20 ms·

Signal increased limits for group calls

130 points by eddieoz 6y ago

eddieoz 6y ago
Do they really need to be like whatsapp for massive adoption?
- edeion 6y ago
  As far as I understand, the point of Signal's current move is to take advantage of the huge number of people who (for once) got interested in moving away from WhatsApp. Then, I suspect there could be an implicit specific criticism underlying your comment but I don't get it.
  - eddieoz 6y ago
    Yes, you are correct. From the infosec point-of-view, I believe simpler is better. Adding extra complexity always opens the door for issues which were not presented before, in the core product and core functionality. From the business perspective, I understand it is a step to get the new demand opportunity.
- jedimastert 6y ago
  Why not?
chanmad29 6y ago
Is there chat syncing across devices and backups on cards or does it defeat the app's purpose?
- edeion 6y ago
  Signal syncs fine between my iPhone and MacBook. I don't actually understand how, but it does.
  - teruakohatu 6y ago
    When you first link it up it does not sync history, which is annoying.
    - skrowl 6y ago
      Correct, it's only going forward from that point, which is a deal breaker for many. New device = no chat history.
      - rkangel 6y ago
        Yes, it's a pain. And I have to install a thing, rather than just open a WebApp because I have to write some long messages. I've been using Signal for 4 hours though so we'll see how it goes.
      - chanmad29 6y ago
        wow! so I move from a iphone to a new iphone and I end up with no history? This is really a deal breaker.
        newscracker 6y ago
        If you have the current iPhone and the new iPhone close by, you can transfer all conversations from the old one to the new one through a direct transfer mechanism built into Signal. But if you don’t have both devices close by or if you’re setting up your iPhone as new due to some issues and the restore from an iCloud or iTunes backup, then you’re out of luck because Signal prevents its data from being backed up to iCloud and iTunes.
    - abstractbarista 6y ago
      It can't, because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm This gives us the guarantee of forward secrecy. When you pair a Signal app, it gets to know the current keys used to advance the ratchet. But, it cannot deduce keys used to encrypt prior messages. It can only decrypt future messages.
- eddieoz 6y ago
  I miss really miss this feature... having 2 devices, I can have signal in just one. I don't believe syncing in multiple devices can be a problem for the app purpose, mainly because the new whatsapp features they announced.
kjakm 6y ago
It's really interesting to see the things people want: 1. Stickers 2. Status 3. Stories 4. Chat wallpapers 5. etc. I guess it shows the different ways people use chat apps but I don't see any use case for status or understand why people want stories in yet another app. I'm sure they have their reasons though. Quite an interesting thread of requests.
- bondarchuk 6y ago
  Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but the people saying that are all Twitter users.
- avra 6y ago
  Stories are implemented to keep the user engaged. I think the fact that people are even asking for them in other apps could be interpreted as clearly working or even as being addictive.
- Loic 6y ago
  The status is definitely something people using WhatsApp are missing on Signal. This is a very easy, low engagement, no pressure way to publish news to friends and family. What I really like about it is that you are not forced to look at the status of people, you as a consumer of the published status retrieve/pull them only when you want.
  - kjakm 6y ago
    Interesting. I wonder if it's a regional thing. Not one of my contacts or any age group uses statuses. They're left on default. The last time I remember setting a chat status was using MSN as a teenager to share my favourite song. Mind sharing an example of something you've used it for?
    - Ayesh 6y ago
      Not OP, but I use WhatsApp statuses frequently. You can set privacy settings down to individual people. Most of my statuses are photos I take from my phone, when I'm out cycling, making some food, or even a link to an article in find interesting. I like that they are removed after 24 hours, and no pressure to edit the photos beyond simple filters. No pressure like when you post a photo on Instagram.
kitkat_new 6y ago
Interoperability/Federation, please A walled garden has no long term future
- hprotagonist 6y ago
  staring in iMessage blue text superiority /s
