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Default disappearing messages

204 points by colesantiago 5y ago

colesantiago 5y ago
Although a welcome addition to Signal, personally would like to see the 'phone number sign up' 'disappear' from the app and instead add email signup. Thats all.
- ggm 5y ago
  I'd like tablet/Android without SIM.
  - afiori 5y ago
    Signal is a secure comunication app not a messaging app. All they do is optimized towards providing security, confidentiality, and/or privacy with a decent UX, but they make it very clear that the UX is on a lower level of priority. So since message transfers are a confidentiality risk they do not provide it. Signal is an analogue of the tor browser, most people get diminishing returns after an adblocker/incognito mode.
    - ggm 5y ago
      They did desktop sidecar. why not do a sidecar for SIMless tablets? they did iPad. presuambly the secure region coding for iDevices is better?
- vertis 5y ago
  This is one of the biggest things that stops me from using Signal. I don't have a phone number really any more (I'm a digital nomad, and pick up regional sims) I'm not really interested in the disappearing message either if I wanted that I could just use Slack Free edition :troll:. In all seriousness though, my messages are part of my memory. They're shared experience with my partner and a record of decisions. I understand they're useful for some people, but they're an anti-feature for me.
  - afiori 5y ago
    > In all seriousness though, my messages are part of my memory. They're shared experience with my partner and a record of decisions. Thanks for saying this, I moved to Telegram[1] before I had a chance to learn about/suffer from Whatsapp take on backups, but it would have been devastating to lose years of messages with people over a bricked phone. [1] I know Telegram has a bad rep due to their home cooked crypto and maybe other stuff, but I like the app, I vaguely trust the author, and it works fine for me.
    - lmm 5y ago
      > [1] I know Telegram has a bad rep due to their home cooked crypto and maybe other stuff, but I like the app, I vaguely trust the author, and it works fine for me. Is that because you assume the NSA aren't reading all your messages or you don't mind if they are? Because the whole problem with dodgy crypto is that it still seems to "work fine for me" even when it isn't.
      - theshrike79 5y ago
        My main chat platforms are IRC, Telegram and Discord. None of them are E2E encrypted and don't sell themselves as such. I keep that in mind when discussing things. If I want to start doing something shady, I can pick up something else than Signal, since I don't want my phone number ending up on random people's phones.
        lmm 5y ago
        > My main chat platforms are IRC, Telegram and Discord. None of them are E2E encrypted and don't sell themselves as such. Telegram's initial marketing heavily emphasised privacy. If I search for Telegram then the very first search result blurb starts "Telegram messages are heavily encrypted". Maybe they don't explicitly claim to be E2E, but they absolutely are selling themselves as an encrypted, privacy-friendly messenger. > If I want to start doing something shady, I can pick up something else than Signal, since I don't want my phone number ending up on random people's phones. Completely agreed, I dislike the Signal hype as much as anyone. But I trust Telegram even less.
- fastball 5y ago
  Or at least allow me to change my number without losing all my history.
- jraph 5y ago
  Yes. Or, at the very least, support people who have a phone that is not Android or iOS by allowing them to register from a desktop application. Does not seem misaligned with Signal's aim for privacy.
  - boondaburrah 5y ago
    One of the things I've noticed is that Signal doesn't seem to care about privacy at all. They care a lot about security though, which is a different thing, and tell you that's privacy.
