9 ms·

Signal was experiencing technical difficulties

69 points by thsowers 7y ago

andrewxdiamond 7y ago
Signal's quality issues are why I switched to telegram. The performance, quality, and UX are years ahead of Signal. Plus, I've never had a message drop on telegram, very much unlike Signal. The one drawback is chats aren't e2e encrypted by default, but there is an option to have "Secret Chats" which are e2e encrypted.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
ilikestuff42 7y ago
Explains why I was having issues this morning. Was receiving messages on the desktop app, but not my phone, and none of my messages where bring received regardless of where I sent them from. Oh well, had they're working on it.
armitron 7y ago
Benefits of centralization.
- bitskits 7y ago
  Outages?
  - dijit 7y ago
    More like: "When it's down, it's just down for everyone and there's nothing you can do" If most messaging systems were IRC, XMPP or Matrix then and the status quo was not that Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp were the most popular instant messaging solutions, then Signal being so centralised would look quite odd and we might have cause to criticise them. The situation is not that, however we can still fault them for this.
generalpass 7y ago
> Signal is up and running.
- thsowers 7y ago
  Just updated the title, thanks!
BelleOfTheBall 7y ago
I presume it might be them struggling to deal with increased traffic from the quarantined crowd? Although I'm not sure how many users Signal has now and how much of an increase it's experienced.
nimbius 7y ago
this only serves to highlight how critical it is for signal to switch to a distributed design. Its a great technology, but worthless if regimes can just QoS it into oblivion or block it entirely.
- ddevault 7y ago
  Signal won't switch to a distributed or federated model because it does not serve Moxie's interests. This has been brought up again, and again, and again, but a centralized design gives Moxie more power so it doesn't matter if it cripples security, privacy, or reliability.
  - q3k 7y ago
    I'm glad that as an industry we're starting to speak up about this. I can't wait for Matrix to gain more traction as its UX gets friendlier with time with Mozilla pouring a bunch of resources into that.
  - pvg 7y ago
    Signal and Moxie specifically have outlined their reasons in detail and, by all indications, in good faith. You might not agree with these reasons or think they are outright mistaken but constantly insinuating that they are acting nefariously is something you should stop doing, at least on HN.
    - ddevault 7y ago
      I have written at length to enumerate the many indications that Signal and Moxie's engagement on the subject has not been in good faith. Exactly what does it take for you to give up the presumption of good faith? How long will you allow yourself to be gaslit by their self-serving lies?
      - beervirus 7y ago
        Link?
h4waii 7y ago
What a horrible status page, for a project of 1 person or 1 million persons, this is slightly above useless. Stripe [0] and Segment [1] have pretty useful status pages, which provide, in my opinion, the real reason for a status page -- to confirm there isn't a problem on your end or that an issue you're facing is or isn't a problem with the service so you can escalate accordingly. 0. https://status.stripe.com/ https://status.stripe.com/ 1. https://status.segment.com/ https://status.segment.com/
nikisweeting 7y ago
Has it ever not been? I've been unable to receive messages on desktop for 6+ months. The mobile app constantly loses message history and fails to receive notifications as well. I've submitted multiple detailed support tickets with screenshots, steps to reproduce, etc, to no avail, never even got a response.
- ornornor 7y ago
  Never had such issues with signal on android or iOS. Maybe you have bad luck?
  - nikisweeting 7y ago
    Maybe, but I've never had any issues like this with iMessage or WhatsApp. Doesn't make me particularly keen on recommending my friends to use Signal.
- prophesi 7y ago
  I've used it across three different mobile phones and countless desktop devices over the years without any issues. Did you accidentally set the messages to expire after a short time? Are you using more than one mobile phone? I also recommend submitting an actual github issue to either their Desktop or Android/iOS repo with those detailed instructions.
  - nikisweeting 7y ago
    Most definitely not using expiring messages, each message shows up as "Error handling incoming message" instead of the message text, but otherwise looks the same as a normal message.
- JoachimSchipper 7y ago
  Signals Works For Me, on iOS, and for many others. I get that you're frustrated, but Signal really can work.
  - 7y ago
contingencies 7y ago
"Private messaging" ala Signal. Step 1. Give us all your contacts. Step 2. Send you an SMS to immediately alert anyone monitoring traditional communications systems that you are a person of interest. Step 3. Maintain traditional E.164 telephony network identifiers, increasingly unavailable without government issued ID and permanently linked to location records, as the primary account identifier for discovery. Step 4. Ensure software refuses to work without said identifier. Great job guys. And yet, click on their website and you get these positive reviews from Snowden, Poitras, Schneier. What gives? Edit: Why is this flagged?
- misterCrowley 7y ago
  They don't have any monetization channels, so I can accept that for a free service
gojomo 7y ago
For a tool that aspires to be critical privacy infrastructure, Signal is quite opaque in its operations.
gojomo 7y ago
There's an interesting fork of Signal, called 'Session', that aims to remedy many of the flaws in Signal's infrastructure/strategic choices. It's young - needing a lot more analysis & track record before earning serious credibility – but you can check it out at: https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/ Some of its Signal-contrasting goals include: * no phone numbers needed * onion-routed messages * multi-device sync * no central point of failure I also don't see anything in Session's materials that they're placing Intel™ SGX™ at key points in mandatory introduction/contact-uploading/cloud-backup steps – as Signal likes to do.
- fmjrey 7y ago
  > Intel™ SGX™ What difference does this make (genuine question)?
  - gojomo 7y ago
    Many people don't trust Intel & the SGX technology. Intel controls the initial attestation keys – so you're dependent on their goodwill. Much of the world will view Intel as being as cheerfully compliant with US government requests, including undisclosed & arguably-illegal requests. (That's just like how some in the US view Huawei as being compliant in undisclosed ways with the Chinese government's requests.) Sophisticated, high-budget/state-supported attackers may be able to compromise SGX units, via physical analysis/disassembly/reassembly. (This might happen before a unit is placed in service, or just show up to the outside as a temporary service outage.) So any secrecy/security features provided by their qualities could be a false promise. Numerous flaws have been discovered, and more are likely to be discovered, in SGX. Try: https://www.google.com/search?q=SGX+flaws https://www.google.com/search?q=SGX+flaws Some security experts deeply distrust both SGX specifically, and the general idea that such a piece of hardware could provide the touted benefits against sufficiently-sophisticated attackers.
- Gaelan 7y ago
  I mean, SGX is strictly an improvement over the same protocol without SGX.