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  The success of iMessage and the entire Apple ecosystem in the US proves that a walled garden is exactly what people trust and want and are willing to pay handsomely for the privilege of being part of one. Interoperability/Federation is something the average user doesn't understand and won't even bother too as long as their basic needs are already comfortably fulfilled. Seriously, get out of the tech bubble for a while and see that most people have no idea what the brand of their computer is or what their OS is called and they don't even care. They just want to click the internet icon and start browsing memes, play candy crush or watch youtube. Even my young friends who are mechanical/civil engineers and make good money don't see any issue in having personal information in the hands of Facebook and Google controlled services or any other free on-line services who make a living by monetizing your personal data. They either think people are over-reacting about this, as like, if they were truly evil, the gov. would shut them down or for them it's just too much friction to bother readjusting their lifestyle to something else and prefer the comfort provided by these companies.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    You think the average user doesn't understand email?
  - kitkat_new 6y ago
    Imagine only being able to - email to the same email provider - phone only to the same telco provider - access a website through a dedicated browser - ... Still don't understand and bother?
  - rglullis 6y ago
undefined1 6y ago
Serious question to those cheering on the deplatforming power of the big tech monopolies: Are you still going to be onboard when Signal is banned from the App stores? How about when backdoors are required? Bear in mind, Signal has no moderation - that's baked into the product.
- siver_john 6y ago
  I had this exact conversation with some friends yesterday, and here was my response to them edited for clarity: And the difference between Parler and Signal is that Parler is a social media platform, Signal is a messaging platform. It's the difference of having a group of terrorists[0] in your restaurant everyday audibly planning a terrorist attack versus being the site of a message drop that occurs discreetly. Accessory charges are likely in the former unlikely in the latter.[1] [0]Replace terrorists with criminals or whatever is palatable to you, it was the example we were using at the time. [1]Standard disclosure I am not a lawyer/prosecutor/etc.
  - rmsaksida 6y ago
    I don't know about Signal, but Telegram blurs the lines between a messaging app and a more general purpose social network. Telegram has public groups (supporting 100s of thousands of users) and channels that feature comment sections. It wouldn't surprise me if Telegram ends up getting banned by app stores because of their resilience and respect of privacy.
    - siver_john 6y ago
      Admittedly, I don't know about Telegram. But I would probably guess the distinction is still there because if I had to guess Telegram doesn't advertise those groups, you have to look for them, which decreases the condition of "audibly hearing the discussion." Where as Parler being a social media platform first wants to encourage the network effect and engagement among it's users, thus encouraging this open discussion and connection among potentially dangerous elements. Again in my non legal estimation of the law (not that I think anything I'm currently suggesting has been tried in court).
bilal4hmed 6y ago
Figure out how people will continue to donate and not deviate from their original mission, given the push from new users for feature parity with Telegram and WhatsApp. I cant imagine that $100mn lasting if people are doing group calls, file transfers etc. because those are expensive activities with the needs for servers, bandwidth. Previously they had the luxury to coast because of that donation, now not so much.
- eddieoz 6y ago
  Agreed. The core services are working very well and business decisions because of this new market opportunity can drive them to pivot to something totally different.
  - bilal4hmed 6y ago
    the speed at which such a small team is working at is commendable but just take a look at the beta forum and see the how much faster they are moving in the new beta release for Android. Its a far more buggier release compared to the careful approach. Keep this up and signal will be a remnant of its former self.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Colocation, equipment, and admin time should be no more than $1-2 million/year. Reference OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, similar non profit infra expenses in their IRS non profit return [1]. You most definitely don't want to be at a cloud provider with their bandwidth charges. The Internet Archive runs ~50Gbit/sec, peaking at ~62Gbit/sec [2]. [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/ https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/ [2] http://blog.archive.org/2020/05/11/thank-you-for-helping-us-increase-our-bandwidth/ http://blog.archive.org/2020/05/11/thank-you-for-helping-us-...
  - bilal4hmed 6y ago
    They are using AWS for their infrastructure. Based on their last Form 980, which is from 2018 their expenses were about $5 million. That expense was with < 10 mn users and a much smaller dev team. Since 2018 theyve added more android and ios developers.
