15 ms·

We can do better than Signal

175 points by icy 6y ago

tailspin2019 6y ago
I wanted to disagree with the headline. Then I read the article and do see their point. I’ve been a big proponent of Signal for years and donated for the first time during their outage. But I do think this is a conversation worth having. I’d also like to understand more about this: > In fact, the Signal server code [0] hasn’t even been updated since April 2020. You’re telling me it’s undergone no changes? [0]: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server
- solstice 6y ago
  If all the interesting stuff happens on the client and the server "just" forwards encrypted messages, why would the server need frequent updates?
  - bilal4hmed 6y ago
    if you go to the main git page https://github.com/signalapp https://github.com/signalapp you can see that changes were made to the server 8 hours ago. So something is happening on the server, the public cant see it. I definitely would like to see whats happening given. I trust them, but we definitely need to see whats on the server code.
    - tailspin2019 6y ago
      I think those changes could just be Pull Requests? Not necessarily code merged to master/main. Unless you’re spotting something that I’m not?
      - bilal4hmed 6y ago
        the last PR was 9 hours ago https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/pulls https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/pulls while the main page says update was 8. Thats what threw me off
    - cevn 6y ago
      I believe the 8 hours ago activity is from someone opening a PR, not some weird trick to update git repositories without being seen.
- mecanicox 6y ago
  I disagree too, I known the people behind signal and signal protocol by far 10 years, I been see their work for a long time in different fields, when I read "We can do better than Signal" It's a natural thought human to find better in all things, but I don't really see more in the article
walrus01 6y ago
For companies and groups, organizations that want to replace the functionality of Slack, self-hosted Matrix (using the official Synapse software package) is becoming an increasingly viable option. https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/tree/master https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/tree/master
geek_at 6y ago
Do it and let us know when you're finished ;)
- underdeserver 6y ago
  Exactly. Talk is cheap.
ve55 6y ago
Being limited to a phone app and requiring phone numbers is severely limiting as well. Matrix is probably the current best-positioned e2e chat app that should be able to encompass more use cases, but it's difficult to convince users to use anything encrypted when alternatives have more network effects and usability. Network effects always seem to be particularly egregious gatekeepers for social apps, often keeping users on inferior alternatives for years or decades, as coordinating a mass-switch is too difficult (Signal got particularly lucky with a few recent events or it wouldn't have nearly as many users switching to it right now).
- solstice 6y ago
  Severely limiting? Please... Signal Desktop can be improved but I use it daily and it works for me™. Also, in many other countries, many people don't even have a PC (outside of work) but they'll definitely have a smartphone. So prioritizing app development is smart imo.
  - ve55 6y ago
    Not everyone wants their phone number to be their primary identifier
solstice 6y ago
Lots of FUD in the opening paragraphs ("no changes to server code since April!!1!"). I stopped reading after that
- tailspin2019 6y ago
  Care to educate those of us who are confused by this?
  - colecut 6y ago
    Can you name anything that should have been fixed in Signal Server since April?
    - sahkopoyta 6y ago
      Can you name anything that should have been fixed in Signal Server before April? Probably not, but this doesn't look very good https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/graphs/code-frequency https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/graphs/code-frequ...
  - solstice 6y ago
    See my other reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25812853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25812853
    - tailspin2019 6y ago
      Thanks, wasn’t sure if you were saying that it was untrue that there were no changes or that it was not an issue that there weren’t. Even so, I’ve yet to come across a software project in my career that didn’t have a fully stocked backlog of bugs, performance optimisations, security improvements etc. In most cases if I find a project on GitHub that hasn’t been updated in 6 months, it’s usually a sign that it might be dead or languishing. Not saying that’s the case here, but the question seems valid. Also not making a value judgement. Signal is free and open source, and the guys are rockstars. But it does make me wonder if what’s running in production is a 6 month old build of that code, or is there more to it...
alex_portabella 6y ago
Can anyone closer to development of Signal (or who works on it) comment on why the server code was last updated in April (7 months ago https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server)? Has _all_ development been client side?
- proactivesvcs 6y ago
  I think that the GitHub repos are a copy of their internal VCS that aren't necessarily updated frequently.
- immigrantsheep 6y ago
  I might be mistaken but I think someone wrote here a few days ago that they noticed the Server being updated but that the github repo doesn't reflect those changes.
marcinzm 6y ago
I'm confused about this piece. If there's true E2E encryption (verified by open source client code and review of released binaries) then why does it matter if the server code is backdoored or not? The whole point of E2E is that you don't need to care about the server being able to ever see the text of your messages because it never can.
- tailspin2019 6y ago
  Do we have a way to verify that the App Store apps are actually running the open source (as published) code?
  - eat_veggies 6y ago
    Builds on Android have been (mostly) reproducible since 2016: https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/ https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/ Looks like the situation is more complicated and still unresolved for iOS: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/641 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/641
    - tailspin2019 6y ago
      Interesting! Thanks for the links.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  It's certainly much better than the norm! But there's also metadata retention, which Signal frequently brags about being good at not doing, but which is unverifiable unless it's you serving the warrant and coming up disappointed.
- xrisk 6y ago
  Copy pasting my comment: Consider this paragraph from the Signal protocol > ...For example, they may compare public key fingerprints manually, or by scanning a QR code. Methods for doing this are outside the scope of this document. > If authentication is not performed, the parties receive no cryptographic guarantee as to who they are communicating with. Nobody I know in practice does this authentication. If an active attack is carried out, I'm reasonably sure people would not notice.
xrisk 6y ago
So one of the things that feels the most damning to me about Signal-like protocols is that you have to inherently trust their server. Consider this paragraph from the Signal protocol > ...For example, they may compare public key fingerprints manually, or by scanning a QR code. Methods for doing this are outside the scope of this document. > If authentication is not performed, the parties receive no cryptographic guarantee as to who they are communicating with. I have not known anybody that actually does this. If an active attack does happen on somebody, I'm pretty sure they would not notice. As far as I understand, a decentralized model solves this problem. Don't trust the server? Run your own instance or have some other way of validating clients (via your own PKI infra or similar).
- StavrosK 6y ago
  You understand wrong. Nothing solves this problem except verifying fingerprints manually (in person!) or scanning the QR code (again in person!).
  - xrisk 6y ago
    Why? I trust that my own server is not backdoored (thus reducing the need for off-channel fingerprint verification), I have no such guarantee about Signal's server.
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      Because you can never be sure that the other person's server or connection (or your connection) aren't being MitMed.
      - xrisk 6y ago
        Yes, but I can get all the parties I want to talk to on my own server (if the need arises). About your point the connection itself being MITMed, I don't exactly understand how an active attacker sitting on my connection would undermine the connection? Presumably I have a way to verify the identify of my server. Please do elaborate if I'm missing something. Regardless an interesting thought.
StavrosK 6y ago
I'm a bit annoyed at "we can do better than X" when, you know what? Maybe we can't. Yes, it's nice that you and I can install Element and deal with the finicky crypto handshake that for some reason always shows red for me because a friend opened the web UI and closed it before he completed the handshake and now we can never actually make that check go green, and it's nice that Mastodon is distributed but mastodon.host went down one day with all my toots without a word from the administrator, and yeah I know I should have picked a better host (though if you could predict that mastodon.host will die why didn't you tell me?), but my mom can't. Users value their convenience, and security and privacy are inconvenient. Hell, we started decentralized and over email and newsgroups and personal websites and blogs and it's all Facebook Facebook Facebook now that the Eternal September came around. If we could do better, we would have done better by now.
- xrisk 6y ago
  > If we could do better, we would have done better by now. We should have given up on Linux UIs way back then. They're still garbage when it compares to the alternatives.
- tomphoolery 6y ago
  It turns out that decentralization closes the door on top-down censorship, but at the same time, invites spam and abuse of the system for personal gain. It's very easy to do this in a decentralized model, and every single decentralized service suffers from this. IRC, Email, Mastodon, you name it. It's all bad.
  - CuriouslyC 6y ago
    The solution is simple. Make the decentralized systems social, with reputation.
    - lukevp 6y ago
      How do you prevent bots giving each other reputation?
outime 6y ago
It’s great to see some balance about the Signal discussion here at HN. All I could see in the frontpage for several days is how great Signal is but nothing about what’s not so bright. This article brings up the same concerns I always had and I hope we all start being more conscious about it.
