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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

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?
      - ddevault 7y ago
        https://drewdevault.com/2018/08/08/Signal.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/08/08/Signal.html
    - tptacek 7y ago
      I think a reasonable reading of your argument is: "I told Moxie that Signal should be federated and that the Signal application should be deployed officially on the F-Droid app store. He disagreed. Here is why that makes him a bad person..." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723973
      - ddevault 7y ago
        Any onlookers are encouraged to read my actual ~2,000 word article and forward tptacek's ~30 word bad faith reduction of it to /dev/null.
        tptacek 7y ago
        I stand by my analysis, which is derived from a re-reading of your pointless 2018 post and the ensuing HN thread, and welcome any substantive rebuttal you'd like to generate. By the way: you get a million extra points for ghost editing your Matrix recommendation out of your post after being called out on the fact that it didn't even do E2E by default. It's still right there on Archive.org. If you flip through the Archive snapshots, you even had a changelog on this post at one point!
        ddevault 7y ago
        >By the way: you get a million extra points for ghost editing your Matrix recommendation out of your post after being called out on the fact that it didn't even do E2E by default. It's still right there on Archive.org. I issued a correction and I'm still the bad guy? You simply can't even pretend to engage me in good faith today, can you?
        kick 7y ago
        To be fair, normally when corrections are issued on posts, the corrections are noted. You've even done this before: https://drewdevault.com/2018/02/05/Introduction-to-POSIX-shell.html#fnref:2 https://drewdevault.com/2018/02/05/Introduction-to-POSIX-she... I don't think you're the bad guy here, but the criticism was that you ghost-edited, not that you issued a correction. Of course, your blog is publicly version-controlled, so it probably wasn't intentional on your part.
- tptacek 7y ago
  In fact, the Signal team has been explicit about why they won't federate, and, unsurprisingly, you're doing your level best to avoid being charitable to their explanation and to instead substitute your own reasoning. Moxie's "interests" are in ensuring that that every aspect of the Signal ecosystem serves the goal of deploying cryptographic privacy to the largest number of people. This is why Signal didn't even have user profiles until recently, why it won't be until this year at the earliest that they have non-phone-number identifiers, and why even the GIF sharing feature of the application has its own purpose-built tunneling scheme. Signal simply takes privacy a lot more seriously than other tools --- especially the tool you yourself recommended, Matrix, which (while a fine and worthy project) didn't even enable E2E by default when you recommended it. The problem federation poses to Signal's goal is the same problem Matrix faced: it forces the system into compatibility compromises with lowest-common-denominator clients. Right now, the Signal team can deploy a new privacy-preserving feature universally to all its users without negotiating with any third parties. With a federated design, they obviously could not do that. Since these kinds of features are essentially all Signal works on (much to the consternation of Hacker News), that issue is important. But you know all this, because we've had the same "debate", with the same points made, ever since you wrote the "I Don't Trust Signal" article that derived from first principles Moxie Marlinspike's malign goals from the fact that Signal didn't support F-Droid. The fact that you're not disclosing any of this context in your random snipes at Signal on unrelated threads is much better evidence of your bona fides than any of your arguments have been about Moxie's.
  - ddevault 7y ago
    I am under no obligation to repeatedly help you resurface your ridiculous arguments in every thread about Signal. You consistently disregard most of my points, latching on only the ones that you think you can use to paint my opinion in a bad light. I have rebuked you in exhaustive detail many times before, and I have no intention of entertaining your ravings again.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      Here's the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723973 I'm pretty comfortable with how it represents what I said today.
ajconway 7y ago
Centralized services can experience outages, but federation does not automatically solve all of the availability issues.

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?
    - ddevault 7y ago
      https://drewdevault.com/2018/08/08/Signal.html https://drewdevault.com/2018/08/08/Signal.html
  - tptacek 7y ago
    I think a reasonable reading of your argument is: "I told Moxie that Signal should be federated and that the Signal application should be deployed officially on the F-Droid app store. He disagreed. Here is why that makes him a bad person..." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723973
    - ddevault 7y ago
      Any onlookers are encouraged to read my actual ~2,000 word article and forward tptacek's ~30 word bad faith reduction of it to /dev/null.
      - tptacek 7y ago
        I stand by my analysis, which is derived from a re-reading of your pointless 2018 post and the ensuing HN thread, and welcome any substantive rebuttal you'd like to generate. By the way: you get a million extra points for ghost editing your Matrix recommendation out of your post after being called out on the fact that it didn't even do E2E by default. It's still right there on Archive.org. If you flip through the Archive snapshots, you even had a changelog on this post at one point!
        ddevault 7y ago
        >By the way: you get a million extra points for ghost editing your Matrix recommendation out of your post after being called out on the fact that it didn't even do E2E by default. It's still right there on Archive.org. I issued a correction and I'm still the bad guy? You simply can't even pretend to engage me in good faith today, can you?
        kick 7y ago
        To be fair, normally when corrections are issued on posts, the corrections are noted. You've even done this before: https://drewdevault.com/2018/02/05/Introduction-to-POSIX-shell.html#fnref:2 https://drewdevault.com/2018/02/05/Introduction-to-POSIX-she... I don't think you're the bad guy here, but the criticism was that you ghost-edited, not that you issued a correction. Of course, your blog is publicly version-controlled, so it probably wasn't intentional on your part.
tptacek 7y ago
In fact, the Signal team has been explicit about why they won't federate, and, unsurprisingly, you're doing your level best to avoid being charitable to their explanation and to instead substitute your own reasoning. Moxie's "interests" are in ensuring that that every aspect of the Signal ecosystem serves the goal of deploying cryptographic privacy to the largest number of people. This is why Signal didn't even have user profiles until recently, why it won't be until this year at the earliest that they have non-phone-number identifiers, and why even the GIF sharing feature of the application has its own purpose-built tunneling scheme. Signal simply takes privacy a lot more seriously than other tools --- especially the tool you yourself recommended, Matrix, which (while a fine and worthy project) didn't even enable E2E by default when you recommended it. The problem federation poses to Signal's goal is the same problem Matrix faced: it forces the system into compatibility compromises with lowest-common-denominator clients. Right now, the Signal team can deploy a new privacy-preserving feature universally to all its users without negotiating with any third parties. With a federated design, they obviously could not do that. Since these kinds of features are essentially all Signal works on (much to the consternation of Hacker News), that issue is important. But you know all this, because we've had the same "debate", with the same points made, ever since you wrote the "I Don't Trust Signal" article that derived from first principles Moxie Marlinspike's malign goals from the fact that Signal didn't support F-Droid. The fact that you're not disclosing any of this context in your random snipes at Signal on unrelated threads is much better evidence of your bona fides than any of your arguments have been about Moxie's.
- ddevault 7y ago
  I am under no obligation to repeatedly help you resurface your ridiculous arguments in every thread about Signal. You consistently disregard most of my points, latching on only the ones that you think you can use to paint my opinion in a bad light. I have rebuked you in exhaustive detail many times before, and I have no intention of entertaining your ravings again.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    Here's the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723973 I'm pretty comfortable with how it represents what I said today.

ajconway 7y ago

Centralized services can experience outages, but federation does not automatically solve all of the availability issues.