17 ms·

Looking back at how Signal works

446 points by ssklash 6y ago

Gys 6y ago
> how we think about concepts like privacy, security, and trust I was disappointed to see that a mobile number is needed and that this number is shown by default in groups. Mobile numbers are much more trackable then email addresses in my opinion. And I do not understand at all why others should be able to see them so easily. So I now prefer Telegram because at least it hides numbers in groups by default.
- harry8 6y ago
  Burner sim to setup and throw away addresses this concern. Telegram, messages in plaintext on the server? Encryption that isn't open? Yeah telegram is a bit of a non-starter if you have these kinds of concerns as far as I'm aware.
  - K2L8M11N2 6y ago
    In most European countries you need to submit your ID to get any sort of working SIM card.
    - fossuser 6y ago
      If that’s the case doesn’t it matter even less that signal requires it since it’s already known anyway? Signal’s use of phone numbers as IDs means they don’t have to have any of your contacts sent to their servers. As shown in the article they have no metadata and nothing to reveal beyond your phone number and when you signed up. These other apps send your social graph to their servers, track and store metadata, don’t have encryption on by default, roll their own cryptography, or some combination of all of these things. The phone number obsession on HN seems dumb to me - a meaningless thing for people to repeat and complain about that doesn’t actually matter so they can sound like they know what they’re talking about. I don’t get it. The only real criticism I have for signal is that they’re not federated so they’re vulnerable to shutdown. I think that’s okay though because we have Matrix working on that problem and having both is probably a good thing. It’s also a thoughtful and intentional choice: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ The response from Matrix: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom
      - K2L8M11N2 6y ago
        I feel comfortable with giving my Telegram username out to random people on the internet and posting it on my website because it doesn’t mean anything outside of Telegram. I wouldn’t post my phone number publicly.
        fossuser 6y ago
        That’s fair, thanks - I think for secure communication with people you don’t know personally or trust, it’d be better to use something that doesn’t share your phone number.
      - est31 6y ago
        > roll their own cryptography Signal did the same thing. They invented their own cryptographic algorithms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm And the social graph IS sent to servers by Signal. It's protected only by hashing (trivial to circumvent) and by the Intel SGX technology (a bit harder to circumvent, but I doubt that the US govt can't do it).
        fossuser 6y ago
        My (limited) understanding is numbers are queried to see if accounts exist, but those queries are not connected to the users sending them (and they are obscured in transit). Am I wrong? Signal’s cryptography has also gotten a ton of attention, I don’t think the same is true for competitors.
        est31 6y ago
        Transit encryption is employed by other services as well. Whether there is de-correlation on the cloud backend I don't know. Maybe there is, but you can't really verify that and it's easy to correlate them again, especially if clients use ipv6 or non-CGNAT ipv4.
        the_why_of_y 6y ago
        Signal's crypto is an incremental improvement of existing algorithms with good reputation, OTR and SCIMP. Telegram's crypto is reportedly designed from scratch, with questionable choices such as SHA1 and MAC-then-encrypt. https://www.cryptofails.com/post/70546720222/telegrams-cryptanalysis-contest https://www.cryptofails.com/post/70546720222/telegrams-crypt... https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf
    - squarefoot 6y ago
      That wouldn't be a problem in phones where the radio part is screened from the system (Pinephone?) so that implementing encryption can be effective. The SIM might be tied with my me, but any eavesdropper would see only noise because the outgoing data is encrypted by the system before entering the radio hardware and is decrypted by the system after leaving it. They can know I generated some traffic at a certain moment, which is the same information they could get from the carrier operator, but that's about it.
    - Nursie 6y ago
      In the UK you can buy a SIM from a vending machine in the airport.
  - gruez 6y ago
    Don't you have to keep paying for the sim, otherwise someone else might "steal" your account once your phone number gets reused?
    - wayoutthere 6y ago
      Signal has an option to prevent this by locking the number with your PIN. This capability introduces plausible deniability that a phone number assigned to a SIM is actually associated with the number of a Signal account. Don't know if that matters legally or not. Also the people doing shady things are generally hopping accounts regularly anyway.
      - billme 6y ago
        PIN only stops registration for a fixed amount of time, believe 7-days, then the entity controlling the number would be able to reclaim the account. If the “attacker” maintained control, new devices that add the number from their contact list would get no alert; that is, the users would have to figure out the number is controlled by someone else.
        ikawe 6y ago
        That’s 7 days since last use. So if you continue to use the app at least once every 7 days, it will remain registration locked. Also, anyone who had communicated with you before the switch would see a “safety number changed” notification if the number became affiliated with a new device.
        billme 6y ago
        Curious, where’s the “last use” in the documentation or code? Ask because I have seen other issues with the PIN vs docs and haven’t gotten to testing the recovery mode. EDIT: Found the related docs, appears they had been edited since I lasted looked at them; for example, you can now disable PIN reminders: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059792-Signal-PINs https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059792-Si... And yes, “anyone who had communicated with you before the switch would see a ‘safety number changed’ notification if the number became affiliated with a new device” is correct, though so is my statement about new numbers adding the number. To be honest, I have caused the alerts to happen before, the other user had no idea what they meant, didn’t say anything, just clicked okay.
  - emptysongglass 6y ago
    Both of these rhetorical claims are misinformation. Please don't do this. Telegram messages are encrypted at rest on Telegram's servers with the keys held by Telegram the company. [1] MTProto is fully open-source. [2] Here's a FAQ of Telegram's most frequent criticisms. [3] [1] https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests [2] https://core.telegram.org/mtproto https://core.telegram.org/mtproto [3] https://telegra.ph/How-really-secure-and-private-is-Telegram-09-02 https://telegra.ph/How-really-secure-and-private-is-Telegram...
    - Legogris 6y ago
      The "encrypted at rest" claim is completely meaningless since there's no way of verifying it. If their web client can read your messages by you reverifying your phone number, so can anyone else with access to their servers.
      - emptysongglass 6y ago
        But that's not true. We can verify a Cloud Chat message is wrapped in a key generated on a user's device. You can look at the client code and prove this. We can also prove that client-server messages must be decrypted on their way back to a user's device. [1] [1] https://core.telegram.org/mtproto#authorization-and-encryption https://core.telegram.org/mtproto#authorization-and-encrypti...
    - brnt 6y ago
      I wish it was different, but it isn't. Mtproto v2 seems OK, but it is not default, so hardly used. Server side encryption protects against very little. I like Telegram, but not for security. Nobody should.
      - emptysongglass 6y ago
        You wish what was different? My rebuttal specifically corrected false claims, without opinion.
- enitihas 6y ago
  Because mobile numbers enable much more easier use than emails. I talk to so many people on WhatsApp who don't even know what an email is, and would certainly never use the app if it couldn't pick their contacts from Contact List. The goal of Signal has always been "privacy for the masses". The experts always had 20 solutions available.
  - em-bee 6y ago
    no, we don't have 20 options available. we also need to talk to people who don't understand the problem and can't be persuaded to use one of those other options. there is a difference between enabling phonenumbers as an ID vs requiring them. signal could easily support both. (i read somewhere that they plan to support alternatives to phone numbers in the future, just haven't made it a priority. well, i'll wait. edit: actually it's mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435050 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435050 )
  - amaccuish 6y ago
    How did they install whatsapp if they didn't have an email, since you need one for the play store and app store?
- correct_horse 6y ago
  This is a fair concern, and I hope Signal Addresses it at some point, but Telegram is no replacement. From Telegram's Wikipedia page "The default messages and media use client-server encryption during transit.[19] This data is also encrypted at rest, but can be accessed by Telegram developers, who hold the encryption keys," and "the desktop clients (excluding macOS client) do not feature end-to-end encryption, nor is end-to-end encryption available for groups, supergroups, or channels." In addition, the Telegram server software is proprietary.
  - saurik 6y ago
    It really depends on your threat model: do you trust the people you are talking to but not Signal (though in practice this doesn't even work as they are way too centralized, but whatever), or do you not trust the people you are talking to but are willing to trust Telegram? Clearly we should be able to have something where we don't trust either, as there is nothing about these phone numbers that is critical to Signal's operation (if anything, Signal is compromising basic important things to use them), but between these two choices it isn't clear to a lot of people why Signal's choice is better, given the actual use cases and threat models most people have.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      The fewer people who you're required to trust, the fewer breaches there will be, even if no one is malicious and those breaches are accidental. And ultimately even if the people you are talking to and your messaging provider are 100% trustworthy and never make mistakes, they usually cannot resist a lawful government request for data. Signal just has virtual no data available to provide them; Telegram could give them entire chat histories, and could be required to provide access to in-progress chats.
    - gdmka 6y ago
      Moxie addressed the phone number issue[0]. To save time he mentions that owning a SIM card or a smartphone with a Contacts application that holds phone numbers is a portable social network by design. Pushing his idea further it's much easier for anyone to learn the penetration of Signal by checking against existing phone numbers. I can't imagine someone with a 200+ phone numbers querying service to validate a phone number is registered with Signal. And while nicknames sound perfect in theory they lack one specific thing — validation of authenticity of a speaker. By this i mean an impersonator can claim the username and pose as someone else. Given a lot of people use transparent nicknames on the internet, it can pose a threat. So even when the nicknames roll out as a feature of Signal, it's good to facilitate somehow that a party i'm in contact with is someone genuine. Checking against phone numbers can mitigate the risk of fraud. [0] https://youtu.be/Nj3YFprqAr8 https://youtu.be/Nj3YFprqAr8
