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Long-time Signal user here, with a number of technical and non-technical friends, colleagues and acquaintances who also use it. I don't know who was asking for

by cdogl 6y ago

Long-time Signal user here, with a number of technical and non-technical friends, colleagues and acquaintances who also use it. I don't know who was asking for this. And I think it really dilutes Signal's message. I believe that everyone has a fundamental right to secure, private communication. Some people may hold the same belief for the right to transfer funds. I don't agree and I suspect many others feel the same. That tension alone makes this look like a bad decision to me.

flyinglizard 6y ago
Communication platforms like Signal live or die by network effects. If payment is incorporated as a first class citizen into other platforms, Signal would need it as well to maintain its network - just like it would need the capability to transfer photos or other non-textual items.
Proven 6y ago
> I believe that everyone has a fundamental right to secure, private communication. Some people may hold the same belief for the right to transfer funds. No one has the right of secure comms (why do you use Signal and encrypt messages if you have that right?). Anyone has the right to privacy on their own property (on your land, at home, etc.) but not outside. The totally premined coin is very scammy.
JeremyNT 6y ago
This kind of anti-feature is not what I signed up for. I just wanted a secure messenger normal users could understand! It seems like a simple enough problem that Signal solved well (apart from the phone number requirement). Sadly, now it feels like Signal was just a long game trojan for Marlinspike to onboard users to a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme. This has nothing to do with its core functionality and it makes me question the developers' motives. I've wasted my influence with my non-technical friends convincing them to adopt Signal, and I don't forsee convincing them to switch yet again to something different. The state of secure messaging is really bleak. I wish Matrix had an IM-style client that was decent enough for non-technical users to adopt.
- climb_stealth 6y ago
  > I've wasted my influence with my non-technical friends convincing them to adopt Signal, and I don't forsee convincing them to switch yet again to something different. This has bitten me before. Now I'm thinking that every recommendation and suggestion to adopt must come with a "for now this is the best way to do it, but it will probably change again". And somehow try to prepare the non-technical people for that.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    > Now I'm thinking that every recommendation and suggestion to adopt must come with a "for now this is the best way to do it, but it will probably change again" Except for Matrix, because it is decentralized.
    - climb_stealth 6y ago
      Hah, this almost feels like a matter of faith. It would be interesting to see though where Matrix would end up if it manages to becomes as popular as Whatsapp or even Signal.
- leppr 6y ago
  How does the ability to transfer "points" from one number to another, remove from the messaging features? Is it really that hard to imagine unobtrusive UI that makes this as optional as sending GIFs, stickers or location data? Or did the later features already kill Signal for you?
  - cdogl 6y ago
    Signal's UX still needs work and a lot of features just don't work very well (e.g. the desktop sync). That's fine in and of itself - the team is small and they're funded by donations - but if they're spending time on payments, that raises concerns for me about the priorities of the project and how the funding is being spent.
- jakecopp 6y ago
bmarquez 6y ago