monokh 6y ago
> A common defense in favor of Signal is, “But it’s all open source!”. Sure is, but on what basis do I trust them? ... The open source aspect for me means 2 things. - I can verify the e2e encryption claim. - I can reproduce the client builds ensuring that what I run matches the source [1] Is there a detail relating to the server that would invalidate this? [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/master/reproducible-builds https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/master/repr...
- Evidlo 6y ago
  A lot of open source projects are also "open" in the sense community contributions and interoperability, so people often take open source to mean these things as well. Signal is open source, but hardly open as in the sense above.
- zamadatix 6y ago
  Both of your things depend on the client and if they are true it doesn't actually matter if the server is malicious or not. I think the best description I've heard of Signal is it's open source "software" not an open source "project".
Ericson2314 6y ago
As I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25795575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25795575 - WhatsApp: Oh wait, SMS etc. is completely insecure - Signal: Oh wait, WhatsApp is structurally unable to be a force for privacy - Matrix: Oh wait, even benevolent centralization is an unnecessary risk It's not that worse is better, but the general public's imagination can only grow so fast. We need to coax people along. As such, I do think all 3 serve a purpose in certain times and places. I took advantage of the Signal downtime to get a few people onto Matrix. There will be more opportunities.
- caust1c 6y ago
  I'm not positive, but I think the signal protocol and signal messenger came before Moxie worked with Whatsapp to provide e2e encryption. Not refuting your point at all, just providing additional context.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    Yeah I'm charting the public's realizations, not security experts' realizations.
- BillyTheKing 6y ago
  In fairness, I think WhatsApp's value proposition is and was as little more than 'just' oh wait, sms etc. is completely insecure. I don't think the majority really cared about that (especially since end-to-end encryption was a later addition). I think most people primarily started using WhatsApp because a) it was (is) free b) cross-platform c) worked very reliably
  - martimarkov 6y ago
    It wasn’t free in the beginning but it was cheaper to send a picture message from it than from MMS
  - zamadatix 6y ago
    Also for all of the messaging apps out there it's surprising how much feature differentiation they still have. Once you get used to a certain feature set it's hard to move to something with a different set even if it's overall probably better.
walrus01 6y ago
My main complaint about Signal is its reliance on SS7/PSTN and ordinary phone numbers to identify a user. In an era of SS7 hijacks and social-engineering of mobile phone network customer service reps into SIM-hijacking a target's phone service, by no means should we ever rely upon a phone number as a guaranteed method of identifying an end point device's identity. These are basically the same reasons why other services' "2FA" by SMS is questionable at best.
- ehutch79 6y ago
  Doesn't the protocol detect device changes?
  - walrus01 6y ago
    It does, and it warns the other users chatting with the person whose device has changed, but given the tendency of non technical users to click "yes/accept/okay" buttons in the GUI to bypass any error messages that come up on their mobile phone screens, I question how much value it has. Two experiences: Among highly technical users in my peer group, when somebody upgrades or replaces their phone, if we're chatting with somebody who has a new signal device private key, I'll chat with them a bit by voice to confirm it really is them using a new phone. We've had a number of discussions about how it's apparently impossible to manually move ones' own signal private keys from disk storage on an android device onto a new android device. This works among people I know closely and recognize the sound of their voice. Among non technical users, they'll just click the equivalent of "okay" and continue chatting without even thinking about what the error message means.
- snthd 6y ago
  There's a "registration lock" feature for exactly this problem. Turn it on and you need your pin to re-register. (It expires after 7 days). Not perfect by any means, but it seems like a well balanced compromise, given the decision to use phone numbers in the first place.
bronco21016 6y ago
The issues highlighted by the author, about Signal, and indeed nearly any messenger app or platform, are societal issues that we keep trying to fix with technology. There are promising solutions to decentralizing and anonymizing but there remain to be any real tech solutions to the ultimate de-platforming issue. Signal is at risk of having their hosting or connection removed. What prevents the same thing from happening to decentralized services? ISPs have already shown willingness to censor. A decentralized service is at just as much risk of being blocked in a game of whackamole. Or having the apps needed for access removed from major mobile platforms. Apple already blocks magnet links on Safari for iOS. What stops them from blocking a webapp for one of these services? We need strong laws and regulations protecting everyone’s right to telecommunication infrastructure and the right to install and run our own code on end user devices to prevent another Parler.
- Evidlo 6y ago
  > What prevents the same thing from happening to decentralized services? Nothing, but at least knocking a server offline doesn't bring down the whole network, which is indeed "better than Signal" on this front.
  - hiq 6y ago
    I don't think it's clear that a federated service has better chances against censorship. Take any federated service: if you ban the servers accounting for 90% of users, you end up in a situation mostly similar to censoring Signal, you need to migrate servers and accounts somehow. This should be easier for a centralized service (Signal) since they control everything. Banning servers that belong to n entities where n > 1 might be a bit more of a hurdle, but if n < 20 it's also not that much harder. Do we really expect that many prominent matrix servers, given how centralized email has ended up being? P2P on Matrix has been mentioned, and might be more resistant to censorship, but figuring out the UX in this case is pretty much an open problem (e.g. resetting your "address" whenever your reset your main device and lose your data is not acceptable). Also good to remember regarding centralized services: The Pirate Bay is still up and running. Will there be more pressure on Signal to close than The Pirate Bay?
- 6y ago
tass 6y ago
The article calls out that the Signal server could be compromised. I always thought one design philosophy of Signal was to ensure the server doesn’t matter from the perspective of privacy. Would having multiple servers help here, anyway? Once your data leaves your own server, you would then be in untrusted territory assuming the server needed to be trusted.
- walrus01 6y ago
  It's my understanding that the main concern about a compromised Signal server is that metadata of which phone numbers are registered as user IDs could be compromised. Basically the same threat model the Signal people themselves address when talking about court orders and subpoeanas received by their corporation for "customer" data.
  - solstice 6y ago
    That's not true afaik. Signal days that they don't store phone numbers beyond the initial setup/verification. See here: > Does Signal send my number to my contacts? Signal does not send your phone number to anyone unless you send them a message or make a call to them. The Signal service does not have any knowledge of your contacts. Data is all owned by your phone. Registration notifications are never transmitted by anyone in any direction at all; these notifications are created by your phone. > How does Signal know my contact is using Signal? Signal periodically sends truncated cryptographically hashed phone numbers for contact discovery. Names are never transmitted, and the information is not stored on the servers. The server responds with the contacts that are Signal users and then immediately discards this information. Your phone now knows which of your contacts is a Signal user and notifies you if your contact just started using Signal. https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007061452-Does-Signal-send-my-number-to-my-contacts- https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007061452-Do... (Btw, I think that first sentence is a bit confusing and should be classified/reworded.)
    - hiq 6y ago
      Some of these features are using SGX, which is why people dismiss them. Using SGX is still better than nothing, and there's no better alternative given the simplicity goals of Signal (e.g. selecting manually which of your contacts has Signal is not an option).
unstatusthequo 6y ago
It’s hard enough getting random non tech friends and family to move to Signal. Going even further from mainstream means they will encounter usability issues and they will eventually revert back to WhatsApp. I don’t want any of this. And if “we can do better than Signal,” go make it then and get wide adoption instead of bitching in a blog post about how it’s not as good as some fringe products.
- icy 6y ago
  Is suggesting that the status quo could be improved so bad? I wasn't even "bitching", heck I use Signal too.
Caligatio 6y ago
I feel like Signal is held to a ridiculously high bar when it comes to anything. Is it perfect? No. But come on now; I see other threads on HN where people are debating/bashing their use of Intel SGX, really? Assuming you trust the client builds (or use a verified build) and verify the public key, all of these arguments go out the window with the exception of exposing your phone number. This situation seems like a prime example of a company (Signal) being so transparent that people need to find fault.
- meibo 6y ago
  Messages arriving out of order when you switch devices and missed notifications isn't supposed to be a high bar for a messenger. Telegram and WhatsApp get these things right, Signal is just lacking at the moment.
  - o-__-o 6y ago
    >when you switch devices Signal requires and only supports a single mobile device, you can link multiple desktop clients to a mobile device. But one cannot have signal on multiple devices.
- Evidlo 6y ago
  Why is not wanting vendor lock-in a high bar? After dealing with Messenger, WhatsApp, Face time, etc all my life I'm tired of it. It doesn't matter if the code is open source, I'm still going to be locked in when all my friends move to Signal.