tribaal 6y ago
I think Signal should bundle a simple on-screen keyboard, similar to the way banks etc... do it. It always felt weird to me that while I trust Signal developers, all of the text input into the app goes through an on-screen keyboard that might or might not be secure. So basically, on android, while your data doesn't go to Facebook anymore, as far as I can tell it still goes to Google via the keyboard app. Doesn't it? EDIT: It feels to me like a missing piece, but maybe I'm wrong. Please educate me if I am, it's a genuine question :)
- avra 6y ago
  While this does still mean you have to trust your keyboard app, you can tell Signal to trigger your keyboards incognito mode. I don't think it should include its own keyboard. But this could be an extra app in general.
- legacynl 6y ago
  use a different keyboard.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  Signal already has problems with pissing people off by having annoying user interfaces for security reasons. This seems like a pointless measure. If you can’t trust the keyboard software installed on your phone then surely you don’t trust the os either. But if you don’t trust the os then what’s the point?
  - pornel 6y ago
    It's about explaining this threat model to users. The pitch "Use Signal and your chats will be 100% secure" is not actually true in practice due to the keyboard loophole. Users who are not technical enough to understand this will get themselves in trouble. China is especially at risk due to both having oppressive censorship and a language that needs sophisticated keyboards for entering characters.
- adimitrov 6y ago
  If you are concerned about your privacy, you can use an OSS keyboard app. Hacker's keyboard is one for android. There are some on F-Droid. You may even prefer them to Google's offering.
bravoetch 6y ago
Remove the requirement for a phone number. I prefer apps that are first class citizens on other non-phone devices.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  They have already announced that they are working on this and it will arrive in 2021.
- decrypt 6y ago
  Usernames are coming in 2021. As of now, it's not necessary to use your actual mobile number to signup though. It's well possible to use a virtual number like Google Voice, and even landline numbers work! By "other non-phone devices", were you referring to Signal on front-end-less platforms like Raspberry Pi CLI?
  - digianarchist 6y ago
    Always found it impossible to use Google Voice outside the US.
nixpulvis 6y ago
1. Removal of phone number requirement 2. Feature parity for desktop app 3. Improved search and archival features 4. Full message threading?
WhoCaresLies 6y ago
- shut down their ties with the CIA - stop with their aggressive ANTI-everything marketing
m-p-3 6y ago
For me, I don't plan on fully switching to Signal unless there's the ability to create an identity that isn't tied to a phone number.
- godelski 6y ago
  This is announced to come out this year. Likely sooner than later.
- XorNot 6y ago
  I actually really need a web interface to Signal. Family has got me stuck into Facebook Messenger for a good while, but the desire to use it on corporate supplied hardware is why it has stuck around for me. For other things I have some self-hosted services on my own domain so I can, for example, grab a common set of scripts and the like - but AFAIK I can't use Signal from the web.
  - 29083011397778 6y ago
    Have you considered using a Matrix [0] bridge [1] to relay Signal messages between any Matrix client and Signal? Most bridges work very well for messaging in my experience, and some web clients (such as Hydrogen [2]) use less than 15MB of RAM according to the the most recent status report on it [3]. You already have the domain knowledge to host another service on your own domain, and so running a Synapse server is well within reach. At least this way you have the choice between two imperfect choices: running another service vs. not having a Signal web-client. [0] https://matrix.org https://matrix.org [1] https://matrix.org/bridges/#signal https://matrix.org/bridges/#signal [2] https://hydrogen.element.io https://hydrogen.element.io [3] https://matrix.org/blog/2020/12/25/the-matrix-holiday-special-2020 https://matrix.org/blog/2020/12/25/the-matrix-holiday-specia...
newscracker 6y ago
Flagging this for an editorialized title, which is against the HN Guidelines for posts like this where a change in title is not required. The tweet says that Signal group calling limit has been raised from 5 to 8 and it continues to say (pun intended) that now you can call it even. I think it’s good to have a limit of 8 as opposed to 5, but it’d be better to bump this to double it further to cover almost everyone’s needs, though that’d require a lot more effort. But Signal, as observed over the years, could do better by focusing on many other features that users and potential switchers consider critical.