I don't know what who was asking for this either, especially when what I consider to be core features are still missing. Signal for iOS still doesn't support message backup like the Android version. And Telegram introduced a feature to import old Whatsapp chats into new Telegram conversations, a form of "backup". This was great when I was migrating away from Whatsapp, and made the decision between Signal and Telegram easy for casual conversations where encryption wasn't a priority.
leppr 6y ago
> I believe that everyone has a fundamental right to secure, private communication. Some people may hold the same belief for the right to transfer funds. I don't agree and I suspect many others feel the same. What are the arguments? Don't you think that as data becomes more and more valuable, "freedom of transaction" is a natural evolution of "freedom of communication"? In an environment where only "legally valueless" data circulates freely, the few entities that are actually able to monetize this data become gigantic monopolies (Google, FB, ...), while most individual parties are either forced to play by their rules (Youtube, Patreon, ...) or filtered out by startup costs.
- cdogl 6y ago
  My view is that the public in general has a right to universal services that can realistically only be delivered through taxation. That right needs to be balanced against the right to transaction privacy. It's one thing to say that friends should be able to send money to each other privately; it's another to think about bank settlements and international flows of large sums of money not being visible or auditable. The whole issue is a real minefield and I don't have a firm stance. And obviously the fiat money system has gaps and flaws there too. I'm sure much of the HN audience would disagree with me here from a libertarian point of view. But I think it's safe to say that the issue of transaction privacy & freedom is not as straightforward as that of speech (which itself is really not that simple).
cookiengineer 6y ago
I'm curious: why did you choose Signal when you care about privacy?
- fastball 6y ago
  Probably because all conversations (1-to-1 and group chats) are E2EE.
  - cookiengineer 6y ago
    > Probably because all conversations (1-to-1 and group chats) are E2EE. They are in WhatsApp, too. At least Facebook still claims that after the Snowden leaks :) And: Did you verify this? Did you check the source code at signal's android/ios client repo? Did you also verify that no untrusted third party receives your backed up private keys? Why do you trust Google more than Facebook? [1] [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/d74e9f74103ad76eb7b5378e06fb789e7b365767/app/src/main/java/org/thoughtcrime/securesms/push/SignalServiceNetworkAccess.java#L122-L181 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/d74e9f74103... I'm not trying to troll here. I'm trying to point out that babbling about crypto is easy. Verifying it, and actually caring about it is another thing. Most users are probably also the wrong audience for early adoption of TOX.
    - lxgr 6y ago
      > Why do you trust Google more than Facebook? [1] How is using Google for domain fronting for the purpose of censorship circumvention "trusting Google"? They don't get to see the message content (just like Facebook doesn't see the content for WhatsApp). > Did you also verify that no untrusted third party receives your backed up private keys? Private keys are not backed up in either service, as far as I know. > Did you check the source code at signal's android/ios client repo? Given the lack of reproducible builds on iOS/the app store, any source code audit is pointless if the app vendor is included in your threat model.
e12e 6y ago
This is rather terrible news. On the other hand; there's no technical reason someone (like, say the EFF) couldn't fork the client and server - and establish a new signal network - maybe drop the need for phone number registration as well?