  - Caligatio 6y ago
    I understand what you're saying but I don't know if calling it vendor lock in is quite correct. You can export your list of messages out of Signal and presumably import them to whenever you motivated to do so. Your friends could then join you on the new service and life would continue on. I am personally unaware of any communication service with a universally portable user identifier and that allows you to freely switch upstream providers other than phone service. I think this what you're talking about?
busythrowaway22 6y ago
>Another response I usually see is “But Signal is all we have!”. While that is somewhat true — at least by the metric of “secure messengers your granny can use”, there are some promising alternatives who are especially focused on decentralizing E2EE communications. So the author readily admits that these alternatives aren't actually good enough for the average user. Newsflash: This IS for the average user! This is for my grandma and my cousins overseas who don't know anything about the internet! They don't know anything about "cryptoshit" or what "E2EE" stands for. Once you actually have something worthwhile that my grandma can use, then maybe you can claim it's better!
- jeltz 6y ago
  If the average user was fine with the terrible clients which are Skype, Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger why should we hold Element to a higher standard?
  - perardi 6y ago
    Define terrible. Oh, I’ll grant you the UI of these clients can be terrible. Facebook Messenger takes a shocking amount of resources. But what’s the job to be done for most people? Chatting with friends. FB Messenger has the network effect built in. You can just message your friends. And send them goofy stickers. What will get people to transition to an encrypted messenger where they have to duplicate their social network? Privacy? Yeah, OK, I am definitely going to get a friend to download a new app, create a new account, and go through whatever dance is necessary for encryption to ask if we want Mexican or Thai for dinner.
  - akvadrako 6y ago
    Personally I think element has a ways to go before it reaches the user friendlyness of even skype, the worst of those three. The iOS app is a the most confusing chat app I've tried, especially if you run your own identity server.
SignalNotSecure 6y ago
For the longest time, Signal wouldn’t work without Google Play Services, but Moxie (the founder of Open Whisper Systems and maintainer of Signal) finally fixed this in 2017. There was also a long time when Signal was only available on the Google Play Store. Why do I make a big deal out of Google Play and Google Play Services? Well, some people might trust Google, the company. But up against nation states, it’s no contest - Google has ties to the NSA, has been served secret subpoenas, and is literally the world’s largest machine designed for harvesting and analyzing private information about their users. Here’s what Google Play Services actually is: a rootkit. Google Play Services lets Google do silent background updates on apps on your phone and give them any permission they want. Having Google Play Services on your phone means your phone is not secure. Moxie, why haven’t you put Signal on F-Droid yet? Truly secure systems do not require you to trust the service provider. This is the point of end-to-end encryption. But we have to trust that Moxie is running the server software he says he is. We have to trust that he isn’t writing down a list of people we’ve talked to, when, and how often. We have to trust not only that Moxie is trustworthy, but given that Open Whisper Systems is based in San Francisco we have to trust that he hasn’t received a national security letter, too (by the way, Signal doesn’t have a warrant canary). Moxie can tell us he doesn’t store these things, but he could. Truly secure systems don’t require trust.
- SignalNotSecure 6y ago
  Moxie forbids you from distributing branded builds of the Signal app, and if you rebrand he forbids you from using the official Open Whisper servers. Because his servers don’t federate, that means that users of Signal forks cannot talk to Signal users. This is a truly genius move. No fork of Signal4 to date has ever gained any traction, and never will, because you can’t talk to any Signal users with them. In fact, there are no third-party applications which can interact with Signal users in any way. Moxie can write as many blog posts which appeal to wispy ideals and “moving ecosystems” as he wants5, but those are all really convenient excuses for an argument which allows him to design systems which serve his own interests
  - Evidlo 6y ago
    It's not like his motives are secret. He's been straightforward about his stance, however much I disagree with it. https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217231557 https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...
Nextgrid 6y ago
One of the root causes for centralization is that we lost the ability to make our devices talk directly to each other. Before the Internet, people could contact each other directly by just making phone calls, and the phone network was neutral, so any phone or any network could call any other (even internationally) provided they pay the fee. Same with SMS and MMS. With the early Internet, every computer had an IP address and could send packets to any other one. With the late Internet, because of NAT and unwillingness of ISPs to make progress on this issue, we've now lost that ability and now always require some kind of central coordination server for devices to be able to talk (through it). There is no reason why Signal (or any other messenger) requires a central server if it wasn't for this. Provided you have the person in your contacts (by having their IP address + a crypto fingerprint for authenticity) they should be able to talk directly. Until we solve this issue, decentralized alternatives (such as Matrix, Mastodon, and others) are just bad workarounds that will never catch on because people aren't willing (and shouldn't have to) host a server (or use a sometimes unreliable benevolent one or a paid one) when they've already got a smartphone and are paying their phone/Internet bill.
- walrus01 6y ago
  > Before the Internet, people could contact each other directly by just making phone calls, and the phone network was neutral, so any phone or any network could call any other (even internationally) provided they pay the fee. the more you learn about SS7 and the traditional phone network the worse it looks. it's actually held together with the metaphorical equivalent of duct tape and string, and is highly centralized...
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    I'm not talking about the security or reliability aspects of it - you are right about those (though Internet isn't much better, see BGP). But when it works as intended, the telephone "world" offers something that the Internet world often no longer offers: end-to-end connectivity. Even the cheapest phone plan will come with a phone number that's reachable from anywhere and can reach anywhere (provided you pay the call fee). Most consumer-grade internet plans come with a single, dynamic IPv4 and no IPv6 (or the IPv6 prefix is also dynamic). No end-to-end connectivity is possible unless you engage in some NAT traversal workarounds that require an external server.
Bakary 6y ago
No, you cannot do better than Signal at the moment. You do not have people picking your service of choice en masse. A chat app is only useful if people you want to talk to are on it.
justapassenger 6y ago
Signal will have very hard time competing as a product with WhatsApp. Their main value proposal is that they aren’t backed by Facebook, but other than that, there’s no real difference to end user. That’s enough for geeks, but not very compelling argument to break to mainstream. To break into such a highly competitive market, they need more unique features. Or they can count on Facebook to keep on shooting themselves into foot, which is possible, but historically risky bet (no matter what HN crowd says, they continue to be extremely successful and know how to grow products).
- mft_ 6y ago
  Not sure about this - I’ve seen more acquaintances install Signal in the past two weeks than the previous two years. What (I suspect) will work is something providing enough of an incentive for enough people to install it to then provide a network effect which is self-sustaining. The recent coverage about WhatsApp/Insta/FB’s egregious data collection (thanks to Apple) plus the high profile recommendations of Signal have had quite the effect; time will tell if it’s enough.
  - justapassenger 6y ago
    They get great PR right now. They should utilize this moment as much as possible, but it won’t last for more than maybe few more weeks (it’s already fading away). Network effects are hugely important, but they aren’t enough. Even if you have most of your social graph on both signal and WhatsApp, you need to not only change your habits, but also outages and bugs will quickly scare you away. And there’s tons of subtle tweaks that are done to keep you more sticky to one app. Big tech isn’t usually that scared of other apps trying to do the same things as they do successfully. They’re scared of new paradigms that they can miss the boat on, and you can see that in what acquisitions they do. They don’t pay big bucks for copies of their services, but for new ideas that can be/are taking off.
- hiq 6y ago
  > Signal will have very hard time competing as a product with WhatsApp. You seem to assume that they want to be bigger than WhatsApp, but as a non-profit I don't think that's their goal. Their goal is (broadly) to secure most communication in a privacy-preserving way. If WhatsApp does it because of the pressure from Signal, it's also a win for them (again as a non-profit).
Klasiaster 6y ago
I wonder if it's possible with some tricks to build a message box on top of a regular DHT (distributed hash table) as commonly found in many P2P network implementations. There is no need to guarantee that the message is stored for a certain amount of time as long as the protocol knows whether the other party has received it or not: you can just put it into the DHT again as long as it's not received.
ThePhysicist 6y ago
