apk-websockets-jolla-edition-1031793/ http://forums.crackberry.com/android-apps-amazon-store-apk-f...
moxie 11y ago
It seems like you don't want to install Google Play Services on your device. My sense is that this isn't because you find the communication over GCM to be inherently offensive (it's just a tickle, after all), but because you don't want to run proprietary software. There's a very small number of people who find this to be very important, and my experience has been that the strategy is to loudly complain whenever anything depends on play services. Just tactically speaking, I don't think this is going to work in the end, in the same sense that simply refusing to have a mobile phone won't work anymore -- slowly, the circumstances around this technology will make it impossible to refuse. What I don't understand is why nobody just writes an API-compatible open source implementation of play services. Even if it only supported GCM and nothing else, that'd unlock an enormous swath of apps, and would only require writing a basic implementation of the GCM network protocol. I'd love to know more if I'm misunderstanding the challenges around doing that. Right now it's part of the reason that I don't pay much attention to that crowd -- everyone seems very willing to complain, but nobody seems willing to do what seems like pretty straightforward work to solve their own problem.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- gothenburg 11y ago
  There you go: https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore An open-source replacement of Google services. You can use Signal with this.
  - haffenloher 11y ago
    I wrote a little guide on how to set it up: http://o9i.de/2015/10/23/howto-gmscore.html http://o9i.de/2015/10/23/howto-gmscore.html Has been working reasonably well for ~10 days now. Note that I'm on Android 4.2, so I might have missed something with regard to newer Android versions.
- gcb0 11y ago
  just debunking the bogus "you are a nerd that has a pet peeve against google services". this affect lots of users overseas or in poorer markets than san francisco. amazon phones don't ship with google service. cheap samsung models (most dual sim ones) sold overseas don't ship with it either. the cheap chinese phones don't have any google service. ...and those are only the ones i saw. i'm sure india/africa/europe have even more cases.
marssaxman 11y ago
Does it actually use Google Play Services during normal operation or does it just depend on the Play Store for installation?

Arnt 11y ago

What does it send via googleplay other than "please connect to the server now"?

sasvari 11y ago
it does require to have the google play services installed in the first place. so for those who i.e. run cyanogenmod without the google play services installed, it's unfortunately not possible to use Signal/TextSecure.
- suenamy 11y ago
  microg's GmsCore (an unprivileged open source reimplementation of Google Play Services) can do Google Cloud Messaging and should work for Signal.
  - ionised 11y ago
    This looks interesting. Thanks!
ohthehugemanate 11y ago
It sends messages through Google's messaging framework. Of course the messages are end to end encrypted, so there's no security risk. It's just really hard to set up a global push messaging framework unless you have the clout of, say, Google.
- andrewpi 11y ago
  I believe it doesn't actually send the message content through GCM anymore, but just notifies the client that a new message is available and tells it to connect to Open Whisper Systems' server for the content.

lorenzhs 11y ago

It's mostly because there aren't any real alternatives. Building a world wide push messaging network is really hard (you have to deal with carriers a lot and convince them not to close your long running connections after 5 minutes). That said, the servers support websocket connections as well. I don't know the current state of client support. Also, a Chrome/Chromium extension is in the works.

bad_user 11y ago
Making push notifications work well is hard, so it's better to just use what's available. There are alternatives, but the alternatives aren't free at all. See: https://pushy.me/ https://pushy.me/
devit 11y ago
Just send heartbeats and reconnect if needed? Only real problems I see are hosting costs and preventing misuse, plus some minor coding work.

faded_rights 11y ago

See here for a version that uses websockets instead of Google services. It's usable on Blackberry OS 10 so should be usable on other non-google devices. http://forums.crackberry.com/android-apps-amazon-store-apk-files-f413/textsecure-working-apk-websockets-jolla-edition-1031793/ http://forums.crackberry.com/android-apps-amazon-store-apk-f...

moxie 11y ago

It seems like you don't want to install Google Play Services on your device. My sense is that this isn't because you find the communication over GCM to be inherently offensive (it's just a tickle, after all), but because you don't want to run proprietary software. There's a very small number of people who find this to be very important, and my experience has been that the strategy is to loudly complain whenever anything depends on play services. Just tactically speaking, I don't think this is going to work in the end, in the same sense that simply refusing to have a mobile phone won't work anymore -- slowly, the circumstances around this technology will make it impossible to refuse. What I don't understand is why nobody just writes an API-compatible open source implementation of play services. Even if it only supported GCM and nothing else, that'd unlock an enormous swath of apps, and would only require writing a basic implementation of the GCM network protocol. I'd love to know more if I'm misunderstanding the challenges around doing that. Right now it's part of the reason that I don't pay much attention to that crowd -- everyone seems very willing to complain, but nobody seems willing to do what seems like pretty straightforward work to solve their own problem.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gothenburg 11y ago
There you go: https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore An open-source replacement of Google services. You can use Signal with this.
- haffenloher 11y ago
  I wrote a little guide on how to set it up: http://o9i.de/2015/10/23/howto-gmscore.html http://o9i.de/2015/10/23/howto-gmscore.html Has been working reasonably well for ~10 days now. Note that I'm on Android 4.2, so I might have missed something with regard to newer Android versions.
gcb0 11y ago
just debunking the bogus "you are a nerd that has a pet peeve against google services". this affect lots of users overseas or in poorer markets than san francisco. amazon phones don't ship with google service. cheap samsung models (most dual sim ones) sold overseas don't ship with it either. the cheap chinese phones don't have any google service. ...and those are only the ones i saw. i'm sure india/africa/europe have even more cases.

marssaxman 11y ago

Does it actually use Google Play Services during normal operation or does it just depend on the Play Store for installation?