- patcon 6y ago
  My belief is that Telegram excels at security theatre
- IvanAchlaqullah 6y ago
  > Mobile numbers are much more trackable then email addresses in my opinion. And I do not understand at all why others should be able to see them so easily. This is why I refuse to have Whatsapp and Signal, especially when you live in 3rd world country. It just take ONE SCREENSHOT of you saying something controversial in group chat, that screenshot goes viral to certain radical group, then your phone get spammed death threat. Not to mention you can and will go to jail if those radical group sue you, thanks to draconian laws (UU ITE) here in Indonesia. You didn't get to jail because you said something that actually insulting someone, you get jailed because you are TRANSMITTING something that can be interpreted as an insult.
- aendruk 6y ago
  > a mobile number is needed They're laying the groundwork to change this. Part of the purpose of the PINs rolled out last month is to enable centralizing some data to allow for other addressing schemes.
- lliamander 6y ago
  As I understand it, the purpose of using telephone numbers is that it can use the contact list stored on your phone without having to store contact lists on their servers. Contact lists can be useful information for an attacker. If Signal doesn't have it, it can't be taken from them.
  - em-bee 6y ago
    how does having phone numbers help with storing contacts in the client? they could store any other contact id just as well. the only thing that phone numbers help with is discovability of signal users among your existing phone contact list. that is something i explicitly do not want. ever. telegram and wechat allow to block being found via phone numbers.
  - Legogris 6y ago
    There's nothing inherent in phone numbers here. Both iOS and Android also allows you to add e-mail addresses (and other identifiers) to your local contacts. I'm yet to hear an argument as to why e-mail addresses or other identifiers can't be used in addition to phone numbers, or why it would be a complicating factor.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  Try https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/ which doesn't require phone numbers and is a fork of signal. It is still very early stage and discoverability/groups are half backed (can't add people to group after creating it with 10 being the limit) but it solves the centralisation problem of signal.
- Krasnol 6y ago
  They're working on the phone number issue: > PINs will also help facilitate new features like addressing that isn’t based exclusively on phone numbers, since the system address book will no longer be a viable way to maintain your network of contacts. https://signal.org/blog/signal-pins/ https://signal.org/blog/signal-pins/
- gdmka 6y ago
  Telegram isn't really a subject to compare to Signal. I own a cellphone number for an Eastern European provider and had been using Telegram solely for news reader purposes. None of the people i communicate knows the number. Much to my surprise i learned that Telegram cooperates with local authorities, i would never found it out if not for COVID-19. The messages i got were addressing the precautions and regulations during the pandemic. While i appreciate the effort, i feel like it's a clear overreach on Telegram's part. How do i know it was Telegram rather than the authorities themselves? The sender information clearly stated the sender was Telegram (same as a chatbox created to inform on What's new), i've got a push notification even though push notifications were app level turned off. Can't imagine Signal compromising the trust of it's userbase by sending any sort of material that comes from the healthcare department of whatever country my phone number would be from.
  - Gys 6y ago
    As mentioned elsewhere it all about the threatmodel. I have a group where others like to be anonymous, at least to ppl they do not know (yet). They will very likely not care about authorities to see our messages as they have nothing to hide from that perspective.
    - gdmka 6y ago
      >They will very likely not care about authorities to see our messages as they have nothing to hide from that perspective. `Nothing to hide` isn't the point of my message but the willingness of Telegram to collaborate with 3rd parties be that for a good or bad cause is what concerned me. I already own a tool to get unsolicited messages — email.
redrobein 6y ago
The only reason I don't use Signal is because it still uses your phone number for ID. What is even the point of verifying by number?
- ciarannolan 6y ago
  I think they justify sacrificing privacy like this for the sake of growth (which of my contacts use Signal? etc).
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    They could at least do what Telegram does and hide the phone numbers by default and have a username system as well.
- harry8 6y ago
  Users a phone number. Doesn't have to be your main number. Setup with a burner sim and throw it away.
- patcon 6y ago
  it's their negotiation of the bare minimum invasive activity they've decided they must do to give us some threshold of network effects in an otherwise anonymous service
- bilal4hmed 6y ago
  They are working to remove the cell phone requirement. https://signal.org/blog/signal-pins/ https://signal.org/blog/signal-pins/ "PINs will also help facilitate new features like addressing that isn’t based exclusively on phone numbers, since the system address book will no longer be a viable way to maintain your network of contacts."
- false-mirror 6y ago
  I believe the point was that phone numbers are already used as unique IDs people know intuitively. Essentially make it quick to onboard new users Thankfully they are moving away from this with the option to use a PIN instead pf phone #. Not sure when that rolls out, but I'm v. excited for it
voicedYoda 6y ago
I appreciate this, even fighting the gag order. Thanks @moxie0!
rb808 6y ago
matrix and riot is awesome open source alternative. Awesome API too.
- false-mirror 6y ago
  They pair really well together too. At the moment Signal really thrives at replacing texts (ephemeral one-to-one chats), while riot excels at team communication.
  - Well_hello 6y ago
    actually Riot is not worse at replacing texts..
DaftDank 6y ago
What happens to Signal when the EARN It Act passes? I assume that eventually the Apple App Store and Google Play Store will just stop allowing it to be downloaded if they do not add the backdoor in? Is there a workaround that will allow people to use it still? I've heard people mention locating the servers in other countries, but wouldn't the various App stores be bound by US law and still not allow them?
- EGreg 6y ago
  When? Or if?
- s17n 6y ago
  I don't think that the earn it act will affect Signal - they aren't a publisher by any reasonable standard so they don't need the 230 exemption in the first place.
  - chrononaut 6y ago
    As I don't know much of the details of the legislation, or more importantly its references or modifications, can you elaborate more on what "they don't need the 230 exemption" means in the context that this act would likely not apply to them? Are you implying that the EARN IT act focuses on publishers of content and thus it less likely apply to Signal?
    - Skunkleton 6y ago
      Disclaimer: IANAL, an not really well informed on these subjects. I think with sufficient funding for a legal department, Signal could work without the section 230 exemption. In practice, they don't have that money and would be forced out of business long before they were able to prove their case.
- billme 6y ago
  Signal’s official statement on the EARN It Act is here: https://signal.org/blog/earn-it/ https://signal.org/blog/earn-it/
billme 6y ago
Anyone have a link to Signal’s 2019 IRS Form 990? Most recent I was able to find was this 2018 version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23431076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23431076
- windthrown 6y ago
  The 2019 filing deadline (including Form 990) was extended to July 15, 2020 so it may not be published yet.
  - billme 6y ago
    Thanks, makes sense, though guess I would expect a non-profit to communicate this; don’t believe Signal even links to the 990 I linked to on their own website; possible they don’t want the public to (easily) know salaries, assets, etc - but unclear.
    - windthrown 6y ago
      True, but remember that Signal (the app developer) is an LLC. The 990s may eventually be posted on the Signal Foundation website if they ever finish it: https://signalfoundation.org/ https://signalfoundation.org/
      - billme 6y ago
        Thanks, good point, was aware of that, but others might not be; never seen a good explanation for their legal structure, both as it relates to the present & future. I have checked both URLs for 990s, only way I found it was via a link in the footer of Signal’s Wikipedia page.
        windthrown 6y ago
        ProPublica's database is my go-to for 990s. Only the 2018 form so far: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824506840 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824...
DarkmSparks 6y ago
Been a big fan of whisper systems since the redphone project. Great to see them maturing. However, given the topic title it would have been nice to see some actual documentation on how signal actually works rather than just claims that it doesnt work like the others.
- jlund 6y ago
  Does this help? https://signal.org/docs/ https://signal.org/docs/
  - DarkmSparks 6y ago
    It seems to be about the clients rather than the server. A level deeper than "how signal works" and more "how signal is made" For example, I'd expect a "how signal works" article to explain why they even need when an account was registered and when it was last used. "this phone number is using signal" is still a pretty large metadata leak. Especially when state actors and probably a fair few non state actors can remotely compromise devices via the stuff in the baseband processor.
    - goatsi 6y ago
      >"this phone number is using signal" is still a pretty large metadata leak. >Especially when state actors and probably a fair few non state actors can remotely compromise devices via the stuff in the baseband processor. A more accurate phrasing would be "this phone number was used to activate signal". If you only care about messaging other Signal users, you only need to have a baseband connection exactly once, when you receive the text message to confirm the number. After that you can toss the sim card and put in a different number, or run without a sim card at all and just use WiFi. You don't even need to have the sim card in the same phone you will use with Signal when you receive the confirmation text.
      - DarkmSparks 6y ago
        wifi is still in the baseband processor. There have been mutiple baseband RCE exploits published in the literature and demonstrated at blackhat - and they dont include any that were put there intentionally. If you are not using a sim smartphones are pretty useless. Im a long way from convinced that centralised servers have any role to play in reasonably secure e2ee, they certainly are not a requirement for other services such as firechat used to use before they got shutdown and bridgefy is making use of.
EmilioMartinez 6y ago
I'm glad to see the discussion about what privacy should look like progress, with increasingly big actors treat data as something too delicate to play warden until the next breach. But it just feels cheap and detrimental to LARP as a tool for revolutionaries. I want a clear concept of privacy for a stable society to rely upon. That even the most trustworthy authority be kept out by design as a security principle. I don't want my messaging app to be opinionated, pick sides or declare themselves part of the ongoing "progress". Will they sing the same tune when it's other group taking the streets? Because everyone has a different idea of the kind of revolution that is needed, and certainly my phone should not have a say.