I never understood what problem E2E encryption actually solves if you don't have full control over the client. All it would take Signal or WhatsApp to extract all your private messages is a single update of the client, which is trivial to do and currently very hard to validate as e.g. Apple does not even (to my knowledge) provide checksums to end users. The problem of messaging as it is today is that we missed the opportunity to create a well-accepted federated protocol that can be implemented easily. There were a few contenders like IRC but they never reached a critical mass like SMTP or IMAP did. Maybe Matrix can fix this, but I don't have much hope we'll turn away from WhatsApp anytime soon, 95 % of users don't care enough to change and the lock-in effects are enormous at this point. The only way that this situation could be resolved is through legislation, e.g. the EU forcing WhatsApp to implement the Matrix protocol and make their infrastructure interoperable with third-party providers, but even that seems quite far-fetched right now. In any case, having a non-profit like the Signal foundation run a messenger is already a vast improvement over a company that sees this mostly as a data mining operation.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Signal’s Android client moved to reproducible builds some time ago already.
- dublinben 6y ago
  >what problem E2E encryption actually solves Pervasive, passive surveillance. If your threat model includes individually targeted exploits, then you'll need to look for other solutions.
  - ThePhysicist 6y ago
    You don't need E2E encryption for that, transport layer encryption will do just fine in that case.
    - growse 6y ago
      The transport between where and where?
Jugurtha 6y ago
The article should be titled "How can we do better than Signal?", because it neither brings nor addresses anything better than Signal. It'd be better as an Ask HN. The expectation reading it was to find out about a product that is better than Signal. The reply to the assertion after the disappointment will most likely be "Then do it".
marvinblum 6y ago
I disagree. A decentralized version of Signal might not be necessarily more reliable. What do you do when your Matrix home server is down? Will you still be able to log in? Receive messages? Is this overall system more stable if only 90% of the network work all the time? Apart from that, most non-technical users won't care about it, and a decentralized solution might not be as convenient for them. It also might open up other attack vectors, like compromised servers in the network and stuff like that. Signal is probably the best solution for now.
- Evidlo 6y ago
  I'd argue that vendor lock-in is a far more important issue. You're right that non-technical people won't care about why decentralization matters. It's up to technical people to nudge the boat in the right direction. That's why it's so disappointing to see HN embrace another silo.
xiphias2 6y ago
Signal, telegram and matrix (or at least 1 of the 3) should work on cross-app E2E communication. Instead of creating a new protocol, why not just have a competition between clients using the current protocols?
- bilal4hmed 6y ago
  Matrix has bridges for Telegram and Signal Matrix tried with Signal but it didnt yield anything https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    As long as Signal is really open source, I don't see why Matrix couldn't just add connecting to signal servers in the client itself instead of creating bridges or a common protocol. The only thing Moxie can do is to make Signal closed source, or constantly break the signal protocol on purpose and force everybody to upgrade their signal and telegram apps. Also I tried Matrix, and it started asking questions from me instead of showing my friend list, so it already failed being a competitor to WhatsApp. The only question it should ask is to get permission to access my contact list. I know that interopability is very hard to do, and having multiple clients in 1 app is boring work (especially with features like voice and video calling), but it would be amazing.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
OmniiTyler 6y ago
Hey icy, the issue you raise about Signal not being decentralized, I think, is a valid one. You should check out a decentralized messaging and social media app I have been working on - Omnii. Omnii allows each user to manage their encryption keys, and all data exists in a decentralized manner - only on endpoints (users' phones), and not on a backend. https://omnii.co https://omnii.co is our website if you are interested.
- aleken 6y ago
  Omnii looks exciting. Signed up for the beta in Play store. But can’t find the app afterwards. Does it require specific hardware?
  - OmniiTyler 6y ago
    Hey, glad you are intrigued! If you click the "Download Omnii Beta" button on the website, it should take you to the Google Play Store listing and allow you to download the Beta version of the app. One restriction at the moment is that the app is closed to the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and India. If you do not reside in one of the listed countries, shoot me an email with the country you live in and I can see if we can open up the Beta to your country. My email is: tyler@omnii.co
- distracted_boy 6y ago
  The fact that you don’t offer a technical description of your application, and the fact that “Twisted Apps LLC“ does not have a credible online presence, does not inspire confidence in your security.
LockAndLol 6y ago
Nothing is ever good enough, is it? No matter what is built you'll have people complaining about any aspect of it they can find. Most of them won't so anything more than that. They won't contribute a single thing, pat themselves on the back and call it a day. There's not even a hint of constructive feedback in that post. Not even an attempt at resolving any of the identified problems or thinking further about implications of possible changes. I need a downvote button on HN...
polotics 6y ago
Moved from WhatsApp to Threema, so far so good.
ketamine__ 6y ago
Is it possible to do a hand-off? So one cellphone can make a connection to another cell phone? UDP over LTE? I'm guessing a port can't be opened when on a cellular network?
marghidanu 6y ago
I You can do it, then do it. Build something on top of IPFS. Decentralize.
EugeneOZ 6y ago
That single fact that I have to share my phone number to everyone (I want to chat with) in Signal is enough for me to don't even think about installing it.
freddyym 6y ago
Signal is not the best option by any means. But it's so much better than most of the other options like Whatsapp or iMessage. It's all about threat models.
ghoward 6y ago
tl;dr: With decentralized identities, we could have a messaging system based on the Signal Protocol that does not use central servers at all. There seem to be a lot of opinions about whether it is possible to do better than Signal, and if so, what would that be like. There also seems to be a lot of opinions that federation is better. There is something that can be better than Signal, but federation is not it. For one thing, it creates the problem in https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ . For another, as some have said in the comments here, federation can easily lead back to centralization, especially if the biggest servers implement "extensions" that then become used and expected by users. What would be better than Signal would be to take the Signal Protocol, which is fine as a protocol, and implement the protocol using software that the user runs themselves and that uses completely decentralized identities. I wrote about such a system at https://gavinhoward.com/2020/07/decentralizing-the-internet-and-other-ideas/#decentralized-identities https://gavinhoward.com/2020/07/decentralizing-the-internet-... . The key is that the users must control their data, like the pods that Sir Tim Berners-Lee's Inrupt is pushing. (This would solve a big problem with Signal: the lack of backups.) However, without some way for each user's "server" to identify the location of another user's "server", this messaging system would not work. That is where decentralized identities come in. With fully decentralized identities on a blockchain, it is easy to search the blockchain for the current location of the server for the user that a message needs to be sent to. There is no need for federation, no need for a centralized server at all; the messages go directly point-to-point. Others in these comments have pointed out that decentralized systems are subject to abuse by spam and other things. That is true, but there are ways to mitigate the problem. You can read what my mitigation ideas are at https://gavinhoward.com/2020/07/decentralizing-the-internet-and-other-ideas/#problems https://gavinhoward.com/2020/07/decentralizing-the-internet-... . Edit: I forgot to say that it is also important to address convenience. If it is not convenient for users to set up their own servers, then this solution will not work anyway. However, cloud providers would probably love to make it convenient by implementing one-click setups like they have for things like Wordpress.
proactivesvcs 6y ago
We can also do better than using insults against a service which isn't perfect - and maybe won't be if it continues its course - but is doing a good thing for the right reasons.
pantalaimon 6y ago
Why is XMPP not mentioned as an alternative? it's decentralized, fully open source and supports end to end encryption.
- approxim8ion 6y ago
  And easier to set up a server than Matrix. I suppose it's just not fashionable enough because it's rather old. I used Conversations and Movim while Signal was down, and was greatly impressed with them.
kemitchell 6y ago
"We can do better" is a dodge. It avoids "I can do better" with a kind of royal "we" that implies other people should do the work. The obvious response to "I can do better" is "okay, go ahead". "We can do better" tries to tell me that I should be working on this guy's problem. That I should buy his line about how important "decentralization" is. There's a place for software criticism. But the best comes in the form of just writing better software, or improving what we've already got. Calling somebody else's project a "shiny turd", on the other hand, isn't even really criticism. It's name calling.
drummer 6y ago
We can certainly do better than Signal. The central point of attack is a problem. And now also the fact that they are using AWS, and AWS has demonstrated being willing to deplatform within 24 hours. However for now Signal is one of the best options we have.
pratio 6y ago
Maybe we can't for now and that's okay. There are so many solutions to choose from and the only thing that would make it popular would be if the people you want to chat with or on it. There's also a big issue with any of these platforms, MONEY. People want to text, share images and videos and audio. Want to have audio and video calls over data. A proper interface, cross device sync and they want it all fre e. Most people will use free software. So you know maybe we just can't do better for now.
bartimus 6y ago
Was happy to play around with Delta Chat today. Very nice progress. That was until one of our friends tried to logon with Gmail on her iPhone. Too much hassle unfortunately.
hifly 6y ago
I wish Delta Chat would get more mentions during this period It is nicely decentralised. Nice UI. Run your own server. Deserves more love!
humbleMouse 6y ago
People already have, it’s called wickr

