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Here's Moxie's justification/explanation for the design decision to make Signal centralized: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.or

Here's Moxie's justification/explanation for the design decision to make Signal centralized: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ > An open source infrastructure for a centralized network now provides almost the same level of control as federated protocols, without giving up the ability to adapt. If a centralized provider with an open source infrastructure ever makes horrible changes, those that disagree have the software they need to run their own alternative instead. It may not be as beautiful as federation, but at this point it seems that it will have to do.

nerdponx 9y ago
That's fair, but it still entails additional trust in the host. On, e.g. Matrix, I can run my own homeserver, so if something evil happens on another homeserver it's not really a big deal for me, unless there's a protocol vulnerability that allows them to mess with my own homeserver. Whereas on Signal, I might not even know if the centralized host has been compromised, and then as a casual user I have to wait around until a non-compromised host has appeared. I get it, but I don't really get it. The argument that "federation does freeze protocols in time" doens't make a ton of sense to me. Just look at Bitcoin: people want to keep participating, so they upgrade. It's probably easier to get a bunch of scattered servers to upgrade than a few centralized ones.
- theptip 9y ago
  Absolutely, it's a trade-off, and is probably strictly worse for power users. As a counterpoint to Bitcoin (which is still quite a young and under-adopted protocol), consider how hard it has proven to upgrade the IP protocol from version 4 to 6 (20 years and still not complete?)
  - im3w1l 9y ago
    Ip works at a much deeper level which is why it's harder to change. Everything uses ip, including hardware and software that's no longer getting updated but is still in use.
    - theptip 9y ago
      Which supports my point -- the quote "federation does freeze protocols in time" was being questioned, and IPv4 is the textbook example of a federated protocol that was frozen in time.
- xwvvvvwx 9y ago
  Considering how the block size debate played out over the last few years, I'm not sure Bitcoin is such a great example of easy protocol upgrades.
lrvick 9y ago
I have a lot of respect for moxie helping create the signal protocol. I think the problem is many extend that respect to take his word as gospel for everything else, including stuff like this that is total nonsense. 1) We -can't- just take the backend of signal and deploy our own because all clients are hardcoded to use Signal central servers. You currently -must- trust central Signal servers to not store metadata and the government their servers live under. You totally can have end to end encryption -and- have federation as Matrix.org and Riot.im have well demonstrated. 2) There is no reason at all you need to be centralized to encrypt SMS via the signal protocol. The Silence project has already demonstrated this https://silence.im/ https://silence.im/
- Arathorn 9y ago
  tbf, decentralisation + e2e crypto is hard, as we've discovered at Matrix & Riot. You can have some wonderfully nasty situations if you don't know which devices (or even users) are in a given room, because the room is by definition not globally consistent due to being decentralised. Although we're doggedly working through addressing all the edge cases which result; my guess is that it's about 6x more work than the equivalent centralised service.
Shoothe 9y ago
It's useful to also bring counter-arguments to this exact post: https://gultsch.de/objection.html https://gultsch.de/objection.html

nerdponx 9y ago

That's fair, but it still entails additional trust in the host. On, e.g. Matrix, I can run my own homeserver, so if something evil happens on another homeserver it's not really a big deal for me, unless there's a protocol vulnerability that allows them to mess with my own homeserver. Whereas on Signal, I might not even know if the centralized host has been compromised, and then as a casual user I have to wait around until a non-compromised host has appeared. I get it, but I don't really get it. The argument that "federation does freeze protocols in time" doens't make a ton of sense to me. Just look at Bitcoin: people want to keep participating, so they upgrade. It's probably easier to get a bunch of scattered servers to upgrade than a few centralized ones.

theptip 9y ago
Absolutely, it's a trade-off, and is probably strictly worse for power users. As a counterpoint to Bitcoin (which is still quite a young and under-adopted protocol), consider how hard it has proven to upgrade the IP protocol from version 4 to 6 (20 years and still not complete?)
- im3w1l 9y ago
  Ip works at a much deeper level which is why it's harder to change. Everything uses ip, including hardware and software that's no longer getting updated but is still in use.
  - theptip 9y ago
    Which supports my point -- the quote "federation does freeze protocols in time" was being questioned, and IPv4 is the textbook example of a federated protocol that was frozen in time.
xwvvvvwx 9y ago
Considering how the block size debate played out over the last few years, I'm not sure Bitcoin is such a great example of easy protocol upgrades.

lrvick 9y ago

I have a lot of respect for moxie helping create the signal protocol. I think the problem is many extend that respect to take his word as gospel for everything else, including stuff like this that is total nonsense. 1) We -can't- just take the backend of signal and deploy our own because all clients are hardcoded to use Signal central servers. You currently -must- trust central Signal servers to not store metadata and the government their servers live under. You totally can have end to end encryption -and- have federation as Matrix.org and Riot.im have well demonstrated. 2) There is no reason at all you need to be centralized to encrypt SMS via the signal protocol. The Silence project has already demonstrated this https://silence.im/ https://silence.im/

Arathorn 9y ago
tbf, decentralisation + e2e crypto is hard, as we've discovered at Matrix & Riot. You can have some wonderfully nasty situations if you don't know which devices (or even users) are in a given room, because the room is by definition not globally consistent due to being decentralised. Although we're doggedly working through addressing all the edge cases which result; my guess is that it's about 6x more work than the equivalent centralised service.

Shoothe 9y ago

It's useful to also bring counter-arguments to this exact post: https://gultsch.de/objection.html https://gultsch.de/objection.html