- chishaku 6y ago
  > feels cheap and detrimental Cool, pick a new app. It’s naive to think a small group will work against very powerful forces and against all odds and not be ideologically driven.
  - EmilioMartinez 6y ago
    I'm talking about the discourse sorroundig privacy, not literally specifically about my phone. I hate to see it marketed as a tool of revolution instead of just common sense practices. Your use of "ideologically driven" is confusing. Of course they should be driven, by their ideology on how a messaging app should be. But how could their opinion on the protest drive them? Just some weeks ago a whole different crew was taking the streets fighting for their own "freedom reasons". Some years ago there was the sad tiki parade. It's like setting up a gun shop in Syria and claim your guns kill "the bad guys", whatever that means to the customer. I'll choose the app that works best for me, and will call it out when someone feeds the meme that privacy is for rioters, unwittingly even.
    - chishaku 6y ago
      > how could their opinion on protest drive them? Some people believe in first and fourth amendment rights. Moxie, one of the original developers of the Signal protocol: Tracking everyone is no longer inconceivable, and is in fact happening all the time. We know that Sprint alone responded to 8 million law enforcement requests for real time customer location just in 2008. They got so many requests that they built an automated system to handle them. Combined with ballooning law enforcement budgets, this trend towards automation, which includes things like license plate scanners and domestically deployed drones, represents a significant shift in the way that law enforcement operates. Police already abuse the immense power they have, but if everyone’s every action were being monitored, and everyone technically violates some obscure law at some time, then punishment becomes purely selective. Those in power will essentially have what they need to punish anyone they’d like, whenever they choose, as if there were no rules at all. Even ignoring this obvious potential for new abuse, it’s also substantially closer to that dystopian reality of a world where law enforcement is 100% effective, eliminating the possibility to experience alternative ideas that might better suit us. https://moxie.org/2013/06/12/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide.html https://moxie.org/2013/06/12/we-should-all-have-something-to... ACLU: For more than a decade now, Americans have repeatedly encountered illegal and unnecessary spying by local, state, and federal law enforcement on lawful and peaceful protesters. https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/rights-protesters/spying-protesters https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/rights-protesters/sp... EFF: Theft, damage, confiscation, or forced deletion of media can disrupt your ability to publish your experiences. https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/attending-protest https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/attending-protest EFF: Here is a review of surveillance technology that police may be deploying against ongoing protests against racism and police brutality. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/how-identify-visible-and-invisible-surveillance-protests https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/how-identify-visible-a... > feeds the meme that privacy is for rioters Ok, I get it. You’re upset about the “rioters”. Choose your new app and carry on.
crorella 6y ago
Really nice design, in the future I see a market for "privacy tools that also happens to ..." kind of software, for example a Privacy tool that also happens to browse websites, or a Privacy tool that also happens to help you to send messages (like Signal); in summary, privacy aware services.
bogwog 6y ago
Anyone have information about how/where they get their funding and/or income?
- sigzero 6y ago
  Donors and grants.
- windthrown 6y ago
  They are funded by the Signal Foundation: https://signal.org/blog/signal-foundation/ https://signal.org/blog/signal-foundation/ "...Today, we are launching the Signal Foundation, an emerging 501(c)(3) nonprofit created and made possible by Brian Acton, the co-founder of WhatsApp, to support, accelerate, and broaden Signal’s mission of making private communication accessible and ubiquitous. In case you missed it, Brian left WhatsApp and Facebook last year, and has been thinking about how to best focus his future time and energy on building nonprofit technology for public good. Starting with an initial $50,000,000 in funding, we can now increase the size of our team, our capacity, and our ambitions. This means reduced uncertainty on the path to sustainability, and the strengthening of our long-term goals and values. Perhaps most significantly, the addition of Brian brings an incredibly talented engineer and visionary with decades of experience building successful products to our team."
  - secfirstmd 6y ago
    Yep, originally the Open Tech Fund was a big funder. They funded apps like our own Umbrella App and also lots of Guardian Project and Tor etc
StavrosK 6y ago
I love Signal and use it as much as I can, but I'm thinking of switching to Matrix solely because the desktop client is pretty bad. It won't show me messages until it syncs everything (so I can't even see old messages while things sync), and, what's worse, it skips messages, and multi-device just doesn't work. My laptop just shows "Message could not be decrypted" until I delete everything and reset. I'm not sure why it works so poorly after years of existence, but unfortunately I'm losing hope that it'll be fixed. I sometimes feel like the Signal team doesn't use their product, or they would have noticed this. Meanwhile, yes, Matrix took years to add encryption, but it works much better than Signal, even with quite a few small bugs.
- ChristianBundy 6y ago
  > Meanwhile, yes, Matrix took years to add encryption, but it works much better than Signal, even with quite a few small bugs. I'm not sure which Matrix client you use, but clients like Riot don't even let you opt out of sending read receipts unless you edit `/etc/riot/config.json` to enable experiments and then go into the settings to disable read receipts. Problems like this (and issues like this [0]) give me the impression that Riot isn't designed for people who need privacy. (Yes, there are other Matrix clients [1], but my understanding is that Riot is the flagship interface.) [0]: https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/8961 https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/8961 [1]: https://www.matrix.org/clients/ https://www.matrix.org/clients/
  - secfirstmd 6y ago
    I'm a massive Matrix fan and have high hopes for it but in experiments we've done with activist and journalist partners we've found the Riot.im client often gets a bit complicated for people to use. I think the main issue people have is related to keys. As I techie I love the options but I find many don't like having all the options. Signal of course is a lot easier as it hides many of those issues in the UI/UX.
    - techntoke 6y ago
      I just opened my Signal desktop app that I had synced previously. It asked me to resync again with my mobile device, which needs camera permissions to take a picture of a QR code. I had previously removed Signal from my mobile device. Low and behold, my account no longer existed and I had to sign back up with a phone number. I then clicked sync and most of my messages on my desktop are gone. I don't see how this is easy by any standard.
eeZah7Ux 6y ago
Signal is a walled garden. They refuse to allow federation and even prohibit any modified client to use their servers. It's the least open "open source" model, and once (if) they gain significant market share they can easily close down the app and lock-in the users. Please use and spread federated alternatives. Donate and contribute.
- jjtheblunt 6y ago
  What alternative would you recommend?
  - MYEUHD 6y ago
    XMPP with OMEMO
    - merge 6y ago
      agreed. I recently removed Signal and started using xmpp (again). It'll always be there (Signal probably won't) and getting a friend to install conversations.im and register a name on a public server is not much harder than getting someone to install Signal. To me it somehow feels like it's a good time for xmpp
  - Multicomp 6y ago
    TL;DR / I accidentally wish-listed myself: Sign in to matrix.org with Riot Android / IOS / Web Like sibling poster, XMPP with OMEMO encryption is an option, but it requires setting up an xmpp server with ejabberd or prosody software, then installing Gajim on your PCs and Conversations (paid via play store, free via F-Droid) for Android / a good iOS Xmpp client that supports OMEMO. Except for techies, ^ is waaaay too much for people who are just looking to have an alternative to Signal's lock-in. I can barely get people to install the signal app and click open :) I currently recommend installing Riot IOS / Riot Android and logging in to the free Matrix.org instance, which does not use your phone number or anything. In the future I hope to recommend whatever P2P Matrix phone app comes out, and you just share your ids with friends via QR code handshakes and boom, you are off to the races with nothing but an internet connection and a friend ID. Metadata is all local to phones, so nothing to see. In the medium future, I also hope to recommend cwtch.im which is the replacement for richochet, a metadata resistant p2p e2ee messaging app. In the far future, I hope to have something like a smartphone mobile ad hoc network-based p2p e2ee app where you scan qr codes to handshake and you either communicate over the internet (like p2p matrix) or over mesh network as long as you are within 10 hops of another device (like bridgefy or firechat). Bonus points if one can DIY a passive repeater that works with the mesh network.
clarkmoody 6y ago
The anti-Signal rhetoric has already started. News articles about Antifa specifically mention that they communicate via Signal. If Antifa is designated as a terrorist organization, then we'll see all the counter-terrorism tools brought to bear against them. If the state can't break Signal encryption, then you'll see renewed energy for anti-encryption / anti-privacy policies.
- chrononaut 6y ago
  My intuition would say that I would doubt this would change much in terms of investment. Of course without specific knowledge I would suspect that there are terrorist organizations in the world already using Signal such that resources are already being spent doing what you describe. I would also suspect that for any and all cryptographic applications.
- troughway 6y ago
  Why would antifa result in anti-signal rhetoric? Genuine question because antifa is a mixed bag - there isn’t really any consensus on whether what they do is good or bad. Seems to be all over the damn place.
  - Cenk 6y ago
    There is no consensus on wether being against fascism is good or bad? Being against fascism is not a group or organisation. It’s like calling bird watching an organisation. Yes, there are bird watching organisations, as there are antifa organisations, but neither bird watching nor antifa is an organisation.
    - troughway 6y ago
      They purport they are against fascism. But if you look at what they do sometimes, it amounts to little more than looting, rioting and vandalism. Not always, but sometimes. They don’t seem to have a designated modus operandi.
      - 6y ago
losvedir 6y ago