    - beermonster 5y ago
      See Best WhatsApp alternatives that respect your privacy[1]. Signal has: Pros Free Very good encryption Almost no metadata kept Protocol independently audited Seamless to use on Android Disappearing messages E2EE text, voice, and video group chat Cons Requires a valid phone number to register Hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) [1] https://protonmail.com/blog/whatsapp-alternatives/ https://protonmail.com/blog/whatsapp-alternatives/
      - uuddlrlr 5y ago
        Google Play Services or microg is also required.
        iHaveRegrets 5y ago
        This hasn't been true for quite a long time. Signal works perfectly fine on a google-free phone. Edit to clarify: Signal sets up a background connection instead, which still results in real-time notifications (the same way that Wire works on a phone without Google Play services)
        jraph 5y ago
        Your comment was dead, I vouched for it. I think you are correct. It was correct a while ago anyway. A year ago or two, I wanted to build Signal for Android without the proprietary library that talks with google play services. It was possible by modifying the source code a bit, because the code checks for the presence of the handles the absence of the Google play Services and enables some sort of fallback. I would not know if it is still the case today, I don't currently own an Android device.
- pmlnr 5y ago
  That is called XMPP.
Rd6n6 5y ago
The max timer is too short. 6 months would be a convenient value - enough time to reference the messages while they might be relevant, but also not floating around forever
- pwdisswordfish8 5y ago
  > The max timer is too short Short enough to hopefully nudge people into immediately writing the whole thing off as a terrible idea and then choosing not to enable it. Apparently dumb shit like this is what Moxie had in mind when he wrote the infamous blog post about why disallowing personal (patched) builds and third party clients gives them the advantage of being able to control the user experience in a way that they wouldn't be able to if people were using an unsanctioned client.
- dddw 5y ago
  I agree, some conversations like spouse you'll like to look back and forth a little. I've sent in a issue omg GH about a year ago, will look it up.
- Vinnl 5y ago
  I suppose that's why: > We’ve also added the ability to set custom timer durations on your conversations, so that some content can be gone in 60 seconds and others can exist for 18 minutes or 4 weeks.
  - mrpotato 5y ago
    I thought the same as you until I checked how it worked in the app. Maximum is 4 weeks, there is no higher option.
    - Vinnl 5y ago
      Shame! Thanks for verifying though.
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  I agree, I don't use it for most conversations because 1 month is too short. I'd go for 6 months or even 1 year.
brnt 5y ago
I've had the timer on for about a year now, it's pretty nice not to have all that history accumulate. On my device or others'. One week was a bit short though, I'm glad they added 4 weeks recently.
- afiori 5y ago
  Is there a "star message" option to save messages? It would be a very Marie Kondo approach to message history
  - uuddlrlr 5y ago
    Snapchat has this, it is cozy. It's a simple swipe on the message, and either party can unsave it. Of course my ex-girlfriend just saved everything. Snapchat's UX is (was?) really incredible for privacy, and did a great job of mimicking the IRL experience, they just didn't bother with E2EE unfortunately.
  - Vinnl 5y ago
    Yeah, that would be nice. Looks like the feature request for that is here: https://community.signalusers.org/t/bookmarks-favorites-starred-messages/6004 https://community.signalusers.org/t/bookmarks-favorites-star...
jillesvangurp 5y ago
I've been in a few slack communities that were on the freemium plan. On that plan, older messages become in-accessible if you don't pay. They don't get deleted of course: you will get them back if you switch to a paid plan. But in practice that seems to be rarely interesting. Chat is all about what happened recently and not about what happened weeks/months ago. Ephemeral messages are a good default.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > They don't get deleted of course: you will get them back if you switch to a paid plan. I'm curious what the legality of that is under the GDPR and other preceding data-protection regs... If you're using Slack in a personal capacity, then don't you have the legal right to demand an archive of your messages without paying them anything?
  - a_t48 5y ago
    You actually can, without paying. Just use the export button. The restriction is on search and display in the UI.