130 points by eddieoz 6y ago

eddieoz 6y ago

Do they really need to be like whatsapp for massive adoption?

edeion 6y ago
As far as I understand, the point of Signal's current move is to take advantage of the huge number of people who (for once) got interested in moving away from WhatsApp. Then, I suspect there could be an implicit specific criticism underlying your comment but I don't get it.
- eddieoz 6y ago
  Yes, you are correct. From the infosec point-of-view, I believe simpler is better. Adding extra complexity always opens the door for issues which were not presented before, in the core product and core functionality. From the business perspective, I understand it is a step to get the new demand opportunity.
jedimastert 6y ago
Why not?

chanmad29 6y ago

Is there chat syncing across devices and backups on cards or does it defeat the app's purpose?

edeion 6y ago
Signal syncs fine between my iPhone and MacBook. I don't actually understand how, but it does.
- teruakohatu 6y ago
  When you first link it up it does not sync history, which is annoying.
  - skrowl 6y ago
    Correct, it's only going forward from that point, which is a deal breaker for many. New device = no chat history.
    - rkangel 6y ago
      Yes, it's a pain. And I have to install a thing, rather than just open a WebApp because I have to write some long messages. I've been using Signal for 4 hours though so we'll see how it goes.
    - chanmad29 6y ago
      wow! so I move from a iphone to a new iphone and I end up with no history? This is really a deal breaker.
      - newscracker 6y ago
        If you have the current iPhone and the new iPhone close by, you can transfer all conversations from the old one to the new one through a direct transfer mechanism built into Signal. But if you don’t have both devices close by or if you’re setting up your iPhone as new due to some issues and the restore from an iCloud or iTunes backup, then you’re out of luck because Signal prevents its data from being backed up to iCloud and iTunes.
  - abstractbarista 6y ago
    It can't, because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm This gives us the guarantee of forward secrecy. When you pair a Signal app, it gets to know the current keys used to advance the ratchet. But, it cannot deduce keys used to encrypt prior messages. It can only decrypt future messages.
eddieoz 6y ago
I miss really miss this feature... having 2 devices, I can have signal in just one. I don't believe syncing in multiple devices can be a problem for the app purpose, mainly because the new whatsapp features they announced.

kjakm 6y ago

It's really interesting to see the things people want: 1. Stickers 2. Status 3. Stories 4. Chat wallpapers 5. etc. I guess it shows the different ways people use chat apps but I don't see any use case for status or understand why people want stories in yet another app. I'm sure they have their reasons though. Quite an interesting thread of requests.

bondarchuk 6y ago
Perhaps I'm stating the obvious but the people saying that are all Twitter users.
avra 6y ago
Stories are implemented to keep the user engaged. I think the fact that people are even asking for them in other apps could be interpreted as clearly working or even as being addictive.
Loic 6y ago
The status is definitely something people using WhatsApp are missing on Signal. This is a very easy, low engagement, no pressure way to publish news to friends and family. What I really like about it is that you are not forced to look at the status of people, you as a consumer of the published status retrieve/pull them only when you want.
- kjakm 6y ago
  Interesting. I wonder if it's a regional thing. Not one of my contacts or any age group uses statuses. They're left on default. The last time I remember setting a chat status was using MSN as a teenager to share my favourite song. Mind sharing an example of something you've used it for?
  - Ayesh 6y ago
    Not OP, but I use WhatsApp statuses frequently. You can set privacy settings down to individual people. Most of my statuses are photos I take from my phone, when I'm out cycling, making some food, or even a link to an article in find interesting. I like that they are removed after 24 hours, and no pressure to edit the photos beyond simple filters. No pressure like when you post a photo on Instagram.

