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Tangential, but apparently at least one Signal user was logged out overnight and is unable to log back in due to a cellular outage: https://twitter.com/the_ayem
by faitswulff 6y ago
Tangential, but apparently at least one Signal user was logged out overnight and is unable to log back in due to a cellular outage: https://twitter.com/the_ayeminthant/status/1356064981712691200?s=21 https://twitter.com/the_ayeminthant/status/13560649817126912...
Seems like a major weakness if your local government can somehow just log you out of your secure messaging platform.
- deathgrips 6y agoYes, quite dumb of Signal to stop working when "The internet is in and out and my sim card no longer works"
- faitswulff 6y agoThere’s a difference between “not working” and “my device’s authentication token was revoked.” She notes that WhatsApp continues to work.
- deathgrips 6y agoThat's as good a sign as any that you shouldn't be using Whatsapp.
- faitswulff 6y ago...yes, that is a perfectly normal conclusion to draw.
- deathgrips 6y agoTo spell it out, if whatsapp were considered a threat they'd block it just like they block Signal.
- lmm 6y agoNot necessarily. It could be that whatsapp is popular enough that blocking it would increase the risk to this regime more than not blocking it.
- dang 6y agoWe've banned this account for flamewar. That's not ok regardless of which side you're flaming for. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25986226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25986226.
- bumpkinjunkie 6y agoHow would that happen?
- faitswulff 6y agoI’m not sure. For the record, it could just be a bug or an unexpected edge case, not necessarily a specific government intervention, but regardless it does seem more fragile than it should be considering Signal’s ethos.
- aaron695 6y agoFor the military to have done that on purpose they would have to have had external help with planing. It's to high level. So I'd assume accidentally with something about the cell phones changing making Signal and Telegraph want to re-authenticate. Or the person has cleared their phone for obvious reasons which also logged them out.
- napier 6y agoNot sure if this is relevant but the Tatmadaw are majority owners of Mytel, which has one of the largest networks in subscriber base and hardware infrastructure. They never really gave up control of Myanmar in a strategic sense.
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 6y agoDid Signal give solid reasoning for disallowing accounts and usage without an attached cell phone number? (I assume the question comes up frequently, but I don't know the answer)
- joering2 6y agoI got $10 verizon prepaid and set up my whatsapp and signal that way.
- soohyung 6y agoUnfortunately in many countries even prepaid SIM cards are directly tied to government ID verification. I know this has been discussed many times, but I agree that it would be nice to be able to use Signal for secure communications without a phone number.
- fy20 6y agoI find it interesting that Germany is one country which does this. A country which has strict privacy regulations and people prefer to use cash rather than cards, but they are happy to carry a device which can track their every movement and is tied to their government identification. This isn't an EU thing, there are quite a few EU countries where you can buy and activate a SIM without any ID. Have there been any cases where the people have spoken out against such regulations, and they have been reversed?
- koheripbal 6y agoThe history of terrorists using pre-paid SIMs/phones for both coordination and remote bomb detonation has necessitated this.
- fy20 6y agoThat seems kind of silly given you can easily buy a SIM card from eBay for another country that doesn't have such requirements.
- a012 6y agoI wonder what caused force log out in the first place? I have a Signal account logged in and then SIM card was removed from the phone, and Signal still works (of course I'm not in MMR).
- saurik 6y agoThis one person--with no people responding "also me!"--says they were logged out of multiple services in different jurisdictions at once, so while the underlying issue of a login mechanism somehow tied to SMS access is certainly an issue, I personally, so far as makes sense from this one data point, find it unlikely that this had anything to do with the coup.
- faitswulff 6y agoThis is a very valid point.
- ffpip 6y agoIf you're logged into at least one device with telegram, the sign in code for the a device first comes to the logged in device, instead of coming via SMS. The 6 digit code comes from a verified 'Telegram' account over the internet, thus avoiding the security or connectivity issues of SMS.
- aaomidi 6y agoYes but if soemone else interfere sms they can effectively reset the account
- joecot 6y agoReminder that while apps like signal are more convenient for every day use, if you want to have a way to message certain people when communications are being blocked, you should setup Briar[1] with your friend group. It connects over Tor when you have internet access, but can also pass messages ad hoc over WiFi or bluetooth, so that messages can be distributed across a group. 1. https://briarproject.org/ https://briarproject.org/
- brokenkebab 6y agoThere should be a really wide (geographically), and at the same time not too sparse network of Briar users for sending messages with it to make sense practically.
- subhro 6y agoThis seems very much like APRS wrapped in encryption, no?
- antman 6y agoDisaster radio through LORA https://disaster.radio/learn/hardware/ https://disaster.radio/learn/hardware/ 15 to 30 euros for hardware, 20 for antenna, 10 to 95 km range. Also https://meshtastic.letstalkthis.com/ https://meshtastic.letstalkthis.com/
- majewsky 6y agoSince there is no obvious disclaimer on the page, I'll add one here for good measure: In most jurisdictions, broadcasting on long-range frequency bands is not permitted without a license. I absolutely encourage people to get involved in this topic, but don't forget to check your local regulations.
- antman 6y agoRegarding regulations LORA tries to address that problem, from Wikipedia: LoRa uses license-free sub-gigahertz radio frequency bands like 433 MHz, 868 MHz (Europe), 915 MHz (Australia and North America), 865 MHz to 867 MHz (India) and 923 MHz (Asia).
- Melting_Harps 6y agoThis is why using multiple burner SMS accounts from various countries, I understand why most apps use filters of known SMS numbers but this is why this can be a pretty big deal. Sometimes you can get logged out going from wifi to LTE/mobile data on either of those apps, I have had that happen, and this can create issues like this which means you will have to create another account and may not have your contact list etc... which is impossible if you're trying to use your mobile number you use. It's kind of crazy that all of our over-paranoid back ups and ad-hoc solutions have been so damn necessary for even the normal person in the last 10 years, be it PgP, burner sms numbers, cryptocurrency, apps like TG and Signal etc... As some have mentioned Moxie said he wants to move away from phone based accounts, and now that Elon sent him a ton of new users from all walks of Life that this may need to be accelerated, which from what I garnered from his podcast with JR it's just not well staffed and is in need of some your guys' talents.
- digianarchist 6y agoIt’s difficult to get burner SMS numbers and also to activate a SIM from abroad. Some eBay traders will sell activated SIMs but you are essentially trusting a third party.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago> It’s difficult to get burner SMS numbers and also to activate a SIM from abroad. Agreed, to an extent. But not if you know how to do the legwork; I have 4 active Telegram/Signal accounts on sveral devices using apps that allowed me to register and acquire a US/EU based mobile number. I completely lost al ofl those passwords and access to those old numbers (didn't use them after activation years ago) but it certainly is possible if you do the legwork.
- tluyben2 6y agoThreema does not have this issue. If it would be free it would be a better choice as it does not need a mobile number. For people in the west the cost is so low but still many refuse because it 'should be free'.
- swarnie_ 6y agoIts Burma, the guy is lucky to have electricity and a phone signal in the first place...
- BlackLotus89 6y agoOK I'm really confused why no one points out that signal allow you to block registration over your number. If you are afraid of government interferance and too lazy to usw xmpp/Matrix why wouldn't you configure at least signal securely?