- actuator 5y ago
  > Chat is all about what happened recently and not about what happened weeks/months ago. While I agree in principle that email should be used for things that are not ephemeral, chat is used for a lot of things where history becomes important like - A command a coworker pinged you which has some special flags for a build - A doc that was shared with you
feliyur 5y ago
Love signal. However - couldn't make it work in the workplace's network, so unfortunately can't give up whatsapp completely. Just a matter of time hopefully.
cmwelsh 5y ago
The main thing that I dislike about disappearing messages is that there’s an obnoxious clock and username next to each and every message, even if you write two in quick succession. It really breaks up the flow of the chat when someone is having a stream of consciousness moment.
andy_ppp 5y ago
We have seen the UK government magically lose phones and supposedly WhatsApp messages where we all presume illegal business was being done that financially benefits those involved. I think we need a blockchain version of messaging the does the opposite and using anything like this for government communication should have mandatory 5 year sentences attached.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  Can't imagine a negative second order affect of moving all government discussions to the public /s
  - andy_ppp 5y ago
    Where did I say public - I meant available to the courts if required...
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      Isn't that already the requirement? Hence why Lord whatever is in trouble.
      - hkt 5y ago
        Not as severely as the GP suggested. It seems to be extremely common in govt now. To the point where actively requiring surveillance of personal devices of government officials seems pretty reasonable.
  - WhyNotHugo 5y ago
    TBH, anything that a public official says in representation of the public should be a matter of public record.
blfr 5y ago
I'm more worried about appearing than disappearing messages and wish there was a spoiler/nsfw tag for them so that recipient's device only displays messages (and especially attached images) after a tap or some other deliberate action. Right now there are a few people I need to take a pause to think if I want to open that conversation with others around.
Y_Y 5y ago
I don't want my phone to delete messages.
- Vinnl 5y ago
  Then don't set this option?
  - h_anna_h 5y ago
    Isn't it something that the sender decides?
    - Vinnl 5y ago
      The person who initiates the conversation does, yes; that is already the case today. However, you can change the conversation settings not to do that. Of course, if the other party would prefer history to be deleted, it's generally nice to go along with that.
      - h_anna_h 5y ago
        > However, you can change the conversation settings not to do that. Can I do that without the other party knowing or being able to override it? I would check it myself but signal requires a phone number so I can't.
        Y_Y 5y ago
        Looking in the app I can't see a way to do that. It seems like you just set an expiry time which applies to the chat as a whole, and anyone in the chat can change it, which sends a notification (which doesn't expire). Maybe you could patch it and build your own client though.
        Vinnl 5y ago
        No, your client will send a message to the other participants saying that conversation history is now stored. Of course, you can just take screenshots or memorise the messages and write them something else - as mentioned in TFA, the feature is not meant to be used with an adversary.
Ericson2314 5y ago
I dunno, I think being able to hoard your own data shouldn't be demonized or valorized? Fine with whatever the default is, but I feel like the subtext here is that Signal thinks people's phones are going to be increasingly compromised so this will be a more necessary, and the "remember the passing acoustic conversation" is just a way to put a less depressing spin on that.
- chucky 5y ago
  The default, if I'm reading the article correctly, is to not disappear messages. What's new is the ability to disappear messages by default for all conversations, instead of having to remember to set it for each conversation. For some people (e.g. journalists) this is exactly what they need, because forgetting to set disappearing before sending a message could be problematic, and I'm glad they added this feature for that use case.
  - mike_hock 5y ago
    > The default, if I'm reading the article correctly, is to not disappear messages. But that is exactly what the default should be and what's needed to thwart large-scale blanket surveillance of the whole population. If the mere fact that ephemeral messages are enabled raises a flag, that kind of defeats (part of) the purpose.
    - leppr 5y ago
      I don't reckon Signal disappearing messages have much to do with "large-scale blanket surveillance of the whole population". This seems more about reducing potentially incriminating evidence in the absence of blanket surveillance.
      - riedel 5y ago
        The problem is that all personal data is potentially incriminating and harmful if not tightly controlled. I am not thinking about actually people/governments trying to do bad. It is a matter of chance and false positives, that plainly increase with the amount of data. There is cases when it is totally legitimate for law enforcement to seize all communication. It happened to me once and it does not feel good if all your communication is seized and searched. You give away personal information of so many individuals. Actually one should in those cases inform everyone about such information 'leak'. Alternatively having a red button that deletes/hides all your data, would also not look all to wise and it will put further stress on you in such a situation, in which you know that most probably everything will turn out well for you. Even if not giving away third party information would be the ethically thing to do , you will not likely do so even if the claims against you are not justifiable. So better delete your conversations and reduce your footprint. This is also good for email. Everyone should just do what we expect from companies...
