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As an EU citizen I think that's a great decision.
by akie 7y ago
As an EU citizen I think that's a great decision.
- Angostura 7y agoI think it is a great decision, but it wil hopefully persuade other people in public bodies to follow suit - such as my friends who work in senior positions in a hospital and use Whatsapp - a practice that started when ransomware took down the NHS e-mail.
- qznc 7y agoI hope nobody tells them that WhatsApp uses the same protocol. The argument for Signal would not be weaker but more complicated.
- nico_h 7y agoIs there no open source or European alternative? Just keep relying on some Californian dude that insist i give him my and my friends phone numbers? And harass me so i give him more info to “personalize my profile” !?
- bluecmd 7y agoSignal is open source
- DyslexicAtheist 7y agowire: https://github.com/wireapp https://github.com/wireapp session (very bleeding-edge p2p signal fork) https://github.com/Loki-project https://github.com/Loki-project / https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/
- icebraining 7y agoHow does he harass you?!
- nico_h 7y ago- I added a first name to my conversation contacts, but it keeps showing the phone number. In the app and in notifications. - There is a fixed pop under at the bottom of the screen asking me to confirm my profile name, with “Get Started” or “remind me later” (which is apparently every time i come back to the app), and no “never“ option. I had already put a first name but that’s not good enough. Had to do it again to confirm i don’t want to share a last name with him / them. - why does he care about the distinction between a “first name” (mandatory) and “Last Name” (optional) -> Only the user should care about the name. => Why should the app / he / them get access to my contacts list to update a contact name? I’m perfectly willing to have duplicate contacts siloed in a “secure messaging app”. Also, could someone explain why the app need phone numbers ? They only send some initial token over SMS, which can be spoofed.
- Avamander 7y agoThe phone number deregister flow is such a dark pattern it's incredible. Not something a chat app should ever do to be reputable.
- icebraining 7y agoHow so?
- Avamander 7y agoIf you uninstall the app it has a seven day forced delay for releasing your phone number, it isn't disclosed anywhere and the form just silently errors out when seven days haven't passed.
- stingraycharles 7y agoThis is the “perfect solution fallacy”; just because Signal doesn’t check all the boxes, doesn’t mean it isn’t an improvement over the existing situation. Secure communications is the immediate goal, nation sovereignty secondary. Looking at the other comments, the European alternatives don’t look very secure, so it looks like they prioritized security here.
- feanaro 7y ago> Looking at the other comments, the European alternatives don’t look very secure, so it looks like they prioritized security here. In what way are Wire and Matrix not very secure, though?
- Dahoon 7y agoTo be secure step one should always be "Pick a service not controlled by your adversaries' law or intelligence community". Skipping step one has nothing to do with a perfect solution fallacy but is more like "Pissing in your pants for warmth". A half-broken service would be better than one under US control as the US is the one doing the most snooping on EU. Getting everyone to switch if Signal ever stops being secure would be way harder than to pick a better service now and help secure it. Matrix would be a better choice for one. Saying EU services isn't secure is hyperbole.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y agowire.com is a good option. Open source, chats, calls, video calls, web app, phone app, etc.
- orr721 7y agowire.com moved HQ to US and “Individual consumers are no longer part of Wire’s strategy.”
- dependenttypes 7y agoWell they could use xmpp with omemo.
- feanaro 7y agoThere's Matrix (https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/).
- upofadown 7y agoThere is always boring old XMPP as commonly used for corporate stuff. But then they would have to try to explain to people what a protocol is. That ends up being a problem with IM stuff where people think of the client as the service.
- neuronic 7y agoThere is Threema. Does it have drawbacks?
- throwaway1590 7y agoThere are, but it should be simple enough for non-techies (politicians) to understand. They could use Threema (Swiss) or Wire, but either-way it's better than plain SMS.
- jeltz 7y agoThere is Matrix, which is as far as I know backed by a British company.
- hans_castorp 7y agoI don't think so. Signal might be open source but the servers are still run in the USA and thus are subject to the US "legal system" (which in turn is subject to the mood of its president).
- cpbotha 7y agoSignal servers only know who talked to whom, but otherwise are physically not able to see even a smattering of the contents of the communication. Correction: The signal servers don't even have that bit of metadata. See [1], they only store the last time that a user connected to the server. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Servers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Servers
- m4rtink 7y agoCan one really trust they don't store more if they physicaly have the information at one point in time ? Or possibly their upstream connectivity provider could do that metadata scrapping.
- josh2600 7y agoI will link to this each and every time this comes up: https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/ Signal turned over everything they had on this user (which was two time stamps: user creation and last access), and fought the gag order to be able to publish the subpoena and the response. Signal would have to be pretty stupid to lie to a federal court. Think what you want, but Signal doesn’t have any metadata to turn over.
- hans_castorp 7y agoAnd how often where the silenced by US law and weren't even allowed to mention such a thing? We will never know.
- DrScientist 7y ago