kitkat_new 6y ago

Interoperability/Federation, please A walled garden has no long term future

hprotagonist 6y ago
staring in iMessage blue text superiority /s
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
The success of iMessage and the entire Apple ecosystem in the US proves that a walled garden is exactly what people trust and want and are willing to pay handsomely for the privilege of being part of one. Interoperability/Federation is something the average user doesn't understand and won't even bother too as long as their basic needs are already comfortably fulfilled. Seriously, get out of the tech bubble for a while and see that most people have no idea what the brand of their computer is or what their OS is called and they don't even care. They just want to click the internet icon and start browsing memes, play candy crush or watch youtube. Even my young friends who are mechanical/civil engineers and make good money don't see any issue in having personal information in the hands of Facebook and Google controlled services or any other free on-line services who make a living by monetizing your personal data. They either think people are over-reacting about this, as like, if they were truly evil, the gov. would shut them down or for them it's just too much friction to bother readjusting their lifestyle to something else and prefer the comfort provided by these companies.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  You think the average user doesn't understand email?
- kitkat_new 6y ago
  Imagine only being able to - email to the same email provider - phone only to the same telco provider - access a website through a dedicated browser - ... Still don't understand and bother?
- rglullis 6y ago

undefined1 6y ago

Serious question to those cheering on the deplatforming power of the big tech monopolies: Are you still going to be onboard when Signal is banned from the App stores? How about when backdoors are required? Bear in mind, Signal has no moderation - that's baked into the product.

siver_john 6y ago
I had this exact conversation with some friends yesterday, and here was my response to them edited for clarity: And the difference between Parler and Signal is that Parler is a social media platform, Signal is a messaging platform. It's the difference of having a group of terrorists[0] in your restaurant everyday audibly planning a terrorist attack versus being the site of a message drop that occurs discreetly. Accessory charges are likely in the former unlikely in the latter.[1] [0]Replace terrorists with criminals or whatever is palatable to you, it was the example we were using at the time. [1]Standard disclosure I am not a lawyer/prosecutor/etc.
- rmsaksida 6y ago
  I don't know about Signal, but Telegram blurs the lines between a messaging app and a more general purpose social network. Telegram has public groups (supporting 100s of thousands of users) and channels that feature comment sections. It wouldn't surprise me if Telegram ends up getting banned by app stores because of their resilience and respect of privacy.
  - siver_john 6y ago
    Admittedly, I don't know about Telegram. But I would probably guess the distinction is still there because if I had to guess Telegram doesn't advertise those groups, you have to look for them, which decreases the condition of "audibly hearing the discussion." Where as Parler being a social media platform first wants to encourage the network effect and engagement among it's users, thus encouraging this open discussion and connection among potentially dangerous elements. Again in my non legal estimation of the law (not that I think anything I'm currently suggesting has been tried in court).

bilal4hmed 6y ago

Figure out how people will continue to donate and not deviate from their original mission, given the push from new users for feature parity with Telegram and WhatsApp. I cant imagine that $100mn lasting if people are doing group calls, file transfers etc. because those are expensive activities with the needs for servers, bandwidth. Previously they had the luxury to coast because of that donation, now not so much.

eddieoz 6y ago
Agreed. The core services are working very well and business decisions because of this new market opportunity can drive them to pivot to something totally different.
- bilal4hmed 6y ago
  the speed at which such a small team is working at is commendable but just take a look at the beta forum and see the how much faster they are moving in the new beta release for Android. Its a far more buggier release compared to the careful approach. Keep this up and signal will be a remnant of its former self.
toomuchtodo 6y ago
Colocation, equipment, and admin time should be no more than $1-2 million/year. Reference OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, similar non profit infra expenses in their IRS non profit return [1]. You most definitely don't want to be at a cloud provider with their bandwidth charges. The Internet Archive runs ~50Gbit/sec, peaking at ~62Gbit/sec [2]. [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/ https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/ [2] http://blog.archive.org/2020/05/11/thank-you-for-helping-us-increase-our-bandwidth/ http://blog.archive.org/2020/05/11/thank-you-for-helping-us-...
- bilal4hmed 6y ago
  They are using AWS for their infrastructure. Based on their last Form 980, which is from 2018 their expenses were about $5 million. That expense was with < 10 mn users and a much smaller dev team. Since 2018 theyve added more android and ios developers.