Is it worth trying to move my friends from WhatsApp to Signal? As I understand it, they're both e2e encrypted. I'm also trying to move my chats from SMS and Gchat to something encrypted, but am torn between WhatsApp and Signal. The former has more of a buy-in with my contacts already. I realize WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, but isn't the whole point of e2e encryption that you don't have to trust the intermediate infrastructure? And if you enable the setting to warn if the key changes, there's no danger, right?
- kasey_junk 6y ago
  The metadata is the difference. Your contact graph is fair game on WhatsApp for Facebook
  - jwr 6y ago
    Exactly! And it was worth $19 billion to Facebook. That's what they paid to acquire WhatsApp, one would suppose not with the goal of watching encrypted messages fly by.
- Skunkleton 6y ago
  That is an impossible question to give one answer to. There are lots of considerations. For example: 1) Do you trust facebook with messaging metadata? For example, do you want them to know that you messaged your friend Jane a specific number of times on specific dates, knowing that they can coorelate this information to facebook profiles, and will give up this information for ad, and law enforcement purposes. 2) Do you trust Signal's infrastructure to be reliable when you need it? 3) What is you're threat model? For me, I want to be kept out of all ad-related data sets, and I want to have conversations with friends without having to think about a paper trail. 4) Do you care that you will have to convince people to install yet another messaging app? 5) Do you trust that Signal and WhatsApp have correctly integrated the underlying crypto protocol? I assume that you would, considering its history. Still, I would trust signal more in this regard. 6) Do you think that Facebook or Signal is more likely to cut a privacy corner in support of a ease-of-use feature? Do you care? For my friends, the answer is that I use signal. Everyone who doesn't use signal falls back to getting SMS, or phone calls. The problem here is that SMS and phone calls are both huge privacy holes. For my threat model, I don't care, but you might.
djaouen 6y ago
All encryption is broken wrt a quantum cracker. How will, say, the future look at these Signal uses?
- im3w1l 6y ago
  You are wrong that all encryption is broken with a quantum cracker. But as far as I know Signal is not quantum resistant. It's certainly something to keep in mind - that whatever you say might resurface later.
deleted 6y ago
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javajosh 6y ago
Signal is open source; I'm wondering, has anyone here ever built the service and one or more clients and run it on-prem, or even as a white-labelled competing service?
- jayp1418 6y ago
  Yes there are forks/clones you can search that on signal community website.
user764743 6y ago
They need to allow us to not reveal phone numbers in a group, especially now.
korethr 6y ago
Somewhat tangential, I got into an argument about Signal last night. The other guy claimed that Signal was insecure because: * It's "Custodial E2EE" * Needs a phone number (I'm not going to bother with his complaints about the crappiness of the desktop client or convenience of the design because those are non-sequiturs to the security of the app) I asked him to define "Custodial E2EE". His words: "They have ownership of my keys, use phone number auth to access them and I cant expatriate them" I managed to suppress my xkcd-386 instinct and go to bed, but my intuition is still that he's quite wrong about that. I may or may not resume my arguement with him; I got the impression that his disagrements were rooted in a Matrix fanboyism, but I'd like to be equipped to refute such arguments in the future. I can somewhat sympathize with the phone number argument, and I think it comes from a concern about metadata leaks or opsec. I think that concern ultimately stems from a wrong threat model, but I'm not sure how to refute that. I have however, come across a number of tutorials which cover how to register a Signal account without using your phone numbers, so I feel confident I can refute the argument that signal must have your phone number, even if I can't refute the underlying wrong thinking. Regarding the "Custodial E2EE" argument, I'm not sure where to begin. Anyone have any suggestions?
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  On the first point, their understanding of Signal's key management doesn't seem to be correct. The private key is held only by the client on the mobile phone, which is one of the reasons that the desktop client is rather clumsy - it is dependent on the mobile app for initial key setup. It's also just very slow compared to the mobile app. On the second point, I think they are quite correct. Yes, this depends on your use-case, but I consider the ability to have multiple and disposable identities to be somewhat critical to any messaging system calling itself suitable for security-sensitive use. Unfortunately, Signal is designed explicitly to make multiple or disposable identities impractical. Above and beyond their desire to be a drop-in replacement for SMS, a reason for this is almost certainly to reduce spam, as the need for a valid phone number makes it difficult to register accounts en masse. In general, this method to mitigating abuse means that Signal cannot practically be used anonymously, which somewhat conflicts with the popularity of Signal as a mechanism for e.g. contacting journalists. In the vein of criticizing Signal, I would also throw out that it largely abandons the problem of key distribution, effectively implementing a TOFU model that is lightly enforced at that, with "safety number changes" being pretty much normal. It is possible to verify Signal identities out-of-band but not common, and the Signal app does not really provide much tooling to make it easier. I wouldn't say that Signal is bad, it does a great job of implementing effectively the identity semantics of SMS (including the shortcomings) but with the addition of E2E encryption and TOFU. I would stop short anyone who claims Signal to be a "perfect" or "complete" solution for encrypted messaging as there are common use cases that it has actively decided not to address. I'm also, to be honest, somewhat baffled that your starting position seems to be that no criticism of Signal could possibly be valid, when attributing the other's viewpoint to fanboyism. Don't take that too seriously, it just stood out to me on reading. :)
deleted 6y ago
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rglullis 6y ago
Or use something that you (or someone you trust) can self-host, so then even the company/CEO/TLA-with-subpoenas are out of the picture. Not only do I get to get Moxie out of the picture, I also get my phone and the phone companies out of it.
lsiebert 6y ago
Lately I've been wishing Signal had a bridgefy type mesh mode that enabled operation peer to peer over wifi direct or bluetooth, either directly or via a mesh of such devices. First I think it would be useful at protests, to preserve privacy (and whatever side of the political divide you are on, I hope we agree that covert government surveillance and tracking of people at a protest is wrong, here, in HK, or wherever). But it would also be nice to have when outside the reach of cellular or wifi internet. Think camping, traveling, people living with intermittent power, or those who lost power in some sort of disaster or emergency. I'm honestly not sure if this would be feasible, as I don't grok the signal protocol fully, but the signal protocol does support async messaging.
- brnt 6y ago
  You're looking for the https://briarproject.org https://briarproject.org
  - lsiebert 6y ago
    Unfortunately Briar only handles direct connections, and doesn't work on IOS.
paulcarroty 6y ago
"Secure" messengers which use google play services sucks.
sneak 6y ago
iCloud contacts is not e2e encrypted. Apple, as well as FBI/DHS and the US military intelligence apparatus can access your entire contacts list and infer your whole social graph. This is why a messenger needs an e2e contacts sync, whether Moxie wants to be responsible for it or not.
dbg31415 6y ago
I want to love Signal, but it's just so meh. * Message sync is like non-existent. Messages on my phone or laptop aren't kept in sync at all. Delete one one place, they don't delete in both. * Let me edit messages, like every other message platform. I also want to be able to delete messages from the group. When I delete it deletes locally but not for the group, not even between my own devices I don't think. This sucks because deleting the message implies to anyone who has used a message system that the messages are deleted from everyone, but they aren't. Oof. * When you set messages to expire, you can't make them expire. It only applies to future messages. I want to set this at the conversation level, not on a weird message-by-message basis with no way to change it globally after. * I want to be able to sign in without using a cell phone number. Let me sign up with anything else, don't tie it to a cell phone line that can be hijacked. * Let me add emoji responses to messages. Like every other message platform. * Bonus, be peer-to-peer somehow. Dunno, like Blockchain magic it or something. Don't make me rely on some server somewhere. Just makes me feel uneasy that there's a middle man with all my messages. How unrealistic is all this? (=
- Well_hello 6y ago
  you are just using the wrong tool
gdmka 6y ago
I love Signal. I've convinced a multitude of people to switch and some use it day to day currently, but mostly to talk to me. So i feel my contacts do it out of respect and `compatibility` of communication. What baffles me is the the incompatible feature matrix. First of all, for some reason iOS users get the updates faster than the Android. I was exploring emoji reactions yesterday while my Android contact admitted the feature was not yet available for his device. I had to double check with Play Store to confirm. I've found peace with the sync issues for the desktop client though, it got much more stable compare to 8 months ago. What still feels like a massive UX problem is inability to forward messages on the desktop. Given, i have lots of people coming from different places that do not know each other but share same interests it's just painstaking to copy/paste the same URL five time in a row. And at the same time, there's no support for the Android tablets as secondary devices. For a person deep in Apple ecosystem it felt weird to learn that Android users don't share the same experiences i do. That makes the sales pitch to try Signal way less appealing for the Android folk.
- bmarquez 6y ago
  iOS may get updates faster than Android and have emojis, but iOS can't backup or transfer your messages to a new phone. This basic feature has been an open request for nearly 3 years. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/2542 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/2542 The inconsistent features between iOS and Android are annoying.
  - gdmka 6y ago
    Actually iOS can transfer message history to a new iPhone https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Backup-and-Restore-Messages#ios_restore https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Ba... Not having a backup is seen as a disadvantage by many but i literally feel it's for the best. There's plenty of scenarios when parties benefit from it.
    - Y-bar 6y ago
      Purchasing a new phone is only a small subset of the scenarios where a backup is useful, for example, in the last two years Apple support has requested that I reset my phone and reinstall iOS twice. Having to buy a second phone to temporarily store my data is not a viable alternative. Or losing your phone. Or accidentally breaking it. Or having it stolen. A backup protects my data in these situations where a transfer utility does not. Backups disabled by default would be a sensible approach, but is very much being childish not to let users access their own data.