175 points by icy 6y ago

tailspin2019 6y ago

I wanted to disagree with the headline. Then I read the article and do see their point. I’ve been a big proponent of Signal for years and donated for the first time during their outage. But I do think this is a conversation worth having. I’d also like to understand more about this: > In fact, the Signal server code [0] hasn’t even been updated since April 2020. You’re telling me it’s undergone no changes? [0]: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server

solstice 6y ago
If all the interesting stuff happens on the client and the server "just" forwards encrypted messages, why would the server need frequent updates?
- bilal4hmed 6y ago
  if you go to the main git page https://github.com/signalapp https://github.com/signalapp you can see that changes were made to the server 8 hours ago. So something is happening on the server, the public cant see it. I definitely would like to see whats happening given. I trust them, but we definitely need to see whats on the server code.
  - tailspin2019 6y ago
    I think those changes could just be Pull Requests? Not necessarily code merged to master/main. Unless you’re spotting something that I’m not?
    - bilal4hmed 6y ago
      the last PR was 9 hours ago https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/pulls https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/pulls while the main page says update was 8. Thats what threw me off
  - cevn 6y ago
    I believe the 8 hours ago activity is from someone opening a PR, not some weird trick to update git repositories without being seen.
mecanicox 6y ago
I disagree too, I known the people behind signal and signal protocol by far 10 years, I been see their work for a long time in different fields, when I read "We can do better than Signal" It's a natural thought human to find better in all things, but I don't really see more in the article

walrus01 6y ago

For companies and groups, organizations that want to replace the functionality of Slack, self-hosted Matrix (using the official Synapse software package) is becoming an increasingly viable option. https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/tree/master https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/tree/master

geek_at 6y ago

Do it and let us know when you're finished ;)

underdeserver 6y ago
Exactly. Talk is cheap.

ve55 6y ago

Being limited to a phone app and requiring phone numbers is severely limiting as well. Matrix is probably the current best-positioned e2e chat app that should be able to encompass more use cases, but it's difficult to convince users to use anything encrypted when alternatives have more network effects and usability. Network effects always seem to be particularly egregious gatekeepers for social apps, often keeping users on inferior alternatives for years or decades, as coordinating a mass-switch is too difficult (Signal got particularly lucky with a few recent events or it wouldn't have nearly as many users switching to it right now).

solstice 6y ago
Severely limiting? Please... Signal Desktop can be improved but I use it daily and it works for me™. Also, in many other countries, many people don't even have a PC (outside of work) but they'll definitely have a smartphone. So prioritizing app development is smart imo.
- ve55 6y ago
  Not everyone wants their phone number to be their primary identifier

solstice 6y ago

Lots of FUD in the opening paragraphs ("no changes to server code since April!!1!"). I stopped reading after that

tailspin2019 6y ago
Care to educate those of us who are confused by this?
- colecut 6y ago
  Can you name anything that should have been fixed in Signal Server since April?
  - sahkopoyta 6y ago
    Can you name anything that should have been fixed in Signal Server before April? Probably not, but this doesn't look very good https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/graphs/code-frequency https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/graphs/code-frequ...
- solstice 6y ago
  See my other reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25812853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25812853
  - tailspin2019 6y ago
    Thanks, wasn’t sure if you were saying that it was untrue that there were no changes or that it was not an issue that there weren’t. Even so, I’ve yet to come across a software project in my career that didn’t have a fully stocked backlog of bugs, performance optimisations, security improvements etc. In most cases if I find a project on GitHub that hasn’t been updated in 6 months, it’s usually a sign that it might be dead or languishing. Not saying that’s the case here, but the question seems valid. Also not making a value judgement. Signal is free and open source, and the guys are rockstars. But it does make me wonder if what’s running in production is a 6 month old build of that code, or is there more to it...

alex_portabella 6y ago

Can anyone closer to development of Signal (or who works on it) comment on why the server code was last updated in April (7 months ago https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server)? Has _all_ development been client side?

proactivesvcs 6y ago
I think that the GitHub repos are a copy of their internal VCS that aren't necessarily updated frequently.
immigrantsheep 6y ago
I might be mistaken but I think someone wrote here a few days ago that they noticed the Server being updated but that the github repo doesn't reflect those changes.

marcinzm 6y ago

I'm confused about this piece. If there's true E2E encryption (verified by open source client code and review of released binaries) then why does it matter if the server code is backdoored or not? The whole point of E2E is that you don't need to care about the server being able to ever see the text of your messages because it never can.

tailspin2019 6y ago
Do we have a way to verify that the App Store apps are actually running the open source (as published) code?
- eat_veggies 6y ago
  Builds on Android have been (mostly) reproducible since 2016: https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/ https://signal.org/blog/reproducible-android/ Looks like the situation is more complicated and still unresolved for iOS: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/641 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/641
  - tailspin2019 6y ago
    Interesting! Thanks for the links.
Ericson2314 6y ago
It's certainly much better than the norm! But there's also metadata retention, which Signal frequently brags about being good at not doing, but which is unverifiable unless it's you serving the warrant and coming up disappointed.
xrisk 6y ago
Copy pasting my comment: Consider this paragraph from the Signal protocol > ...For example, they may compare public key fingerprints manually, or by scanning a QR code. Methods for doing this are outside the scope of this document. > If authentication is not performed, the parties receive no cryptographic guarantee as to who they are communicating with. Nobody I know in practice does this authentication. If an active attack is carried out, I'm reasonably sure people would not notice.

xrisk 6y ago

So one of the things that feels the most damning to me about Signal-like protocols is that you have to inherently trust their server. Consider this paragraph from the Signal protocol > ...For example, they may compare public key fingerprints manually, or by scanning a QR code. Methods for doing this are outside the scope of this document. > If authentication is not performed, the parties receive no cryptographic guarantee as to who they are communicating with. I have not known anybody that actually does this. If an active attack does happen on somebody, I'm pretty sure they would not notice. As far as I understand, a decentralized model solves this problem. Don't trust the server? Run your own instance or have some other way of validating clients (via your own PKI infra or similar).

StavrosK 6y ago
You understand wrong. Nothing solves this problem except verifying fingerprints manually (in person!) or scanning the QR code (again in person!).
- xrisk 6y ago
  Why? I trust that my own server is not backdoored (thus reducing the need for off-channel fingerprint verification), I have no such guarantee about Signal's server.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Because you can never be sure that the other person's server or connection (or your connection) aren't being MitMed.
    - xrisk 6y ago
      Yes, but I can get all the parties I want to talk to on my own server (if the need arises). About your point the connection itself being MITMed, I don't exactly understand how an active attacker sitting on my connection would undermine the connection? Presumably I have a way to verify the identify of my server. Please do elaborate if I'm missing something. Regardless an interesting thought.

StavrosK 6y ago

I'm a bit annoyed at "we can do better than X" when, you know what? Maybe we can't. Yes, it's nice that you and I can install Element and deal with the finicky crypto handshake that for some reason always shows red for me because a friend opened the web UI and closed it before he completed the handshake and now we can never actually make that check go green, and it's nice that Mastodon is distributed but mastodon.host went down one day with all my toots without a word from the administrator, and yeah I know I should have picked a better host (though if you could predict that mastodon.host will die why didn't you tell me?), but my mom can't. Users value their convenience, and security and privacy are inconvenient. Hell, we started decentralized and over email and newsgroups and personal websites and blogs and it's all Facebook Facebook Facebook now that the Eternal September came around. If we could do better, we would have done better by now.

xrisk 6y ago
> If we could do better, we would have done better by now. We should have given up on Linux UIs way back then. They're still garbage when it compares to the alternatives.
tomphoolery 6y ago
It turns out that decentralization closes the door on top-down censorship, but at the same time, invites spam and abuse of the system for personal gain. It's very easy to do this in a decentralized model, and every single decentralized service suffers from this. IRC, Email, Mastodon, you name it. It's all bad.
- CuriouslyC 6y ago
  The solution is simple. Make the decentralized systems social, with reputation.
  - lukevp 6y ago
    How do you prevent bots giving each other reputation?

outime 6y ago

It’s great to see some balance about the Signal discussion here at HN. All I could see in the frontpage for several days is how great Signal is but nothing about what’s not so bright. This article brings up the same concerns I always had and I hope we all start being more conscious about it.

monokh 6y ago

> A common defense in favor of Signal is, “But it’s all open source!”. Sure is, but on what basis do I trust them? ... The open source aspect for me means 2 things. - I can verify the e2e encryption claim. - I can reproduce the client builds ensuring that what I run matches the source [1] Is there a detail relating to the server that would invalidate this? [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/master/reproducible-builds https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/master/repr...

