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This is a clever way to do this, but it still seems like someone caring about their privacy should just do without gifs. Edit: I should rephrase - I mean someo

by mnx 10y ago

This is a clever way to do this, but it still seems like someone caring about their privacy should just do without gifs. Edit: I should rephrase - I mean someone with a larger-than-usual need for privacy, someone paranoid for a reason. This is great for the typical privacy concious user. But if I was sending documents to WikiLeaks, I would not sum them up with a cute GIF.

nfrmatk 10y ago
Why should those of us who care about privacy be required to limit the media we use to express ourselves? By including this functionality Open Whisper Systems is giving the privacy conscious a way (albeit experimental) to have our cake and eat it too.
- CoryG89 10y ago
  I also think it's fine as long as they clearly communicate to the user that their search queries will be transmitted to a server not controlled by OWS.
- AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
  Someone else made that media. They're the one expressing something. You, the consumer of that media, are just a distributor of their work.
  - morsch 10y ago
    You seem to think that those options are exclusive when in fact gif memes are a blatant example of how they aren't. The original creator of (say) a video expresses something, a remixer expresses something when they cut it into a gif, and you're expressing something when you send someone the gif in a conversation. The thing that's expressed is almost necessarily different, and each step involves creative choices.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    When Ben Franklin said "those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety", he was making the point that, in his eyes, it would be foolish for the government of Pennsylvania, seeking help from the Penn family, to give up their freedom to levy taxes on the Penn family. When someone uses the same quote today, are they making the same point? Martin Luther King was a full-throated advocate of affirmative action, which is to say applying penalties to white people for being white. When someone today talks about "a nation where [people] will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character", are they supporting the same idea?
proaralyst 10y ago
If your aim is to get more people to care about privacy, or to enable those who care about privacy to convince their friends to use a more private app, these things help.
shalmanese 10y ago
Except that history has shown us that theoretically secure but feature deficient systems lose out to less ideologically pure systems that provide what users want, leaving the sum total amount of security provided to be less.
- kuschku 10y ago
  EDIT: Deleted the comment because the of attacks in responses, which I can’t respond to due to "Submitting too fast". @dang: If you want users to be able to actually discuss things, allow them to respond to comments attacking them. This is a retarded system.
  - nickik 10y ago
    Basically everything in your comment is wrong. > The prebuilt Signal APK might in fact be completely malicious, you can’t verify anything. https://whispersystems.org/blog/reproducible-android/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/reproducible-android/ This is already more then for all other options. > And as Signal only tries to copy the features WhatsApp and co already have Thats simply not true. WhatsApp does not support gifs, for example. Signal also has some features that others don't. > they’ll get exactly the same security with WhatsApp, Telegram or Threema, and exactly the same features. Telegram is less secure by miles. Threema is less secure by yards. WhatApp is less secure by inches. > "You can create your own federated server" Signal has never claimed that you can "federate" the server. They only mentioned that this is a feature that they might work on in the future. Since they have publicly said that they are not gone do so.
    - kuschku3 10y ago
      > Thats simply not true. WhatsApp does not support gifs, for example. Signal also has some features that others don't. Those are the most minor features. Most competitors have the exact same set of features. > Telegram is less secure by miles. Threema is less secure by yards. WhatApp is less secure by inches. With Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, and Threema I have to trust their servers, but can verify the client is secure by reading source or reversing it. In neither case can I fork the client to make it more secure, and distribute that fork, while keeping the ability to communicate with users of the official client. > Signal has never claimed that you can "federate" the server. They claimed it would be possible in the future, and I – and many others – only switched to it because of that promise. Because we saw it as something with as much security and customisability as XMPP with OMEMO, but a nicer client. What niche does Signal fill that isn’t already filled by others? It has only minor feature advantages over competitors, and no trust or security advantages. EDIT: Using a second account because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to answer within of a few hours ("You are submitting too fast"...), and by then this discussion would be over.
StavrosK 10y ago
Someone who wants gifs shouldn't have to compromise their privacy.
mobiuscog 10y ago
<facepalm.gif>
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dmvaldman 10y ago
https://twitter.com/isislovecruft/status/793796012506750977 https://twitter.com/isislovecruft/status/793796012506750977 "Lol dude, I don't know what kind of whistleblowers, dissidents, spies, and revolutionaries you're messaging but mine send all the best gifs."
- mnx 10y ago
  So, I am an "HN bro" now... Because I don't think this feature can possibly be up to the highest standards of security, despite being very cool and clever? I guess there are worse things to be called.
finnn 10y ago
At what point has Signal ever indicated that they were targeting users that were trying to send documents to wikileaks (or require similar levels of privacy/security). They have consistently said they are trying to build a messaging app that normal people want to use over stopping targeted attacks. eg [0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10665520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10665520
- mnx 10y ago
  Well, than I guess I got the wrong idea about them. I thought WhatsApp was supposed to be "for the common people", and Signal was more targeted towards the paranoid.
  - hollander 10y ago
    Signal is suitable to the paranoid, while targeting "normal" people. Snowden uses it, so that's a good indicator for the paranoid. Similar: If my mom uses it as well, that doesn't mean she's paranoid. (And I'm not saying that you said this.) And interestingly, knowing some paranoid people (by disease not profession), they usually don't care about this.
    - mnx 10y ago
      And what I was originally trying to say, is that people like Snowden, or more precisely, people requiring Snowden-like security, should probably not use this feature despite the very impressive way they made it more secure.
nilved 10y ago
This is Signal jumping the shark. Why is searching gifs their responsibility? Non-essential features should be skipped there is a single shred of security concern, which we can see there is.

by mnx 10y ago

nfrmatk 10y ago

Why should those of us who care about privacy be required to limit the media we use to express ourselves? By including this functionality Open Whisper Systems is giving the privacy conscious a way (albeit experimental) to have our cake and eat it too.