446 points by ssklash 6y ago

Gys 6y ago

> how we think about concepts like privacy, security, and trust I was disappointed to see that a mobile number is needed and that this number is shown by default in groups. Mobile numbers are much more trackable then email addresses in my opinion. And I do not understand at all why others should be able to see them so easily. So I now prefer Telegram because at least it hides numbers in groups by default.

harry8 6y ago
Burner sim to setup and throw away addresses this concern. Telegram, messages in plaintext on the server? Encryption that isn't open? Yeah telegram is a bit of a non-starter if you have these kinds of concerns as far as I'm aware.
- K2L8M11N2 6y ago
  In most European countries you need to submit your ID to get any sort of working SIM card.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    If that’s the case doesn’t it matter even less that signal requires it since it’s already known anyway? Signal’s use of phone numbers as IDs means they don’t have to have any of your contacts sent to their servers. As shown in the article they have no metadata and nothing to reveal beyond your phone number and when you signed up. These other apps send your social graph to their servers, track and store metadata, don’t have encryption on by default, roll their own cryptography, or some combination of all of these things. The phone number obsession on HN seems dumb to me - a meaningless thing for people to repeat and complain about that doesn’t actually matter so they can sound like they know what they’re talking about. I don’t get it. The only real criticism I have for signal is that they’re not federated so they’re vulnerable to shutdown. I think that’s okay though because we have Matrix working on that problem and having both is probably a good thing. It’s also a thoughtful and intentional choice: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ The response from Matrix: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom
    - K2L8M11N2 6y ago
      I feel comfortable with giving my Telegram username out to random people on the internet and posting it on my website because it doesn’t mean anything outside of Telegram. I wouldn’t post my phone number publicly.
      - fossuser 6y ago
        That’s fair, thanks - I think for secure communication with people you don’t know personally or trust, it’d be better to use something that doesn’t share your phone number.
    - est31 6y ago
      > roll their own cryptography Signal did the same thing. They invented their own cryptographic algorithms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm And the social graph IS sent to servers by Signal. It's protected only by hashing (trivial to circumvent) and by the Intel SGX technology (a bit harder to circumvent, but I doubt that the US govt can't do it).
      - fossuser 6y ago
        My (limited) understanding is numbers are queried to see if accounts exist, but those queries are not connected to the users sending them (and they are obscured in transit). Am I wrong? Signal’s cryptography has also gotten a ton of attention, I don’t think the same is true for competitors.
        est31 6y ago
        Transit encryption is employed by other services as well. Whether there is de-correlation on the cloud backend I don't know. Maybe there is, but you can't really verify that and it's easy to correlate them again, especially if clients use ipv6 or non-CGNAT ipv4.
      - the_why_of_y 6y ago
        Signal's crypto is an incremental improvement of existing algorithms with good reputation, OTR and SCIMP. Telegram's crypto is reportedly designed from scratch, with questionable choices such as SHA1 and MAC-then-encrypt. https://www.cryptofails.com/post/70546720222/telegrams-cryptanalysis-contest https://www.cryptofails.com/post/70546720222/telegrams-crypt... https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf
  - squarefoot 6y ago
    That wouldn't be a problem in phones where the radio part is screened from the system (Pinephone?) so that implementing encryption can be effective. The SIM might be tied with my me, but any eavesdropper would see only noise because the outgoing data is encrypted by the system before entering the radio hardware and is decrypted by the system after leaving it. They can know I generated some traffic at a certain moment, which is the same information they could get from the carrier operator, but that's about it.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    In the UK you can buy a SIM from a vending machine in the airport.
- gruez 6y ago
  Don't you have to keep paying for the sim, otherwise someone else might "steal" your account once your phone number gets reused?
  - wayoutthere 6y ago
    Signal has an option to prevent this by locking the number with your PIN. This capability introduces plausible deniability that a phone number assigned to a SIM is actually associated with the number of a Signal account. Don't know if that matters legally or not. Also the people doing shady things are generally hopping accounts regularly anyway.
    - billme 6y ago
      PIN only stops registration for a fixed amount of time, believe 7-days, then the entity controlling the number would be able to reclaim the account. If the “attacker” maintained control, new devices that add the number from their contact list would get no alert; that is, the users would have to figure out the number is controlled by someone else.
      - ikawe 6y ago
        That’s 7 days since last use. So if you continue to use the app at least once every 7 days, it will remain registration locked. Also, anyone who had communicated with you before the switch would see a “safety number changed” notification if the number became affiliated with a new device.
        billme 6y ago
        Curious, where’s the “last use” in the documentation or code? Ask because I have seen other issues with the PIN vs docs and haven’t gotten to testing the recovery mode. EDIT: Found the related docs, appears they had been edited since I lasted looked at them; for example, you can now disable PIN reminders: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059792-Signal-PINs https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059792-Si... And yes, “anyone who had communicated with you before the switch would see a ‘safety number changed’ notification if the number became affiliated with a new device” is correct, though so is my statement about new numbers adding the number. To be honest, I have caused the alerts to happen before, the other user had no idea what they meant, didn’t say anything, just clicked okay.
- emptysongglass 6y ago
  Both of these rhetorical claims are misinformation. Please don't do this. Telegram messages are encrypted at rest on Telegram's servers with the keys held by Telegram the company. [1] MTProto is fully open-source. [2] Here's a FAQ of Telegram's most frequent criticisms. [3] [1] https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests [2] https://core.telegram.org/mtproto https://core.telegram.org/mtproto [3] https://telegra.ph/How-really-secure-and-private-is-Telegram-09-02 https://telegra.ph/How-really-secure-and-private-is-Telegram...
  - Legogris 6y ago
    The "encrypted at rest" claim is completely meaningless since there's no way of verifying it. If their web client can read your messages by you reverifying your phone number, so can anyone else with access to their servers.
    - emptysongglass 6y ago
      But that's not true. We can verify a Cloud Chat message is wrapped in a key generated on a user's device. You can look at the client code and prove this. We can also prove that client-server messages must be decrypted on their way back to a user's device. [1] [1] https://core.telegram.org/mtproto#authorization-and-encryption https://core.telegram.org/mtproto#authorization-and-encrypti...
  - brnt 6y ago
    I wish it was different, but it isn't. Mtproto v2 seems OK, but it is not default, so hardly used. Server side encryption protects against very little. I like Telegram, but not for security. Nobody should.
    - emptysongglass 6y ago
      You wish what was different? My rebuttal specifically corrected false claims, without opinion.
enitihas 6y ago
Because mobile numbers enable much more easier use than emails. I talk to so many people on WhatsApp who don't even know what an email is, and would certainly never use the app if it couldn't pick their contacts from Contact List. The goal of Signal has always been "privacy for the masses". The experts always had 20 solutions available.
- em-bee 6y ago
  no, we don't have 20 options available. we also need to talk to people who don't understand the problem and can't be persuaded to use one of those other options. there is a difference between enabling phonenumbers as an ID vs requiring them. signal could easily support both. (i read somewhere that they plan to support alternatives to phone numbers in the future, just haven't made it a priority. well, i'll wait. edit: actually it's mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435050 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435050 )
- amaccuish 6y ago
  How did they install whatsapp if they didn't have an email, since you need one for the play store and app store?
correct_horse 6y ago
This is a fair concern, and I hope Signal Addresses it at some point, but Telegram is no replacement. From Telegram's Wikipedia page "The default messages and media use client-server encryption during transit.[19] This data is also encrypted at rest, but can be accessed by Telegram developers, who hold the encryption keys," and "the desktop clients (excluding macOS client) do not feature end-to-end encryption, nor is end-to-end encryption available for groups, supergroups, or channels." In addition, the Telegram server software is proprietary.
- saurik 6y ago
  It really depends on your threat model: do you trust the people you are talking to but not Signal (though in practice this doesn't even work as they are way too centralized, but whatever), or do you not trust the people you are talking to but are willing to trust Telegram? Clearly we should be able to have something where we don't trust either, as there is nothing about these phone numbers that is critical to Signal's operation (if anything, Signal is compromising basic important things to use them), but between these two choices it isn't clear to a lot of people why Signal's choice is better, given the actual use cases and threat models most people have.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    The fewer people who you're required to trust, the fewer breaches there will be, even if no one is malicious and those breaches are accidental. And ultimately even if the people you are talking to and your messaging provider are 100% trustworthy and never make mistakes, they usually cannot resist a lawful government request for data. Signal just has virtual no data available to provide them; Telegram could give them entire chat histories, and could be required to provide access to in-progress chats.
  - gdmka 6y ago
    Moxie addressed the phone number issue[0]. To save time he mentions that owning a SIM card or a smartphone with a Contacts application that holds phone numbers is a portable social network by design. Pushing his idea further it's much easier for anyone to learn the penetration of Signal by checking against existing phone numbers. I can't imagine someone with a 200+ phone numbers querying service to validate a phone number is registered with Signal. And while nicknames sound perfect in theory they lack one specific thing — validation of authenticity of a speaker. By this i mean an impersonator can claim the username and pose as someone else. Given a lot of people use transparent nicknames on the internet, it can pose a threat. So even when the nicknames roll out as a feature of Signal, it's good to facilitate somehow that a party i'm in contact with is someone genuine. Checking against phone numbers can mitigate the risk of fraud. [0] https://youtu.be/Nj3YFprqAr8 https://youtu.be/Nj3YFprqAr8
patcon 6y ago
My belief is that Telegram excels at security theatre
IvanAchlaqullah 6y ago
> Mobile numbers are much more trackable then email addresses in my opinion. And I do not understand at all why others should be able to see them so easily. This is why I refuse to have Whatsapp and Signal, especially when you live in 3rd world country. It just take ONE SCREENSHOT of you saying something controversial in group chat, that screenshot goes viral to certain radical group, then your phone get spammed death threat. Not to mention you can and will go to jail if those radical group sue you, thanks to draconian laws (UU ITE) here in Indonesia. You didn't get to jail because you said something that actually insulting someone, you get jailed because you are TRANSMITTING something that can be interpreted as an insult.
aendruk 6y ago
> a mobile number is needed They're laying the groundwork to change this. Part of the purpose of the PINs rolled out last month is to enable centralizing some data to allow for other addressing schemes.
lliamander 6y ago
As I understand it, the purpose of using telephone numbers is that it can use the contact list stored on your phone without having to store contact lists on their servers. Contact lists can be useful information for an attacker. If Signal doesn't have it, it can't be taken from them.
- em-bee 6y ago
  how does having phone numbers help with storing contacts in the client? they could store any other contact id just as well. the only thing that phone numbers help with is discovability of signal users among your existing phone contact list. that is something i explicitly do not want. ever. telegram and wechat allow to block being found via phone numbers.
- Legogris 6y ago
  There's nothing inherent in phone numbers here. Both iOS and Android also allows you to add e-mail addresses (and other identifiers) to your local contacts. I'm yet to hear an argument as to why e-mail addresses or other identifiers can't be used in addition to phone numbers, or why it would be a complicating factor.
searchableguy 6y ago
Try https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/ which doesn't require phone numbers and is a fork of signal. It is still very early stage and discoverability/groups are half backed (can't add people to group after creating it with 10 being the limit) but it solves the centralisation problem of signal.
Krasnol 6y ago
They're working on the phone number issue: > PINs will also help facilitate new features like addressing that isn’t based exclusively on phone numbers, since the system address book will no longer be a viable way to maintain your network of contacts. https://signal.org/blog/signal-pins/ https://signal.org/blog/signal-pins/
gdmka 6y ago
Telegram isn't really a subject to compare to Signal. I own a cellphone number for an Eastern European provider and had been using Telegram solely for news reader purposes. None of the people i communicate knows the number. Much to my surprise i learned that Telegram cooperates with local authorities, i would never found it out if not for COVID-19. The messages i got were addressing the precautions and regulations during the pandemic. While i appreciate the effort, i feel like it's a clear overreach on Telegram's part. How do i know it was Telegram rather than the authorities themselves? The sender information clearly stated the sender was Telegram (same as a chatbox created to inform on What's new), i've got a push notification even though push notifications were app level turned off. Can't imagine Signal compromising the trust of it's userbase by sending any sort of material that comes from the healthcare department of whatever country my phone number would be from.
- Gys 6y ago
  As mentioned elsewhere it all about the threatmodel. I have a group where others like to be anonymous, at least to ppl they do not know (yet). They will very likely not care about authorities to see our messages as they have nothing to hide from that perspective.
  - gdmka 6y ago
    >They will very likely not care about authorities to see our messages as they have nothing to hide from that perspective. `Nothing to hide` isn't the point of my message but the willingness of Telegram to collaborate with 3rd parties be that for a good or bad cause is what concerned me. I already own a tool to get unsolicited messages — email.