Evidlo 6y ago
A lot of open source projects are also "open" in the sense community contributions and interoperability, so people often take open source to mean these things as well. Signal is open source, but hardly open as in the sense above.
zamadatix 6y ago
Both of your things depend on the client and if they are true it doesn't actually matter if the server is malicious or not. I think the best description I've heard of Signal is it's open source "software" not an open source "project".

Ericson2314 6y ago

As I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25795575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25795575 - WhatsApp: Oh wait, SMS etc. is completely insecure - Signal: Oh wait, WhatsApp is structurally unable to be a force for privacy - Matrix: Oh wait, even benevolent centralization is an unnecessary risk It's not that worse is better, but the general public's imagination can only grow so fast. We need to coax people along. As such, I do think all 3 serve a purpose in certain times and places. I took advantage of the Signal downtime to get a few people onto Matrix. There will be more opportunities.

caust1c 6y ago
I'm not positive, but I think the signal protocol and signal messenger came before Moxie worked with Whatsapp to provide e2e encryption. Not refuting your point at all, just providing additional context.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Yeah I'm charting the public's realizations, not security experts' realizations.
BillyTheKing 6y ago
In fairness, I think WhatsApp's value proposition is and was as little more than 'just' oh wait, sms etc. is completely insecure. I don't think the majority really cared about that (especially since end-to-end encryption was a later addition). I think most people primarily started using WhatsApp because a) it was (is) free b) cross-platform c) worked very reliably
- martimarkov 6y ago
  It wasn’t free in the beginning but it was cheaper to send a picture message from it than from MMS
- zamadatix 6y ago
  Also for all of the messaging apps out there it's surprising how much feature differentiation they still have. Once you get used to a certain feature set it's hard to move to something with a different set even if it's overall probably better.

walrus01 6y ago

My main complaint about Signal is its reliance on SS7/PSTN and ordinary phone numbers to identify a user. In an era of SS7 hijacks and social-engineering of mobile phone network customer service reps into SIM-hijacking a target's phone service, by no means should we ever rely upon a phone number as a guaranteed method of identifying an end point device's identity. These are basically the same reasons why other services' "2FA" by SMS is questionable at best.

ehutch79 6y ago
Doesn't the protocol detect device changes?
- walrus01 6y ago
  It does, and it warns the other users chatting with the person whose device has changed, but given the tendency of non technical users to click "yes/accept/okay" buttons in the GUI to bypass any error messages that come up on their mobile phone screens, I question how much value it has. Two experiences: Among highly technical users in my peer group, when somebody upgrades or replaces their phone, if we're chatting with somebody who has a new signal device private key, I'll chat with them a bit by voice to confirm it really is them using a new phone. We've had a number of discussions about how it's apparently impossible to manually move ones' own signal private keys from disk storage on an android device onto a new android device. This works among people I know closely and recognize the sound of their voice. Among non technical users, they'll just click the equivalent of "okay" and continue chatting without even thinking about what the error message means.
snthd 6y ago
There's a "registration lock" feature for exactly this problem. Turn it on and you need your pin to re-register. (It expires after 7 days). Not perfect by any means, but it seems like a well balanced compromise, given the decision to use phone numbers in the first place.

bronco21016 6y ago

The issues highlighted by the author, about Signal, and indeed nearly any messenger app or platform, are societal issues that we keep trying to fix with technology. There are promising solutions to decentralizing and anonymizing but there remain to be any real tech solutions to the ultimate de-platforming issue. Signal is at risk of having their hosting or connection removed. What prevents the same thing from happening to decentralized services? ISPs have already shown willingness to censor. A decentralized service is at just as much risk of being blocked in a game of whackamole. Or having the apps needed for access removed from major mobile platforms. Apple already blocks magnet links on Safari for iOS. What stops them from blocking a webapp for one of these services? We need strong laws and regulations protecting everyone’s right to telecommunication infrastructure and the right to install and run our own code on end user devices to prevent another Parler.

Evidlo 6y ago
> What prevents the same thing from happening to decentralized services? Nothing, but at least knocking a server offline doesn't bring down the whole network, which is indeed "better than Signal" on this front.
- hiq 6y ago
  I don't think it's clear that a federated service has better chances against censorship. Take any federated service: if you ban the servers accounting for 90% of users, you end up in a situation mostly similar to censoring Signal, you need to migrate servers and accounts somehow. This should be easier for a centralized service (Signal) since they control everything. Banning servers that belong to n entities where n > 1 might be a bit more of a hurdle, but if n < 20 it's also not that much harder. Do we really expect that many prominent matrix servers, given how centralized email has ended up being? P2P on Matrix has been mentioned, and might be more resistant to censorship, but figuring out the UX in this case is pretty much an open problem (e.g. resetting your "address" whenever your reset your main device and lose your data is not acceptable). Also good to remember regarding centralized services: The Pirate Bay is still up and running. Will there be more pressure on Signal to close than The Pirate Bay?
6y ago

tass 6y ago

The article calls out that the Signal server could be compromised. I always thought one design philosophy of Signal was to ensure the server doesn’t matter from the perspective of privacy. Would having multiple servers help here, anyway? Once your data leaves your own server, you would then be in untrusted territory assuming the server needed to be trusted.

walrus01 6y ago
It's my understanding that the main concern about a compromised Signal server is that metadata of which phone numbers are registered as user IDs could be compromised. Basically the same threat model the Signal people themselves address when talking about court orders and subpoeanas received by their corporation for "customer" data.
- solstice 6y ago
  That's not true afaik. Signal days that they don't store phone numbers beyond the initial setup/verification. See here: > Does Signal send my number to my contacts? Signal does not send your phone number to anyone unless you send them a message or make a call to them. The Signal service does not have any knowledge of your contacts. Data is all owned by your phone. Registration notifications are never transmitted by anyone in any direction at all; these notifications are created by your phone. > How does Signal know my contact is using Signal? Signal periodically sends truncated cryptographically hashed phone numbers for contact discovery. Names are never transmitted, and the information is not stored on the servers. The server responds with the contacts that are Signal users and then immediately discards this information. Your phone now knows which of your contacts is a Signal user and notifies you if your contact just started using Signal. https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007061452-Does-Signal-send-my-number-to-my-contacts- https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007061452-Do... (Btw, I think that first sentence is a bit confusing and should be classified/reworded.)
  - hiq 6y ago
    Some of these features are using SGX, which is why people dismiss them. Using SGX is still better than nothing, and there's no better alternative given the simplicity goals of Signal (e.g. selecting manually which of your contacts has Signal is not an option).

unstatusthequo 6y ago

It’s hard enough getting random non tech friends and family to move to Signal. Going even further from mainstream means they will encounter usability issues and they will eventually revert back to WhatsApp. I don’t want any of this. And if “we can do better than Signal,” go make it then and get wide adoption instead of bitching in a blog post about how it’s not as good as some fringe products.

icy 6y ago
Is suggesting that the status quo could be improved so bad? I wasn't even "bitching", heck I use Signal too.