CoryG89 10y ago
I also think it's fine as long as they clearly communicate to the user that their search queries will be transmitted to a server not controlled by OWS.
AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
Someone else made that media. They're the one expressing something. You, the consumer of that media, are just a distributor of their work.
- morsch 10y ago
  You seem to think that those options are exclusive when in fact gif memes are a blatant example of how they aren't. The original creator of (say) a video expresses something, a remixer expresses something when they cut it into a gif, and you're expressing something when you send someone the gif in a conversation. The thing that's expressed is almost necessarily different, and each step involves creative choices.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  When Ben Franklin said "those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety", he was making the point that, in his eyes, it would be foolish for the government of Pennsylvania, seeking help from the Penn family, to give up their freedom to levy taxes on the Penn family. When someone uses the same quote today, are they making the same point? Martin Luther King was a full-throated advocate of affirmative action, which is to say applying penalties to white people for being white. When someone today talks about "a nation where [people] will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character", are they supporting the same idea?

proaralyst 10y ago

If your aim is to get more people to care about privacy, or to enable those who care about privacy to convince their friends to use a more private app, these things help.

shalmanese 10y ago

Except that history has shown us that theoretically secure but feature deficient systems lose out to less ideologically pure systems that provide what users want, leaving the sum total amount of security provided to be less.

kuschku 10y ago
EDIT: Deleted the comment because the of attacks in responses, which I can’t respond to due to "Submitting too fast". @dang: If you want users to be able to actually discuss things, allow them to respond to comments attacking them. This is a retarded system.
- nickik 10y ago
  Basically everything in your comment is wrong. > The prebuilt Signal APK might in fact be completely malicious, you can’t verify anything. https://whispersystems.org/blog/reproducible-android/ https://whispersystems.org/blog/reproducible-android/ This is already more then for all other options. > And as Signal only tries to copy the features WhatsApp and co already have Thats simply not true. WhatsApp does not support gifs, for example. Signal also has some features that others don't. > they’ll get exactly the same security with WhatsApp, Telegram or Threema, and exactly the same features. Telegram is less secure by miles. Threema is less secure by yards. WhatApp is less secure by inches. > "You can create your own federated server" Signal has never claimed that you can "federate" the server. They only mentioned that this is a feature that they might work on in the future. Since they have publicly said that they are not gone do so.
  - kuschku3 10y ago
    > Thats simply not true. WhatsApp does not support gifs, for example. Signal also has some features that others don't. Those are the most minor features. Most competitors have the exact same set of features. > Telegram is less secure by miles. Threema is less secure by yards. WhatApp is less secure by inches. With Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, and Threema I have to trust their servers, but can verify the client is secure by reading source or reversing it. In neither case can I fork the client to make it more secure, and distribute that fork, while keeping the ability to communicate with users of the official client. > Signal has never claimed that you can "federate" the server. They claimed it would be possible in the future, and I – and many others – only switched to it because of that promise. Because we saw it as something with as much security and customisability as XMPP with OMEMO, but a nicer client. What niche does Signal fill that isn’t already filled by others? It has only minor feature advantages over competitors, and no trust or security advantages. EDIT: Using a second account because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to answer within of a few hours ("You are submitting too fast"...), and by then this discussion would be over.

StavrosK 10y ago

Someone who wants gifs shouldn't have to compromise their privacy.

mobiuscog 10y ago

<facepalm.gif>

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dmvaldman 10y ago

https://twitter.com/isislovecruft/status/793796012506750977 https://twitter.com/isislovecruft/status/793796012506750977 "Lol dude, I don't know what kind of whistleblowers, dissidents, spies, and revolutionaries you're messaging but mine send all the best gifs."

mnx 10y ago
So, I am an "HN bro" now... Because I don't think this feature can possibly be up to the highest standards of security, despite being very cool and clever? I guess there are worse things to be called.

finnn 10y ago

At what point has Signal ever indicated that they were targeting users that were trying to send documents to wikileaks (or require similar levels of privacy/security). They have consistently said they are trying to build a messaging app that normal people want to use over stopping targeted attacks. eg [0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10665520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10665520

mnx 10y ago
Well, than I guess I got the wrong idea about them. I thought WhatsApp was supposed to be "for the common people", and Signal was more targeted towards the paranoid.
- hollander 10y ago
  Signal is suitable to the paranoid, while targeting "normal" people. Snowden uses it, so that's a good indicator for the paranoid. Similar: If my mom uses it as well, that doesn't mean she's paranoid. (And I'm not saying that you said this.) And interestingly, knowing some paranoid people (by disease not profession), they usually don't care about this.
  - mnx 10y ago
    And what I was originally trying to say, is that people like Snowden, or more precisely, people requiring Snowden-like security, should probably not use this feature despite the very impressive way they made it more secure.

nilved 10y ago

This is Signal jumping the shark. Why is searching gifs their responsibility? Non-essential features should be skipped there is a single shred of security concern, which we can see there is.