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Right. And while I generally dismiss conspiracy theories about the protocol itself (and have great respect for moxie), the one thing I find very curious is thei
by daxorid 9y ago
Right. And while I generally dismiss conspiracy theories about the protocol itself (and have great respect for moxie), the one thing I find very curious is their staunch refusal to implement anything other than phone numbers as account identifiers.
There's absolutely no reason not to, and yet they refuse to do it.
- xap 9y agoUsability. As soon as you install Signal you can message all your friends (whether they have Signal or not), because you already have their phone numbers. This feature is possibly the most important reason that Signal has seen widespread adoption in average-user land. Signal makes a lot of decisions for you, which enrages nerds but is actually pretty appealing to everyone else.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago> As soon as you install Signal you can message all your friends (whether they have Signal or not), because you already have their phone numbers. I had no idea. I've played with Telegram before but didn't know anyone else that used it. I was looking for new SMS app now that Google Hangouts no longer allows you to consolidate carrier and Google Voice SMSs in the same app - switching to Signal means I get the security portion for free.
- nindalf 9y agoYou're probably already aware but just to be clear, Signal offers no security related benefit while using ordinary SMS. Only messages sent to another Signal user are encrypted.
- LyndsySimon 9y agoYep, intuitively I saw no way it could, except perhaps offering at-rest encryption of message history on your device. It gives me one place for encrypted and plain-text SMS though, and that's a very good thing.