redrobein 6y ago

The only reason I don't use Signal is because it still uses your phone number for ID. What is even the point of verifying by number?

ciarannolan 6y ago
I think they justify sacrificing privacy like this for the sake of growth (which of my contacts use Signal? etc).
- aaomidi 6y ago
  They could at least do what Telegram does and hide the phone numbers by default and have a username system as well.
harry8 6y ago
Users a phone number. Doesn't have to be your main number. Setup with a burner sim and throw it away.
patcon 6y ago
it's their negotiation of the bare minimum invasive activity they've decided they must do to give us some threshold of network effects in an otherwise anonymous service
bilal4hmed 6y ago
They are working to remove the cell phone requirement. https://signal.org/blog/signal-pins/ https://signal.org/blog/signal-pins/ "PINs will also help facilitate new features like addressing that isn’t based exclusively on phone numbers, since the system address book will no longer be a viable way to maintain your network of contacts."
false-mirror 6y ago
I believe the point was that phone numbers are already used as unique IDs people know intuitively. Essentially make it quick to onboard new users Thankfully they are moving away from this with the option to use a PIN instead pf phone #. Not sure when that rolls out, but I'm v. excited for it

voicedYoda 6y ago

I appreciate this, even fighting the gag order. Thanks @moxie0!

rb808 6y ago

matrix and riot is awesome open source alternative. Awesome API too.

false-mirror 6y ago
They pair really well together too. At the moment Signal really thrives at replacing texts (ephemeral one-to-one chats), while riot excels at team communication.
- Well_hello 6y ago
  actually Riot is not worse at replacing texts..

DaftDank 6y ago

What happens to Signal when the EARN It Act passes? I assume that eventually the Apple App Store and Google Play Store will just stop allowing it to be downloaded if they do not add the backdoor in? Is there a workaround that will allow people to use it still? I've heard people mention locating the servers in other countries, but wouldn't the various App stores be bound by US law and still not allow them?

EGreg 6y ago
When? Or if?
s17n 6y ago
I don't think that the earn it act will affect Signal - they aren't a publisher by any reasonable standard so they don't need the 230 exemption in the first place.
- chrononaut 6y ago
  As I don't know much of the details of the legislation, or more importantly its references or modifications, can you elaborate more on what "they don't need the 230 exemption" means in the context that this act would likely not apply to them? Are you implying that the EARN IT act focuses on publishers of content and thus it less likely apply to Signal?
  - Skunkleton 6y ago
    Disclaimer: IANAL, an not really well informed on these subjects. I think with sufficient funding for a legal department, Signal could work without the section 230 exemption. In practice, they don't have that money and would be forced out of business long before they were able to prove their case.
billme 6y ago
Signal’s official statement on the EARN It Act is here: https://signal.org/blog/earn-it/ https://signal.org/blog/earn-it/

billme 6y ago

Anyone have a link to Signal’s 2019 IRS Form 990? Most recent I was able to find was this 2018 version: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23431076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23431076

windthrown 6y ago
The 2019 filing deadline (including Form 990) was extended to July 15, 2020 so it may not be published yet.
- billme 6y ago
  Thanks, makes sense, though guess I would expect a non-profit to communicate this; don’t believe Signal even links to the 990 I linked to on their own website; possible they don’t want the public to (easily) know salaries, assets, etc - but unclear.
  - windthrown 6y ago
    True, but remember that Signal (the app developer) is an LLC. The 990s may eventually be posted on the Signal Foundation website if they ever finish it: https://signalfoundation.org/ https://signalfoundation.org/
    - billme 6y ago
      Thanks, good point, was aware of that, but others might not be; never seen a good explanation for their legal structure, both as it relates to the present & future. I have checked both URLs for 990s, only way I found it was via a link in the footer of Signal’s Wikipedia page.
      - windthrown 6y ago
        ProPublica's database is my go-to for 990s. Only the 2018 form so far: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824506840 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824...

DarkmSparks 6y ago

Been a big fan of whisper systems since the redphone project. Great to see them maturing. However, given the topic title it would have been nice to see some actual documentation on how signal actually works rather than just claims that it doesnt work like the others.

jlund 6y ago
Does this help? https://signal.org/docs/ https://signal.org/docs/
- DarkmSparks 6y ago
  It seems to be about the clients rather than the server. A level deeper than "how signal works" and more "how signal is made" For example, I'd expect a "how signal works" article to explain why they even need when an account was registered and when it was last used. "this phone number is using signal" is still a pretty large metadata leak. Especially when state actors and probably a fair few non state actors can remotely compromise devices via the stuff in the baseband processor.
  - goatsi 6y ago
    >"this phone number is using signal" is still a pretty large metadata leak. >Especially when state actors and probably a fair few non state actors can remotely compromise devices via the stuff in the baseband processor. A more accurate phrasing would be "this phone number was used to activate signal". If you only care about messaging other Signal users, you only need to have a baseband connection exactly once, when you receive the text message to confirm the number. After that you can toss the sim card and put in a different number, or run without a sim card at all and just use WiFi. You don't even need to have the sim card in the same phone you will use with Signal when you receive the confirmation text.
    - DarkmSparks 6y ago
      wifi is still in the baseband processor. There have been mutiple baseband RCE exploits published in the literature and demonstrated at blackhat - and they dont include any that were put there intentionally. If you are not using a sim smartphones are pretty useless. Im a long way from convinced that centralised servers have any role to play in reasonably secure e2ee, they certainly are not a requirement for other services such as firechat used to use before they got shutdown and bridgefy is making use of.