Jnr 5y ago
Wire messaging app does this nicely, allowing to set the default time per conversation and showing a small non-distracting timer icon (progress bar) next to a message.
- uuddlrlr 5y ago
  Signal does the same FWIW.
KingOfCoders 5y ago
Not so happy. I'm often searching Signal messages for information etc.
- Quanttek 5y ago
  Well, then you don't got into the settings and configure a default disappearance timer, as the blog post describes. If you don't want to use this feature, don't use it
  - KingOfCoders 5y ago
    Thanks!
compsciphd 5y ago
as the app is open source, isn't it easy for someone to just create a fork that causes the messages to not disappear on the receiver end without the sender having any idea? I'd think a better idea would simply be to accept this as reality, and have a config entry or utility that lets you batch delete messages marked "ephemeral" (or better in this context, "unimportant").
- somebodythere 5y ago
  You could do that. The point of the feature isn't to prevent that. The feature has two functions. The first is to decrease the severity of the consequences if a conversation partner's device falls into the wrong hands, say a government who wants to use chat messages as evidence, a corporate competitor who stole the phone, or just a friend who is rifling through your unlocked phone. The other purpose is to make it easier to participate in a social contract where your chat history won't be kept around forever for all participants to dig up in the future. Yes, someone could modify the client code, or take screenshots, or do any number of things to preserve data. You still have to take care about what you send. But most people won't, because it is additional effort and generally people want to adhere to social contracts. Security is never all or nothing. It is always about taking as many reasonable steps as you can to limit your risks.
  - legrande 5y ago
    > Or take screenshots Came here to say this but someone beat me to it. I imagine forging a screenshot to 'put words in someone's mouth' is hard to do though. You'd have to find a way of injecting words into the Signal app by messing with the code. You'd also have to use the correct font, make sure the metadata of the file is consistent, etc Since there's no permalinks for a Signal message, you could forge anything you wanted, and you just have to get some dummy to believe the screenshot is an actual screenshot of a conversation. Treat screenshots of messenger apps with plenty of skepticism.
- Vinnl 5y ago
  The article addresses that: > This is not for situations where your contact is your adversary — after all, if someone who receives a disappearing message really wants a record of it, they can always use another camera to take a photo of the screen before the message disappears. However, this is a nice way to automatically save storage space on your devices and limit the amount of conversation history that remains on your device if you should find yourself physically separated from it.
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
I really like the idea of disappearing chat. I want my chats to be like an old landline telephone call. Hang up the phone and the conversation is over and what we both take from it are the parts we remember. Massive backlogs of text conversations are just added digital mental baggage in the already overstimulated digital world I live in. We already have email for things we need permanent record of.
- EvanAnderson 5y ago
  My view is exactly the opposite. Having suffered from the "I thought you said..." problem (where other parties recall a verbal conversation differently than me, out of forgetfulness on either of our parts or to serve their interests) for so much of my life I welcome these ubiquitous devices that augment my memory and provide black and white clarity to what was actually said. I have no nostalgia for lossy recall and the inability to quote myself or others verbatim. My memory probably isn't what it used to be in my 20's either. The role of memory augmentation in my life will likely only become greater.
  - medstrom 5y ago
    Funny, I can't say I've suffered problems from that, and my conversation memory is terrible. Are you sure it's not a matter of attitude, communication style or expectations turning it into a problem for you?