69 points by thsowers 7y ago

Signal's quality issues are why I switched to telegram. The performance, quality, and UX are years ahead of Signal. Plus, I've never had a message drop on telegram, very much unlike Signal. The one drawback is chats aren't e2e encrypted by default, but there is an option to have "Secret Chats" which are e2e encrypted.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

ilikestuff42 7y ago

Explains why I was having issues this morning. Was receiving messages on the desktop app, but not my phone, and none of my messages where bring received regardless of where I sent them from. Oh well, had they're working on it.

armitron 7y ago

Benefits of centralization.

bitskits 7y ago
Outages?
- dijit 7y ago
  More like: "When it's down, it's just down for everyone and there's nothing you can do" If most messaging systems were IRC, XMPP or Matrix then and the status quo was not that Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp were the most popular instant messaging solutions, then Signal being so centralised would look quite odd and we might have cause to criticise them. The situation is not that, however we can still fault them for this.

generalpass 7y ago

> Signal is up and running.

thsowers 7y ago
Just updated the title, thanks!

BelleOfTheBall 7y ago

I presume it might be them struggling to deal with increased traffic from the quarantined crowd? Although I'm not sure how many users Signal has now and how much of an increase it's experienced.

nimbius 7y ago

this only serves to highlight how critical it is for signal to switch to a distributed design. Its a great technology, but worthless if regimes can just QoS it into oblivion or block it entirely.

ddevault 7y ago
Signal won't switch to a distributed or federated model because it does not serve Moxie's interests. This has been brought up again, and again, and again, but a centralized design gives Moxie more power so it doesn't matter if it cripples security, privacy, or reliability.
- q3k 7y ago
  I'm glad that as an industry we're starting to speak up about this. I can't wait for Matrix to gain more traction as its UX gets friendlier with time with Mozilla pouring a bunch of resources into that.
- pvg 7y ago
  Signal and Moxie specifically have outlined their reasons in detail and, by all indications, in good faith. You might not agree with these reasons or think they are outright mistaken but constantly insinuating that they are acting nefariously is something you should stop doing, at least on HN.
  - ddevault 7y ago
    I have written at length to enumerate the many indications that Signal and Moxie's engagement on the subject has not been in good faith. Exactly what does it take for you to give up the presumption of good faith? How long will you allow yourself to be gaslit by their self-serving lies?
    - beervirus 7y ago
      Link?