EmilioMartinez 6y ago

I'm glad to see the discussion about what privacy should look like progress, with increasingly big actors treat data as something too delicate to play warden until the next breach. But it just feels cheap and detrimental to LARP as a tool for revolutionaries. I want a clear concept of privacy for a stable society to rely upon. That even the most trustworthy authority be kept out by design as a security principle. I don't want my messaging app to be opinionated, pick sides or declare themselves part of the ongoing "progress". Will they sing the same tune when it's other group taking the streets? Because everyone has a different idea of the kind of revolution that is needed, and certainly my phone should not have a say.

chishaku 6y ago
> feels cheap and detrimental Cool, pick a new app. It’s naive to think a small group will work against very powerful forces and against all odds and not be ideologically driven.
- EmilioMartinez 6y ago
  I'm talking about the discourse sorroundig privacy, not literally specifically about my phone. I hate to see it marketed as a tool of revolution instead of just common sense practices. Your use of "ideologically driven" is confusing. Of course they should be driven, by their ideology on how a messaging app should be. But how could their opinion on the protest drive them? Just some weeks ago a whole different crew was taking the streets fighting for their own "freedom reasons". Some years ago there was the sad tiki parade. It's like setting up a gun shop in Syria and claim your guns kill "the bad guys", whatever that means to the customer. I'll choose the app that works best for me, and will call it out when someone feeds the meme that privacy is for rioters, unwittingly even.
  - chishaku 6y ago
    > how could their opinion on protest drive them? Some people believe in first and fourth amendment rights. Moxie, one of the original developers of the Signal protocol: Tracking everyone is no longer inconceivable, and is in fact happening all the time. We know that Sprint alone responded to 8 million law enforcement requests for real time customer location just in 2008. They got so many requests that they built an automated system to handle them. Combined with ballooning law enforcement budgets, this trend towards automation, which includes things like license plate scanners and domestically deployed drones, represents a significant shift in the way that law enforcement operates. Police already abuse the immense power they have, but if everyone’s every action were being monitored, and everyone technically violates some obscure law at some time, then punishment becomes purely selective. Those in power will essentially have what they need to punish anyone they’d like, whenever they choose, as if there were no rules at all. Even ignoring this obvious potential for new abuse, it’s also substantially closer to that dystopian reality of a world where law enforcement is 100% effective, eliminating the possibility to experience alternative ideas that might better suit us. https://moxie.org/2013/06/12/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide.html https://moxie.org/2013/06/12/we-should-all-have-something-to... ACLU: For more than a decade now, Americans have repeatedly encountered illegal and unnecessary spying by local, state, and federal law enforcement on lawful and peaceful protesters. https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/rights-protesters/spying-protesters https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/rights-protesters/sp... EFF: Theft, damage, confiscation, or forced deletion of media can disrupt your ability to publish your experiences. https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/attending-protest https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/attending-protest EFF: Here is a review of surveillance technology that police may be deploying against ongoing protests against racism and police brutality. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/how-identify-visible-and-invisible-surveillance-protests https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/how-identify-visible-a... > feeds the meme that privacy is for rioters Ok, I get it. You’re upset about the “rioters”. Choose your new app and carry on.

crorella 6y ago

Really nice design, in the future I see a market for "privacy tools that also happens to ..." kind of software, for example a Privacy tool that also happens to browse websites, or a Privacy tool that also happens to help you to send messages (like Signal); in summary, privacy aware services.

bogwog 6y ago

Anyone have information about how/where they get their funding and/or income?

sigzero 6y ago
Donors and grants.
windthrown 6y ago
They are funded by the Signal Foundation: https://signal.org/blog/signal-foundation/ https://signal.org/blog/signal-foundation/ "...Today, we are launching the Signal Foundation, an emerging 501(c)(3) nonprofit created and made possible by Brian Acton, the co-founder of WhatsApp, to support, accelerate, and broaden Signal’s mission of making private communication accessible and ubiquitous. In case you missed it, Brian left WhatsApp and Facebook last year, and has been thinking about how to best focus his future time and energy on building nonprofit technology for public good. Starting with an initial $50,000,000 in funding, we can now increase the size of our team, our capacity, and our ambitions. This means reduced uncertainty on the path to sustainability, and the strengthening of our long-term goals and values. Perhaps most significantly, the addition of Brian brings an incredibly talented engineer and visionary with decades of experience building successful products to our team."
- secfirstmd 6y ago
  Yep, originally the Open Tech Fund was a big funder. They funded apps like our own Umbrella App and also lots of Guardian Project and Tor etc

StavrosK 6y ago

I love Signal and use it as much as I can, but I'm thinking of switching to Matrix solely because the desktop client is pretty bad. It won't show me messages until it syncs everything (so I can't even see old messages while things sync), and, what's worse, it skips messages, and multi-device just doesn't work. My laptop just shows "Message could not be decrypted" until I delete everything and reset. I'm not sure why it works so poorly after years of existence, but unfortunately I'm losing hope that it'll be fixed. I sometimes feel like the Signal team doesn't use their product, or they would have noticed this. Meanwhile, yes, Matrix took years to add encryption, but it works much better than Signal, even with quite a few small bugs.

ChristianBundy 6y ago
> Meanwhile, yes, Matrix took years to add encryption, but it works much better than Signal, even with quite a few small bugs. I'm not sure which Matrix client you use, but clients like Riot don't even let you opt out of sending read receipts unless you edit `/etc/riot/config.json` to enable experiments and then go into the settings to disable read receipts. Problems like this (and issues like this [0]) give me the impression that Riot isn't designed for people who need privacy. (Yes, there are other Matrix clients [1], but my understanding is that Riot is the flagship interface.) [0]: https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/8961 https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/8961 [1]: https://www.matrix.org/clients/ https://www.matrix.org/clients/
- secfirstmd 6y ago
  I'm a massive Matrix fan and have high hopes for it but in experiments we've done with activist and journalist partners we've found the Riot.im client often gets a bit complicated for people to use. I think the main issue people have is related to keys. As I techie I love the options but I find many don't like having all the options. Signal of course is a lot easier as it hides many of those issues in the UI/UX.
  - techntoke 6y ago
    I just opened my Signal desktop app that I had synced previously. It asked me to resync again with my mobile device, which needs camera permissions to take a picture of a QR code. I had previously removed Signal from my mobile device. Low and behold, my account no longer existed and I had to sign back up with a phone number. I then clicked sync and most of my messages on my desktop are gone. I don't see how this is easy by any standard.

eeZah7Ux 6y ago

Signal is a walled garden. They refuse to allow federation and even prohibit any modified client to use their servers. It's the least open "open source" model, and once (if) they gain significant market share they can easily close down the app and lock-in the users. Please use and spread federated alternatives. Donate and contribute.

jjtheblunt 6y ago
What alternative would you recommend?
- MYEUHD 6y ago
  XMPP with OMEMO
  - merge 6y ago
    agreed. I recently removed Signal and started using xmpp (again). It'll always be there (Signal probably won't) and getting a friend to install conversations.im and register a name on a public server is not much harder than getting someone to install Signal. To me it somehow feels like it's a good time for xmpp
- Multicomp 6y ago
  TL;DR / I accidentally wish-listed myself: Sign in to matrix.org with Riot Android / IOS / Web Like sibling poster, XMPP with OMEMO encryption is an option, but it requires setting up an xmpp server with ejabberd or prosody software, then installing Gajim on your PCs and Conversations (paid via play store, free via F-Droid) for Android / a good iOS Xmpp client that supports OMEMO. Except for techies, ^ is waaaay too much for people who are just looking to have an alternative to Signal's lock-in. I can barely get people to install the signal app and click open :) I currently recommend installing Riot IOS / Riot Android and logging in to the free Matrix.org instance, which does not use your phone number or anything. In the future I hope to recommend whatever P2P Matrix phone app comes out, and you just share your ids with friends via QR code handshakes and boom, you are off to the races with nothing but an internet connection and a friend ID. Metadata is all local to phones, so nothing to see. In the medium future, I also hope to recommend cwtch.im which is the replacement for richochet, a metadata resistant p2p e2ee messaging app. In the far future, I hope to have something like a smartphone mobile ad hoc network-based p2p e2ee app where you scan qr codes to handshake and you either communicate over the internet (like p2p matrix) or over mesh network as long as you are within 10 hops of another device (like bridgefy or firechat). Bonus points if one can DIY a passive repeater that works with the mesh network.

clarkmoody 6y ago

The anti-Signal rhetoric has already started. News articles about Antifa specifically mention that they communicate via Signal. If Antifa is designated as a terrorist organization, then we'll see all the counter-terrorism tools brought to bear against them. If the state can't break Signal encryption, then you'll see renewed energy for anti-encryption / anti-privacy policies.

chrononaut 6y ago
My intuition would say that I would doubt this would change much in terms of investment. Of course without specific knowledge I would suspect that there are terrorist organizations in the world already using Signal such that resources are already being spent doing what you describe. I would also suspect that for any and all cryptographic applications.
troughway 6y ago
Why would antifa result in anti-signal rhetoric? Genuine question because antifa is a mixed bag - there isn’t really any consensus on whether what they do is good or bad. Seems to be all over the damn place.
- Cenk 6y ago
  There is no consensus on wether being against fascism is good or bad? Being against fascism is not a group or organisation. It’s like calling bird watching an organisation. Yes, there are bird watching organisations, as there are antifa organisations, but neither bird watching nor antifa is an organisation.
  - troughway 6y ago
    They purport they are against fascism. But if you look at what they do sometimes, it amounts to little more than looting, rioting and vandalism. Not always, but sometimes. They don’t seem to have a designated modus operandi.
    - 6y ago

losvedir 6y ago

Is it worth trying to move my friends from WhatsApp to Signal? As I understand it, they're both e2e encrypted. I'm also trying to move my chats from SMS and Gchat to something encrypted, but am torn between WhatsApp and Signal. The former has more of a buy-in with my contacts already. I realize WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, but isn't the whole point of e2e encryption that you don't have to trust the intermediate infrastructure? And if you enable the setting to warn if the key changes, there's no danger, right?