Caligatio 6y ago

I feel like Signal is held to a ridiculously high bar when it comes to anything. Is it perfect? No. But come on now; I see other threads on HN where people are debating/bashing their use of Intel SGX, really? Assuming you trust the client builds (or use a verified build) and verify the public key, all of these arguments go out the window with the exception of exposing your phone number. This situation seems like a prime example of a company (Signal) being so transparent that people need to find fault.

meibo 6y ago
Messages arriving out of order when you switch devices and missed notifications isn't supposed to be a high bar for a messenger. Telegram and WhatsApp get these things right, Signal is just lacking at the moment.
- o-__-o 6y ago
  >when you switch devices Signal requires and only supports a single mobile device, you can link multiple desktop clients to a mobile device. But one cannot have signal on multiple devices.
Evidlo 6y ago
Why is not wanting vendor lock-in a high bar? After dealing with Messenger, WhatsApp, Face time, etc all my life I'm tired of it. It doesn't matter if the code is open source, I'm still going to be locked in when all my friends move to Signal.
- Caligatio 6y ago
  I understand what you're saying but I don't know if calling it vendor lock in is quite correct. You can export your list of messages out of Signal and presumably import them to whenever you motivated to do so. Your friends could then join you on the new service and life would continue on. I am personally unaware of any communication service with a universally portable user identifier and that allows you to freely switch upstream providers other than phone service. I think this what you're talking about?

busythrowaway22 6y ago

>Another response I usually see is “But Signal is all we have!”. While that is somewhat true — at least by the metric of “secure messengers your granny can use”, there are some promising alternatives who are especially focused on decentralizing E2EE communications. So the author readily admits that these alternatives aren't actually good enough for the average user. Newsflash: This IS for the average user! This is for my grandma and my cousins overseas who don't know anything about the internet! They don't know anything about "cryptoshit" or what "E2EE" stands for. Once you actually have something worthwhile that my grandma can use, then maybe you can claim it's better!

jeltz 6y ago
If the average user was fine with the terrible clients which are Skype, Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger why should we hold Element to a higher standard?
- perardi 6y ago
  Define terrible. Oh, I’ll grant you the UI of these clients can be terrible. Facebook Messenger takes a shocking amount of resources. But what’s the job to be done for most people? Chatting with friends. FB Messenger has the network effect built in. You can just message your friends. And send them goofy stickers. What will get people to transition to an encrypted messenger where they have to duplicate their social network? Privacy? Yeah, OK, I am definitely going to get a friend to download a new app, create a new account, and go through whatever dance is necessary for encryption to ask if we want Mexican or Thai for dinner.
- akvadrako 6y ago
  Personally I think element has a ways to go before it reaches the user friendlyness of even skype, the worst of those three. The iOS app is a the most confusing chat app I've tried, especially if you run your own identity server.

SignalNotSecure 6y ago

For the longest time, Signal wouldn’t work without Google Play Services, but Moxie (the founder of Open Whisper Systems and maintainer of Signal) finally fixed this in 2017. There was also a long time when Signal was only available on the Google Play Store. Why do I make a big deal out of Google Play and Google Play Services? Well, some people might trust Google, the company. But up against nation states, it’s no contest - Google has ties to the NSA, has been served secret subpoenas, and is literally the world’s largest machine designed for harvesting and analyzing private information about their users. Here’s what Google Play Services actually is: a rootkit. Google Play Services lets Google do silent background updates on apps on your phone and give them any permission they want. Having Google Play Services on your phone means your phone is not secure. Moxie, why haven’t you put Signal on F-Droid yet? Truly secure systems do not require you to trust the service provider. This is the point of end-to-end encryption. But we have to trust that Moxie is running the server software he says he is. We have to trust that he isn’t writing down a list of people we’ve talked to, when, and how often. We have to trust not only that Moxie is trustworthy, but given that Open Whisper Systems is based in San Francisco we have to trust that he hasn’t received a national security letter, too (by the way, Signal doesn’t have a warrant canary). Moxie can tell us he doesn’t store these things, but he could. Truly secure systems don’t require trust.

SignalNotSecure 6y ago
Moxie forbids you from distributing branded builds of the Signal app, and if you rebrand he forbids you from using the official Open Whisper servers. Because his servers don’t federate, that means that users of Signal forks cannot talk to Signal users. This is a truly genius move. No fork of Signal4 to date has ever gained any traction, and never will, because you can’t talk to any Signal users with them. In fact, there are no third-party applications which can interact with Signal users in any way. Moxie can write as many blog posts which appeal to wispy ideals and “moving ecosystems” as he wants5, but those are all really convenient excuses for an argument which allows him to design systems which serve his own interests
- Evidlo 6y ago
  It's not like his motives are secret. He's been straightforward about his stance, however much I disagree with it. https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217231557 https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...

Nextgrid 6y ago

One of the root causes for centralization is that we lost the ability to make our devices talk directly to each other. Before the Internet, people could contact each other directly by just making phone calls, and the phone network was neutral, so any phone or any network could call any other (even internationally) provided they pay the fee. Same with SMS and MMS. With the early Internet, every computer had an IP address and could send packets to any other one. With the late Internet, because of NAT and unwillingness of ISPs to make progress on this issue, we've now lost that ability and now always require some kind of central coordination server for devices to be able to talk (through it). There is no reason why Signal (or any other messenger) requires a central server if it wasn't for this. Provided you have the person in your contacts (by having their IP address + a crypto fingerprint for authenticity) they should be able to talk directly. Until we solve this issue, decentralized alternatives (such as Matrix, Mastodon, and others) are just bad workarounds that will never catch on because people aren't willing (and shouldn't have to) host a server (or use a sometimes unreliable benevolent one or a paid one) when they've already got a smartphone and are paying their phone/Internet bill.

walrus01 6y ago
> Before the Internet, people could contact each other directly by just making phone calls, and the phone network was neutral, so any phone or any network could call any other (even internationally) provided they pay the fee. the more you learn about SS7 and the traditional phone network the worse it looks. it's actually held together with the metaphorical equivalent of duct tape and string, and is highly centralized...
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  I'm not talking about the security or reliability aspects of it - you are right about those (though Internet isn't much better, see BGP). But when it works as intended, the telephone "world" offers something that the Internet world often no longer offers: end-to-end connectivity. Even the cheapest phone plan will come with a phone number that's reachable from anywhere and can reach anywhere (provided you pay the call fee). Most consumer-grade internet plans come with a single, dynamic IPv4 and no IPv6 (or the IPv6 prefix is also dynamic). No end-to-end connectivity is possible unless you engage in some NAT traversal workarounds that require an external server.

Bakary 6y ago

No, you cannot do better than Signal at the moment. You do not have people picking your service of choice en masse. A chat app is only useful if people you want to talk to are on it.

justapassenger 6y ago

Signal will have very hard time competing as a product with WhatsApp. Their main value proposal is that they aren’t backed by Facebook, but other than that, there’s no real difference to end user. That’s enough for geeks, but not very compelling argument to break to mainstream. To break into such a highly competitive market, they need more unique features. Or they can count on Facebook to keep on shooting themselves into foot, which is possible, but historically risky bet (no matter what HN crowd says, they continue to be extremely successful and know how to grow products).

mft_ 6y ago
Not sure about this - I’ve seen more acquaintances install Signal in the past two weeks than the previous two years. What (I suspect) will work is something providing enough of an incentive for enough people to install it to then provide a network effect which is self-sustaining. The recent coverage about WhatsApp/Insta/FB’s egregious data collection (thanks to Apple) plus the high profile recommendations of Signal have had quite the effect; time will tell if it’s enough.
- justapassenger 6y ago
  They get great PR right now. They should utilize this moment as much as possible, but it won’t last for more than maybe few more weeks (it’s already fading away). Network effects are hugely important, but they aren’t enough. Even if you have most of your social graph on both signal and WhatsApp, you need to not only change your habits, but also outages and bugs will quickly scare you away. And there’s tons of subtle tweaks that are done to keep you more sticky to one app. Big tech isn’t usually that scared of other apps trying to do the same things as they do successfully. They’re scared of new paradigms that they can miss the boat on, and you can see that in what acquisitions they do. They don’t pay big bucks for copies of their services, but for new ideas that can be/are taking off.
hiq 6y ago
> Signal will have very hard time competing as a product with WhatsApp. You seem to assume that they want to be bigger than WhatsApp, but as a non-profit I don't think that's their goal. Their goal is (broadly) to secure most communication in a privacy-preserving way. If WhatsApp does it because of the pressure from Signal, it's also a win for them (again as a non-profit).

Klasiaster 6y ago

I wonder if it's possible with some tricks to build a message box on top of a regular DHT (distributed hash table) as commonly found in many P2P network implementations. There is no need to guarantee that the message is stored for a certain amount of time as long as the protocol knows whether the other party has received it or not: you can just put it into the DHT again as long as it's not received.