by cdogl 6y ago

flyinglizard 6y ago

Communication platforms like Signal live or die by network effects. If payment is incorporated as a first class citizen into other platforms, Signal would need it as well to maintain its network - just like it would need the capability to transfer photos or other non-textual items.

Proven 6y ago

> I believe that everyone has a fundamental right to secure, private communication. Some people may hold the same belief for the right to transfer funds. No one has the right of secure comms (why do you use Signal and encrypt messages if you have that right?). Anyone has the right to privacy on their own property (on your land, at home, etc.) but not outside. The totally premined coin is very scammy.

JeremyNT 6y ago

This kind of anti-feature is not what I signed up for. I just wanted a secure messenger normal users could understand! It seems like a simple enough problem that Signal solved well (apart from the phone number requirement). Sadly, now it feels like Signal was just a long game trojan for Marlinspike to onboard users to a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme. This has nothing to do with its core functionality and it makes me question the developers' motives. I've wasted my influence with my non-technical friends convincing them to adopt Signal, and I don't forsee convincing them to switch yet again to something different. The state of secure messaging is really bleak. I wish Matrix had an IM-style client that was decent enough for non-technical users to adopt.

climb_stealth 6y ago
> I've wasted my influence with my non-technical friends convincing them to adopt Signal, and I don't forsee convincing them to switch yet again to something different. This has bitten me before. Now I'm thinking that every recommendation and suggestion to adopt must come with a "for now this is the best way to do it, but it will probably change again". And somehow try to prepare the non-technical people for that.
- fsflover 6y ago
  > Now I'm thinking that every recommendation and suggestion to adopt must come with a "for now this is the best way to do it, but it will probably change again" Except for Matrix, because it is decentralized.
  - climb_stealth 6y ago
    Hah, this almost feels like a matter of faith. It would be interesting to see though where Matrix would end up if it manages to becomes as popular as Whatsapp or even Signal.
leppr 6y ago
How does the ability to transfer "points" from one number to another, remove from the messaging features? Is it really that hard to imagine unobtrusive UI that makes this as optional as sending GIFs, stickers or location data? Or did the later features already kill Signal for you?
- cdogl 6y ago
  Signal's UX still needs work and a lot of features just don't work very well (e.g. the desktop sync). That's fine in and of itself - the team is small and they're funded by donations - but if they're spending time on payments, that raises concerns for me about the priorities of the project and how the funding is being spent.
jakecopp 6y ago

bmarquez 6y ago

I don't know what who was asking for this either, especially when what I consider to be core features are still missing. Signal for iOS still doesn't support message backup like the Android version. And Telegram introduced a feature to import old Whatsapp chats into new Telegram conversations, a form of "backup". This was great when I was migrating away from Whatsapp, and made the decision between Signal and Telegram easy for casual conversations where encryption wasn't a priority.

leppr 6y ago

> I believe that everyone has a fundamental right to secure, private communication. Some people may hold the same belief for the right to transfer funds. I don't agree and I suspect many others feel the same. What are the arguments? Don't you think that as data becomes more and more valuable, "freedom of transaction" is a natural evolution of "freedom of communication"? In an environment where only "legally valueless" data circulates freely, the few entities that are actually able to monetize this data become gigantic monopolies (Google, FB, ...), while most individual parties are either forced to play by their rules (Youtube, Patreon, ...) or filtered out by startup costs.

cdogl 6y ago
My view is that the public in general has a right to universal services that can realistically only be delivered through taxation. That right needs to be balanced against the right to transaction privacy. It's one thing to say that friends should be able to send money to each other privately; it's another to think about bank settlements and international flows of large sums of money not being visible or auditable. The whole issue is a real minefield and I don't have a firm stance. And obviously the fiat money system has gaps and flaws there too. I'm sure much of the HN audience would disagree with me here from a libertarian point of view. But I think it's safe to say that the issue of transaction privacy & freedom is not as straightforward as that of speech (which itself is really not that simple).

cookiengineer 6y ago

I'm curious: why did you choose Signal when you care about privacy?

fastball 6y ago
Probably because all conversations (1-to-1 and group chats) are E2EE.
- cookiengineer 6y ago
  > Probably because all conversations (1-to-1 and group chats) are E2EE. They are in WhatsApp, too. At least Facebook still claims that after the Snowden leaks :) And: Did you verify this? Did you check the source code at signal's android/ios client repo? Did you also verify that no untrusted third party receives your backed up private keys? Why do you trust Google more than Facebook? [1] [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/d74e9f74103ad76eb7b5378e06fb789e7b365767/app/src/main/java/org/thoughtcrime/securesms/push/SignalServiceNetworkAccess.java#L122-L181 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/d74e9f74103... I'm not trying to troll here. I'm trying to point out that babbling about crypto is easy. Verifying it, and actually caring about it is another thing. Most users are probably also the wrong audience for early adoption of TOX.
  - lxgr 6y ago
    > Why do you trust Google more than Facebook? [1] How is using Google for domain fronting for the purpose of censorship circumvention "trusting Google"? They don't get to see the message content (just like Facebook doesn't see the content for WhatsApp). > Did you also verify that no untrusted third party receives your backed up private keys? Private keys are not backed up in either service, as far as I know. > Did you check the source code at signal's android/ios client repo? Given the lack of reproducible builds on iOS/the app store, any source code audit is pointless if the app vendor is included in your threat model.

e12e 6y ago

This is rather terrible news. On the other hand; there's no technical reason someone (like, say the EFF) couldn't fork the client and server - and establish a new signal network - maybe drop the need for phone number registration as well?