kasey_junk 6y ago
The metadata is the difference. Your contact graph is fair game on WhatsApp for Facebook
- jwr 6y ago
  Exactly! And it was worth $19 billion to Facebook. That's what they paid to acquire WhatsApp, one would suppose not with the goal of watching encrypted messages fly by.
Skunkleton 6y ago
That is an impossible question to give one answer to. There are lots of considerations. For example: 1) Do you trust facebook with messaging metadata? For example, do you want them to know that you messaged your friend Jane a specific number of times on specific dates, knowing that they can coorelate this information to facebook profiles, and will give up this information for ad, and law enforcement purposes. 2) Do you trust Signal's infrastructure to be reliable when you need it? 3) What is you're threat model? For me, I want to be kept out of all ad-related data sets, and I want to have conversations with friends without having to think about a paper trail. 4) Do you care that you will have to convince people to install yet another messaging app? 5) Do you trust that Signal and WhatsApp have correctly integrated the underlying crypto protocol? I assume that you would, considering its history. Still, I would trust signal more in this regard. 6) Do you think that Facebook or Signal is more likely to cut a privacy corner in support of a ease-of-use feature? Do you care? For my friends, the answer is that I use signal. Everyone who doesn't use signal falls back to getting SMS, or phone calls. The problem here is that SMS and phone calls are both huge privacy holes. For my threat model, I don't care, but you might.

djaouen 6y ago

All encryption is broken wrt a quantum cracker. How will, say, the future look at these Signal uses?

im3w1l 6y ago
You are wrong that all encryption is broken with a quantum cracker. But as far as I know Signal is not quantum resistant. It's certainly something to keep in mind - that whatever you say might resurface later.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

javajosh 6y ago

Signal is open source; I'm wondering, has anyone here ever built the service and one or more clients and run it on-prem, or even as a white-labelled competing service?

jayp1418 6y ago
Yes there are forks/clones you can search that on signal community website.

user764743 6y ago

They need to allow us to not reveal phone numbers in a group, especially now.

korethr 6y ago

Somewhat tangential, I got into an argument about Signal last night. The other guy claimed that Signal was insecure because: * It's "Custodial E2EE" * Needs a phone number (I'm not going to bother with his complaints about the crappiness of the desktop client or convenience of the design because those are non-sequiturs to the security of the app) I asked him to define "Custodial E2EE". His words: "They have ownership of my keys, use phone number auth to access them and I cant expatriate them" I managed to suppress my xkcd-386 instinct and go to bed, but my intuition is still that he's quite wrong about that. I may or may not resume my arguement with him; I got the impression that his disagrements were rooted in a Matrix fanboyism, but I'd like to be equipped to refute such arguments in the future. I can somewhat sympathize with the phone number argument, and I think it comes from a concern about metadata leaks or opsec. I think that concern ultimately stems from a wrong threat model, but I'm not sure how to refute that. I have however, come across a number of tutorials which cover how to register a Signal account without using your phone numbers, so I feel confident I can refute the argument that signal must have your phone number, even if I can't refute the underlying wrong thinking. Regarding the "Custodial E2EE" argument, I'm not sure where to begin. Anyone have any suggestions?

jcrawfordor 6y ago
On the first point, their understanding of Signal's key management doesn't seem to be correct. The private key is held only by the client on the mobile phone, which is one of the reasons that the desktop client is rather clumsy - it is dependent on the mobile app for initial key setup. It's also just very slow compared to the mobile app. On the second point, I think they are quite correct. Yes, this depends on your use-case, but I consider the ability to have multiple and disposable identities to be somewhat critical to any messaging system calling itself suitable for security-sensitive use. Unfortunately, Signal is designed explicitly to make multiple or disposable identities impractical. Above and beyond their desire to be a drop-in replacement for SMS, a reason for this is almost certainly to reduce spam, as the need for a valid phone number makes it difficult to register accounts en masse. In general, this method to mitigating abuse means that Signal cannot practically be used anonymously, which somewhat conflicts with the popularity of Signal as a mechanism for e.g. contacting journalists. In the vein of criticizing Signal, I would also throw out that it largely abandons the problem of key distribution, effectively implementing a TOFU model that is lightly enforced at that, with "safety number changes" being pretty much normal. It is possible to verify Signal identities out-of-band but not common, and the Signal app does not really provide much tooling to make it easier. I wouldn't say that Signal is bad, it does a great job of implementing effectively the identity semantics of SMS (including the shortcomings) but with the addition of E2E encryption and TOFU. I would stop short anyone who claims Signal to be a "perfect" or "complete" solution for encrypted messaging as there are common use cases that it has actively decided not to address. I'm also, to be honest, somewhat baffled that your starting position seems to be that no criticism of Signal could possibly be valid, when attributing the other's viewpoint to fanboyism. Don't take that too seriously, it just stood out to me on reading. :)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rglullis 6y ago

Or use something that you (or someone you trust) can self-host, so then even the company/CEO/TLA-with-subpoenas are out of the picture. Not only do I get to get Moxie out of the picture, I also get my phone and the phone companies out of it.

lsiebert 6y ago

Lately I've been wishing Signal had a bridgefy type mesh mode that enabled operation peer to peer over wifi direct or bluetooth, either directly or via a mesh of such devices. First I think it would be useful at protests, to preserve privacy (and whatever side of the political divide you are on, I hope we agree that covert government surveillance and tracking of people at a protest is wrong, here, in HK, or wherever). But it would also be nice to have when outside the reach of cellular or wifi internet. Think camping, traveling, people living with intermittent power, or those who lost power in some sort of disaster or emergency. I'm honestly not sure if this would be feasible, as I don't grok the signal protocol fully, but the signal protocol does support async messaging.

brnt 6y ago
You're looking for the https://briarproject.org https://briarproject.org
- lsiebert 6y ago
  Unfortunately Briar only handles direct connections, and doesn't work on IOS.

paulcarroty 6y ago

"Secure" messengers which use google play services sucks.

sneak 6y ago

iCloud contacts is not e2e encrypted. Apple, as well as FBI/DHS and the US military intelligence apparatus can access your entire contacts list and infer your whole social graph. This is why a messenger needs an e2e contacts sync, whether Moxie wants to be responsible for it or not.

dbg31415 6y ago

I want to love Signal, but it's just so meh. * Message sync is like non-existent. Messages on my phone or laptop aren't kept in sync at all. Delete one one place, they don't delete in both. * Let me edit messages, like every other message platform. I also want to be able to delete messages from the group. When I delete it deletes locally but not for the group, not even between my own devices I don't think. This sucks because deleting the message implies to anyone who has used a message system that the messages are deleted from everyone, but they aren't. Oof. * When you set messages to expire, you can't make them expire. It only applies to future messages. I want to set this at the conversation level, not on a weird message-by-message basis with no way to change it globally after. * I want to be able to sign in without using a cell phone number. Let me sign up with anything else, don't tie it to a cell phone line that can be hijacked. * Let me add emoji responses to messages. Like every other message platform. * Bonus, be peer-to-peer somehow. Dunno, like Blockchain magic it or something. Don't make me rely on some server somewhere. Just makes me feel uneasy that there's a middle man with all my messages. How unrealistic is all this? (=

Well_hello 6y ago
you are just using the wrong tool

gdmka 6y ago

I love Signal. I've convinced a multitude of people to switch and some use it day to day currently, but mostly to talk to me. So i feel my contacts do it out of respect and `compatibility` of communication. What baffles me is the the incompatible feature matrix. First of all, for some reason iOS users get the updates faster than the Android. I was exploring emoji reactions yesterday while my Android contact admitted the feature was not yet available for his device. I had to double check with Play Store to confirm. I've found peace with the sync issues for the desktop client though, it got much more stable compare to 8 months ago. What still feels like a massive UX problem is inability to forward messages on the desktop. Given, i have lots of people coming from different places that do not know each other but share same interests it's just painstaking to copy/paste the same URL five time in a row. And at the same time, there's no support for the Android tablets as secondary devices. For a person deep in Apple ecosystem it felt weird to learn that Android users don't share the same experiences i do. That makes the sales pitch to try Signal way less appealing for the Android folk.

bmarquez 6y ago
iOS may get updates faster than Android and have emojis, but iOS can't backup or transfer your messages to a new phone. This basic feature has been an open request for nearly 3 years. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/2542 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/2542 The inconsistent features between iOS and Android are annoying.
- gdmka 6y ago
  Actually iOS can transfer message history to a new iPhone https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Backup-and-Restore-Messages#ios_restore https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Ba... Not having a backup is seen as a disadvantage by many but i literally feel it's for the best. There's plenty of scenarios when parties benefit from it.
  - Y-bar 6y ago
    Purchasing a new phone is only a small subset of the scenarios where a backup is useful, for example, in the last two years Apple support has requested that I reset my phone and reinstall iOS twice. Having to buy a second phone to temporarily store my data is not a viable alternative. Or losing your phone. Or accidentally breaking it. Or having it stolen. A backup protects my data in these situations where a transfer utility does not. Backups disabled by default would be a sensible approach, but is very much being childish not to let users access their own data.