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I made a habit of using automatically disappearing messages in chat using Signal (after a day or week). You have to manually save important messages, but typica

I made a habit of using automatically disappearing messages in chat using Signal (after a day or week). You have to manually save important messages, but typically this is not an issue. The only downside is that the Signal servers may store automatically disappearing messages until all devices have received it, so you can't rely on messages being removed in due time. It would be nice to have an e2e encrypted p2p messaging platform to overcome this issue.

xena 8y ago
So, Tox?
- eeZah7Ux 8y ago
  No way. Tox claims to keep users safe from governments and does not even have a threat model in the documentation.
- OpenBSD-empire 8y ago
  Yes definitely Tox. No centralization, ID is created, managed, and stored locally. Works over Tor (the text and file transfer portions). Only things wrong with it is it doesn't do multi-device -> single ID (minor annoyance), and its mobile clients are Samantha somewhat buggy. It's more than adequate though to install on your and your family's/friends' phones and switch to it once you've roused them on an insecure normie-net medium like text or FB Messenger, saying something like "Hey Bob, you there? Let's go secure!" "Alright Alice..." and they both open their Tox clients. Security takes a modicum of effort, and with Tox the bar is set really low. Is the ability to group audio chat and get all your past messages on a new device really worth bending over and letting megacorp rape you in the privacy? Think before answering...
wtmt 8y ago
> The only downside is that the Signal servers may store automatically disappearing messages until all devices have received it, so you can't rely on messages being removed in due time. I don’t understand your problem statement. Signal is completely an end-to-end encrypted chat platform. Those messages stored on the servers are encrypted and Signal (the platform or employees) doesn’t have the keys to decrypt the messages. So what’s the issue if the messages remain on the servers until they’re delivered to the recipients’ devices? Even the non-disappearing messages don’t stay on the Signal servers forever (unlike say, Telegram).

xena 8y ago

So, Tox?

eeZah7Ux 8y ago
No way. Tox claims to keep users safe from governments and does not even have a threat model in the documentation.
OpenBSD-empire 8y ago
Yes definitely Tox. No centralization, ID is created, managed, and stored locally. Works over Tor (the text and file transfer portions). Only things wrong with it is it doesn't do multi-device -> single ID (minor annoyance), and its mobile clients are Samantha somewhat buggy. It's more than adequate though to install on your and your family's/friends' phones and switch to it once you've roused them on an insecure normie-net medium like text or FB Messenger, saying something like "Hey Bob, you there? Let's go secure!" "Alright Alice..." and they both open their Tox clients. Security takes a modicum of effort, and with Tox the bar is set really low. Is the ability to group audio chat and get all your past messages on a new device really worth bending over and letting megacorp rape you in the privacy? Think before answering...

wtmt 8y ago

> The only downside is that the Signal servers may store automatically disappearing messages until all devices have received it, so you can't rely on messages being removed in due time. I don’t understand your problem statement. Signal is completely an end-to-end encrypted chat platform. Those messages stored on the servers are encrypted and Signal (the platform or employees) doesn’t have the keys to decrypt the messages. So what’s the issue if the messages remain on the servers until they’re delivered to the recipients’ devices? Even the non-disappearing messages don’t stay on the Signal servers forever (unlike say, Telegram).