tribaal 6y ago

I think Signal should bundle a simple on-screen keyboard, similar to the way banks etc... do it. It always felt weird to me that while I trust Signal developers, all of the text input into the app goes through an on-screen keyboard that might or might not be secure. So basically, on android, while your data doesn't go to Facebook anymore, as far as I can tell it still goes to Google via the keyboard app. Doesn't it? EDIT: It feels to me like a missing piece, but maybe I'm wrong. Please educate me if I am, it's a genuine question :)

avra 6y ago
While this does still mean you have to trust your keyboard app, you can tell Signal to trigger your keyboards incognito mode. I don't think it should include its own keyboard. But this could be an extra app in general.
legacynl 6y ago
use a different keyboard.
dan-robertson 6y ago
Signal already has problems with pissing people off by having annoying user interfaces for security reasons. This seems like a pointless measure. If you can’t trust the keyboard software installed on your phone then surely you don’t trust the os either. But if you don’t trust the os then what’s the point?
- pornel 6y ago
  It's about explaining this threat model to users. The pitch "Use Signal and your chats will be 100% secure" is not actually true in practice due to the keyboard loophole. Users who are not technical enough to understand this will get themselves in trouble. China is especially at risk due to both having oppressive censorship and a language that needs sophisticated keyboards for entering characters.
adimitrov 6y ago
If you are concerned about your privacy, you can use an OSS keyboard app. Hacker's keyboard is one for android. There are some on F-Droid. You may even prefer them to Google's offering.

bravoetch 6y ago

Remove the requirement for a phone number. I prefer apps that are first class citizens on other non-phone devices.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
They have already announced that they are working on this and it will arrive in 2021.
decrypt 6y ago
Usernames are coming in 2021. As of now, it's not necessary to use your actual mobile number to signup though. It's well possible to use a virtual number like Google Voice, and even landline numbers work! By "other non-phone devices", were you referring to Signal on front-end-less platforms like Raspberry Pi CLI?
- digianarchist 6y ago
  Always found it impossible to use Google Voice outside the US.

nixpulvis 6y ago

1. Removal of phone number requirement 2. Feature parity for desktop app 3. Improved search and archival features 4. Full message threading?

WhoCaresLies 6y ago

- shut down their ties with the CIA - stop with their aggressive ANTI-everything marketing

m-p-3 6y ago

For me, I don't plan on fully switching to Signal unless there's the ability to create an identity that isn't tied to a phone number.

godelski 6y ago
This is announced to come out this year. Likely sooner than later.
XorNot 6y ago
I actually really need a web interface to Signal. Family has got me stuck into Facebook Messenger for a good while, but the desire to use it on corporate supplied hardware is why it has stuck around for me. For other things I have some self-hosted services on my own domain so I can, for example, grab a common set of scripts and the like - but AFAIK I can't use Signal from the web.
- 29083011397778 6y ago
  Have you considered using a Matrix [0] bridge [1] to relay Signal messages between any Matrix client and Signal? Most bridges work very well for messaging in my experience, and some web clients (such as Hydrogen [2]) use less than 15MB of RAM according to the the most recent status report on it [3]. You already have the domain knowledge to host another service on your own domain, and so running a Synapse server is well within reach. At least this way you have the choice between two imperfect choices: running another service vs. not having a Signal web-client. [0] https://matrix.org https://matrix.org [1] https://matrix.org/bridges/#signal https://matrix.org/bridges/#signal [2] https://hydrogen.element.io https://hydrogen.element.io [3] https://matrix.org/blog/2020/12/25/the-matrix-holiday-special-2020 https://matrix.org/blog/2020/12/25/the-matrix-holiday-specia...

newscracker 6y ago

Flagging this for an editorialized title, which is against the HN Guidelines for posts like this where a change in title is not required. The tweet says that Signal group calling limit has been raised from 5 to 8 and it continues to say (pun intended) that now you can call it even. I think it’s good to have a limit of 8 as opposed to 5, but it’d be better to bump this to double it further to cover almost everyone’s needs, though that’d require a lot more effort. But Signal, as observed over the years, could do better by focusing on many other features that users and potential switchers consider critical.