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I cringed in anticipation of the HN comments on this one. Cue the inevitable HN complaints that it's not perfect security, that you still have to trust your CP

I cringed in anticipation of the HN comments on this one. Cue the inevitable HN complaints that it's not perfect security, that you still have to trust your CPU manufacturer, that the app permissions are too invasive, that it uses phone numbers as identifiers, and that it runs on Google play services. Pull your head out of the trees and look at the forest: humanity desperately needs privacy herd immunity, and you are taking the part of digital anti-vaxxer. Signal is one of the best options available for privacy: thoughtfully architected by a leader in the field, reliable, with a good UI and reasonable adoption, and genuinely open source. People NEED an alternative to Facebook messenger, Facebook WhatsApp, closed source Viber and Telegram, and carrier SMS. By refusing to recommend this extremely good, strong contender, you are actively hurting the causes of privacy and open source. Stop being a digital anti-vaxxer. If you have complaints, submit a PR or make a compatible fork. But stop discouraging people from protecting themselves. Or alternatively: if you're going to be a digital anti-vaxxer, hit up Facebook, Google, or the NSA to see if they'll send you a paycheck for it. Because doing their jobs for free is just dumb.

tentaTherapist 9y ago
I agree with your message but you're way too harsh. At least these guys, unlike antivaxxers, have genuine concerns. Maybe they're not considering the even worse alternatives in their comments, but then again, that's not really their business. Signal isn't losing users because a couple of nerds are pointing out weaknesses in its security.
snaky 9y ago
> People NEED an alternative to Facebook messenger, Facebook WhatsApp, closed source Viber and Telegram In a broad sense, they don't actually - being pretty much happy with all these messengers.
- dijit 9y ago
  Telegram is not closed source. Unless they mean the server. And in terms of server, Signals is "open source" but you can't run one yourself so how can you be sure really. :\
  - snaky 9y ago
    You're right, but I mean there's no messenger problem at all for vast majority of the people, and privacy and security aren't features people tend to choose over any other feature.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
Confiks 9y ago
You might want to try to stop telling people what they may or may not do. You want to stifle possibly valid criticism with dogma by comparing the healthy and informatve discussion here with 'anti-vaxxers'. Adding to that, nobody in the top 10 root comments is actually "discouraging people from protecting themselves".
dijit 9y ago
Here it is again. >Anything against signal is propaganda and anti-privacy because of the big picture >anything against telegram is deserved because I've been told it's bad that they rolled their own crypto Fragmentation/competition in this space is good. If you think whatsapp is less secure than Signal despite the author of this software working on it then maybe you need to evaluate for yourself if he is indeed "a leader in the field".
newscracker 9y ago
This particular change on private contact discovery looks like a great initiative, like many others by Signal. I'm all for privacy and security. That said, I like the idea of Signal, but don't use it at all. The reasons are straightforward. It's not as good as Telegram in UX/UI/features. It is not multi-platform (I don't like installing Chrome/Chromium just to add Signal). Worst of all, it doesn't have multi-device message sync (like Wire does, even with end-to-end encryption). Ok, fine, I could learn to live with those limitations and quirkiness. But far worse than all of the above is the fact that if you change devices (at least on iOS), you start with a blank slate [1] because Signal's developers refuse to allow data backups and restores (encrypted ones through iTunes on a computer or plain backups on iCloud). [2] The application does not allow backups of the data because the developers have actively restricted it! Not everyone is capable of creating a PR or forking it. The people who did take the time to file it as an issue or a request have been told it won't be done or the issues left unresponded to or locked for further commenting. Anyone interested in what's been happening on this particular issue can visit https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues , search for "backup" and look at the open and closed issues over the past few years. I feel bad to say this, but without a minimally decent UX, which Signal does not provide IMO, I can't recommend it to anyone. People don't expect to lose all previous chats and conversations when they buy a new phone. Quoting a line from the blog post, albeit out of context, that's not "We want to enable online social interactions that are rich and expressive in all the ways that people desire" means - not to me personally. [1]: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/212476798 https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/212476798 [2]: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues/2290 https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues/2290

tentaTherapist 9y ago

I agree with your message but you're way too harsh. At least these guys, unlike antivaxxers, have genuine concerns. Maybe they're not considering the even worse alternatives in their comments, but then again, that's not really their business. Signal isn't losing users because a couple of nerds are pointing out weaknesses in its security.

snaky 9y ago

> People NEED an alternative to Facebook messenger, Facebook WhatsApp, closed source Viber and Telegram In a broad sense, they don't actually - being pretty much happy with all these messengers.

dijit 9y ago
Telegram is not closed source. Unless they mean the server. And in terms of server, Signals is "open source" but you can't run one yourself so how can you be sure really. :\
- snaky 9y ago
  You're right, but I mean there's no messenger problem at all for vast majority of the people, and privacy and security aren't features people tend to choose over any other feature.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

Confiks 9y ago

You might want to try to stop telling people what they may or may not do. You want to stifle possibly valid criticism with dogma by comparing the healthy and informatve discussion here with 'anti-vaxxers'. Adding to that, nobody in the top 10 root comments is actually "discouraging people from protecting themselves".

dijit 9y ago

Here it is again. >Anything against signal is propaganda and anti-privacy because of the big picture >anything against telegram is deserved because I've been told it's bad that they rolled their own crypto Fragmentation/competition in this space is good. If you think whatsapp is less secure than Signal despite the author of this software working on it then maybe you need to evaluate for yourself if he is indeed "a leader in the field".

newscracker 9y ago

This particular change on private contact discovery looks like a great initiative, like many others by Signal. I'm all for privacy and security. That said, I like the idea of Signal, but don't use it at all. The reasons are straightforward. It's not as good as Telegram in UX/UI/features. It is not multi-platform (I don't like installing Chrome/Chromium just to add Signal). Worst of all, it doesn't have multi-device message sync (like Wire does, even with end-to-end encryption). Ok, fine, I could learn to live with those limitations and quirkiness. But far worse than all of the above is the fact that if you change devices (at least on iOS), you start with a blank slate [1] because Signal's developers refuse to allow data backups and restores (encrypted ones through iTunes on a computer or plain backups on iCloud). [2] The application does not allow backups of the data because the developers have actively restricted it! Not everyone is capable of creating a PR or forking it. The people who did take the time to file it as an issue or a request have been told it won't be done or the issues left unresponded to or locked for further commenting. Anyone interested in what's been happening on this particular issue can visit https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues , search for "backup" and look at the open and closed issues over the past few years. I feel bad to say this, but without a minimally decent UX, which Signal does not provide IMO, I can't recommend it to anyone. People don't expect to lose all previous chats and conversations when they buy a new phone. Quoting a line from the blog post, albeit out of context, that's not "We want to enable online social interactions that are rich and expressive in all the ways that people desire" means - not to me personally. [1]: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/212476798 https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/212476798 [2]: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues/2290 https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues/2290