ThePhysicist 6y ago

I never understood what problem E2E encryption actually solves if you don't have full control over the client. All it would take Signal or WhatsApp to extract all your private messages is a single update of the client, which is trivial to do and currently very hard to validate as e.g. Apple does not even (to my knowledge) provide checksums to end users. The problem of messaging as it is today is that we missed the opportunity to create a well-accepted federated protocol that can be implemented easily. There were a few contenders like IRC but they never reached a critical mass like SMTP or IMAP did. Maybe Matrix can fix this, but I don't have much hope we'll turn away from WhatsApp anytime soon, 95 % of users don't care enough to change and the lock-in effects are enormous at this point. The only way that this situation could be resolved is through legislation, e.g. the EU forcing WhatsApp to implement the Matrix protocol and make their infrastructure interoperable with third-party providers, but even that seems quite far-fetched right now. In any case, having a non-profit like the Signal foundation run a messenger is already a vast improvement over a company that sees this mostly as a data mining operation.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Signal’s Android client moved to reproducible builds some time ago already.
dublinben 6y ago
>what problem E2E encryption actually solves Pervasive, passive surveillance. If your threat model includes individually targeted exploits, then you'll need to look for other solutions.
- ThePhysicist 6y ago
  You don't need E2E encryption for that, transport layer encryption will do just fine in that case.
  - growse 6y ago
    The transport between where and where?

Jugurtha 6y ago

The article should be titled "How can we do better than Signal?", because it neither brings nor addresses anything better than Signal. It'd be better as an Ask HN. The expectation reading it was to find out about a product that is better than Signal. The reply to the assertion after the disappointment will most likely be "Then do it".

marvinblum 6y ago

I disagree. A decentralized version of Signal might not be necessarily more reliable. What do you do when your Matrix home server is down? Will you still be able to log in? Receive messages? Is this overall system more stable if only 90% of the network work all the time? Apart from that, most non-technical users won't care about it, and a decentralized solution might not be as convenient for them. It also might open up other attack vectors, like compromised servers in the network and stuff like that. Signal is probably the best solution for now.

Evidlo 6y ago
I'd argue that vendor lock-in is a far more important issue. You're right that non-technical people won't care about why decentralization matters. It's up to technical people to nudge the boat in the right direction. That's why it's so disappointing to see HN embrace another silo.

xiphias2 6y ago

Signal, telegram and matrix (or at least 1 of the 3) should work on cross-app E2E communication. Instead of creating a new protocol, why not just have a competition between clients using the current protocols?

bilal4hmed 6y ago
Matrix has bridges for Telegram and Signal Matrix tried with Signal but it didnt yield anything https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom
- xiphias2 6y ago
  As long as Signal is really open source, I don't see why Matrix couldn't just add connecting to signal servers in the client itself instead of creating bridges or a common protocol. The only thing Moxie can do is to make Signal closed source, or constantly break the signal protocol on purpose and force everybody to upgrade their signal and telegram apps. Also I tried Matrix, and it started asking questions from me instead of showing my friend list, so it already failed being a competitor to WhatsApp. The only question it should ask is to get permission to access my contact list. I know that interopability is very hard to do, and having multiple clients in 1 app is boring work (especially with features like voice and video calling), but it would be amazing.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

OmniiTyler 6y ago

Hey icy, the issue you raise about Signal not being decentralized, I think, is a valid one. You should check out a decentralized messaging and social media app I have been working on - Omnii. Omnii allows each user to manage their encryption keys, and all data exists in a decentralized manner - only on endpoints (users' phones), and not on a backend. https://omnii.co https://omnii.co is our website if you are interested.

aleken 6y ago
Omnii looks exciting. Signed up for the beta in Play store. But can’t find the app afterwards. Does it require specific hardware?
- OmniiTyler 6y ago
  Hey, glad you are intrigued! If you click the "Download Omnii Beta" button on the website, it should take you to the Google Play Store listing and allow you to download the Beta version of the app. One restriction at the moment is that the app is closed to the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and India. If you do not reside in one of the listed countries, shoot me an email with the country you live in and I can see if we can open up the Beta to your country. My email is: tyler@omnii.co
distracted_boy 6y ago
The fact that you don’t offer a technical description of your application, and the fact that “Twisted Apps LLC“ does not have a credible online presence, does not inspire confidence in your security.

LockAndLol 6y ago

Nothing is ever good enough, is it? No matter what is built you'll have people complaining about any aspect of it they can find. Most of them won't so anything more than that. They won't contribute a single thing, pat themselves on the back and call it a day. There's not even a hint of constructive feedback in that post. Not even an attempt at resolving any of the identified problems or thinking further about implications of possible changes. I need a downvote button on HN...

polotics 6y ago

Moved from WhatsApp to Threema, so far so good.

ketamine__ 6y ago

Is it possible to do a hand-off? So one cellphone can make a connection to another cell phone? UDP over LTE? I'm guessing a port can't be opened when on a cellular network?

marghidanu 6y ago

I You can do it, then do it. Build something on top of IPFS. Decentralize.

EugeneOZ 6y ago

That single fact that I have to share my phone number to everyone (I want to chat with) in Signal is enough for me to don't even think about installing it.

freddyym 6y ago

Signal is not the best option by any means. But it's so much better than most of the other options like Whatsapp or iMessage. It's all about threat models.

ghoward 6y ago

tl;dr: With decentralized identities, we could have a messaging system based on the Signal Protocol that does not use central servers at all. There seem to be a lot of opinions about whether it is possible to do better than Signal, and if so, what would that be like. There also seems to be a lot of opinions that federation is better. There is something that can be better than Signal, but federation is not it. For one thing, it creates the problem in https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ . For another, as some have said in the comments here, federation can easily lead back to centralization, especially if the biggest servers implement "extensions" that then become used and expected by users. What would be better than Signal would be to take the Signal Protocol, which is fine as a protocol, and implement the protocol using software that the user runs themselves and that uses completely decentralized identities. I wrote about such a system at https://gavinhoward.com/2020/07/decentralizing-the-internet-and-other-ideas/#decentralized-identities https://gavinhoward.com/2020/07/decentralizing-the-internet-... . The key is that the users must control their data, like the pods that Sir Tim Berners-Lee's Inrupt is pushing. (This would solve a big problem with Signal: the lack of backups.) However, without some way for each user's "server" to identify the location of another user's "server", this messaging system would not work. That is where decentralized identities come in. With fully decentralized identities on a blockchain, it is easy to search the blockchain for the current location of the server for the user that a message needs to be sent to. There is no need for federation, no need for a centralized server at all; the messages go directly point-to-point. Others in these comments have pointed out that decentralized systems are subject to abuse by spam and other things. That is true, but there are ways to mitigate the problem. You can read what my mitigation ideas are at https://gavinhoward.com/2020/07/decentralizing-the-internet-and-other-ideas/#problems https://gavinhoward.com/2020/07/decentralizing-the-internet-... . Edit: I forgot to say that it is also important to address convenience. If it is not convenient for users to set up their own servers, then this solution will not work anyway. However, cloud providers would probably love to make it convenient by implementing one-click setups like they have for things like Wordpress.

proactivesvcs 6y ago

We can also do better than using insults against a service which isn't perfect - and maybe won't be if it continues its course - but is doing a good thing for the right reasons.

pantalaimon 6y ago

Why is XMPP not mentioned as an alternative? it's decentralized, fully open source and supports end to end encryption.

approxim8ion 6y ago
And easier to set up a server than Matrix. I suppose it's just not fashionable enough because it's rather old. I used Conversations and Movim while Signal was down, and was greatly impressed with them.

kemitchell 6y ago

"We can do better" is a dodge. It avoids "I can do better" with a kind of royal "we" that implies other people should do the work. The obvious response to "I can do better" is "okay, go ahead". "We can do better" tries to tell me that I should be working on this guy's problem. That I should buy his line about how important "decentralization" is. There's a place for software criticism. But the best comes in the form of just writing better software, or improving what we've already got. Calling somebody else's project a "shiny turd", on the other hand, isn't even really criticism. It's name calling.

drummer 6y ago

We can certainly do better than Signal. The central point of attack is a problem. And now also the fact that they are using AWS, and AWS has demonstrated being willing to deplatform within 24 hours. However for now Signal is one of the best options we have.

pratio 6y ago

Maybe we can't for now and that's okay. There are so many solutions to choose from and the only thing that would make it popular would be if the people you want to chat with or on it. There's also a big issue with any of these platforms, MONEY. People want to text, share images and videos and audio. Want to have audio and video calls over data. A proper interface, cross device sync and they want it all fre e. Most people will use free software. So you know maybe we just can't do better for now.

bartimus 6y ago

Was happy to play around with Delta Chat today. Very nice progress. That was until one of our friends tried to logon with Gmail on her iPhone. Too much hassle unfortunately.

hifly 6y ago

I wish Delta Chat would get more mentions during this period It is nicely decentralised. Nice UI. Run your own server. Deserves more love!

humbleMouse 6y ago

People already have, it’s called wickr