Why not both? #1 is essential, but you really need to cater to #2 as well because "crypto nerds" are likely those who will eagerly adopt the software and adver

Why not both? #1 is essential, but you really need to cater to #2 as well because "crypto nerds" are likely those who will eagerly adopt the software and advertise and praise it to others. Here is a simple non-exhaustive list of changes to better achieve #2: 1. If the phone number starts with +xx where xx is a reserved/invalid country code, the rest is the client's base10 public key. Verification happens by signing a challenge or simply successfully performing a DH handshake instead of by SMS. 2. Provide a "pull" notification socket in the Signal server, use it if GCM is not available 3. Package the mobile-sync Chrome app with node-webkit or simply as a standalone server that auto-opens your browser to localhost:port 4. Use libtextsecure-java to make a simple standalone desktop client that could either have a command line interface or a localhost web interface (please don't use the C library, since C is not suitable for secure software) Obviously these changes could be done by third parties, not necessarily by Open Whisper Systems.