h4waii 7y ago

What a horrible status page, for a project of 1 person or 1 million persons, this is slightly above useless. Stripe [0] and Segment [1] have pretty useful status pages, which provide, in my opinion, the real reason for a status page -- to confirm there isn't a problem on your end or that an issue you're facing is or isn't a problem with the service so you can escalate accordingly. 0. https://status.stripe.com/ https://status.stripe.com/ 1. https://status.segment.com/ https://status.segment.com/

nikisweeting 7y ago

Has it ever not been? I've been unable to receive messages on desktop for 6+ months. The mobile app constantly loses message history and fails to receive notifications as well. I've submitted multiple detailed support tickets with screenshots, steps to reproduce, etc, to no avail, never even got a response.

ornornor 7y ago
Never had such issues with signal on android or iOS. Maybe you have bad luck?
- nikisweeting 7y ago
  Maybe, but I've never had any issues like this with iMessage or WhatsApp. Doesn't make me particularly keen on recommending my friends to use Signal.
prophesi 7y ago
I've used it across three different mobile phones and countless desktop devices over the years without any issues. Did you accidentally set the messages to expire after a short time? Are you using more than one mobile phone? I also recommend submitting an actual github issue to either their Desktop or Android/iOS repo with those detailed instructions.
- nikisweeting 7y ago
  Most definitely not using expiring messages, each message shows up as "Error handling incoming message" instead of the message text, but otherwise looks the same as a normal message.
JoachimSchipper 7y ago
Signals Works For Me, on iOS, and for many others. I get that you're frustrated, but Signal really can work.
- 7y ago

contingencies 7y ago

"Private messaging" ala Signal. Step 1. Give us all your contacts. Step 2. Send you an SMS to immediately alert anyone monitoring traditional communications systems that you are a person of interest. Step 3. Maintain traditional E.164 telephony network identifiers, increasingly unavailable without government issued ID and permanently linked to location records, as the primary account identifier for discovery. Step 4. Ensure software refuses to work without said identifier. Great job guys. And yet, click on their website and you get these positive reviews from Snowden, Poitras, Schneier. What gives? Edit: Why is this flagged?

misterCrowley 7y ago
They don't have any monetization channels, so I can accept that for a free service

gojomo 7y ago

For a tool that aspires to be critical privacy infrastructure, Signal is quite opaque in its operations.

gojomo 7y ago

There's an interesting fork of Signal, called 'Session', that aims to remedy many of the flaws in Signal's infrastructure/strategic choices. It's young - needing a lot more analysis & track record before earning serious credibility – but you can check it out at: https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/ Some of its Signal-contrasting goals include: * no phone numbers needed * onion-routed messages * multi-device sync * no central point of failure I also don't see anything in Session's materials that they're placing Intel™ SGX™ at key points in mandatory introduction/contact-uploading/cloud-backup steps – as Signal likes to do.

fmjrey 7y ago
> Intel™ SGX™ What difference does this make (genuine question)?
- gojomo 7y ago
  Many people don't trust Intel & the SGX technology. Intel controls the initial attestation keys – so you're dependent on their goodwill. Much of the world will view Intel as being as cheerfully compliant with US government requests, including undisclosed & arguably-illegal requests. (That's just like how some in the US view Huawei as being compliant in undisclosed ways with the Chinese government's requests.) Sophisticated, high-budget/state-supported attackers may be able to compromise SGX units, via physical analysis/disassembly/reassembly. (This might happen before a unit is placed in service, or just show up to the outside as a temporary service outage.) So any secrecy/security features provided by their qualities could be a false promise. Numerous flaws have been discovered, and more are likely to be discovered, in SGX. Try: https://www.google.com/search?q=SGX+flaws https://www.google.com/search?q=SGX+flaws Some security experts deeply distrust both SGX specifically, and the general idea that such a piece of hardware could provide the touted benefits against sufficiently-sophisticated attackers.
Gaelan 7y ago
I mean, SGX is strictly an improvement over the same protocol without SGX.