    - jan_Inkepa 5y ago
      I find it often useful to be able to go back and search through conversations. Even trivial things can become part of a richer back and forth if you can remember + reference them. It helps keep the oblivion of forgetting at bay, which is for me terrifying and really depressing. People who turn on transient messaging, it's their right, and I get it, but it's also hobbling me from doing what I'm quite good at and basically exposing what's for me an upsetting functional disability, which bums me out a bit. (If I really cared I could take notes elsewhere, yes, but jeeze that's a lot of work for daily chitchat)
GrumpyNl 5y ago
To what kind of society have we become that we have to delete our communications instantly. For what?
- 0x000000001 5y ago
  Communicating on the internet is a lot like hanging out in a pub. You say stuff to your friends, you don't expect it to be held against you for eternity. Ephemeral communications are pretty healthy for humans, especially as we change over time.
vasiliys 5y ago
Persistent messages seem like the obvious better default. 99.9% of my conversations have no obscene secrets, but a solid 1% have information that might be search-worthy. Hangouts / gChat seemed to get this right - extremely fast search and an "off the record" function for when you can't switch to an ephemeral alternative (usually a phone call). I know HN has a higher proportion of the reasonably-paranoid EFF-loving population, and I appreciate their push for options like Signal, but do you folks really prefer acknowledging that a secret number has changed every time someone screws up new device setup? I don't know how many times I've been saved by searchable chat in gMail or got a key piece of info from my Location History, or answered someone's question by scrolling back through https://myactivity.google.com/ https://myactivity.google.com/ - am I the exception? And, hypothetically, if we were scheming terrorists or dissidents in a totalitarian state, who here would trust their conversations to _any_ mainstream communication tool, no matter its privacy reputation?
- Symbiote 5y ago
  Persistent messenges always were, and remain, the default.
- stavros 5y ago
  It's not about obscene secrets, I was just a different person at 18 than I am at 40. Having what I said back then persist forever serves no purpose. Same for things I said months ago, what's the use?
  - Y-bar 5y ago
    > Same for things I said months ago, what's the use? Messages in my phone are now the only remaining words from someone I once knew. I now and then scroll through them like they were an old shoe-box of letters. I don't know (and will never be able to ask) what emotional connection they had of their own messages. I only know that I am glad to still have those...
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    I mean... you can get cancelled now, when someone disagrees with you here, and starts going through all your old posts/messages/tweets, and finds something that was perfectly OK back then, but now the PC culture deems a cancellable-offence. So yeah, I agree... having things disappear after a reasonable amount of time is a great feature. Sadly, most networks (eg. twitter, facebook,...) don't have this.
Vinnl 5y ago
To emphasise, since people seem to be getting this wrong (since "default" is overloaded): this allows you to change the default action for your conversations, i.e. you can explicitly set new conversations you create to automatically disappear. The default default (i.e. for new users) will still be set to keep messages.
fitblipper 5y ago
Ive shifted to disappearing messages by default for about 4 months now and I like how it feels to communicate in this way! It feels more like talking directly with someone instead of collaboratively filling out a log. One mental shift is to remember that if something is said that I need to remember I need to write it down in a different place (much like I would need to if we were talking face to face). I've also found it somewhat therapudic to let go of the past in other places as well. This included throwing away tshirts I got at a successful startup 10 years ago and even cleaning out my "digital closet" by delete my 10 years of location history on Google and old emails. Playing legacy board games, which require destroyibg pieces of the game as it progresses so you can not back out or do it again a different way, introduced me to this feeling and I enjoy it. Funnily enough, around the same time I made this mental change I also started keeping a journal.
- pixxel 5y ago
  > One mental shift is to remember that if something is said that I need to remember I need to write it down in a different place I write it down in the same place. I have a pinned conversation with myself that I drop notes (typed/audio). Also useful for recording audio messages which you can play back to yourself before forwarding to a Signal contact (I hate that there’s no preview before sending audio).
- h4waii 5y ago
  Curiously, which board games are you referring to?
  - sandyarmstrong 5y ago
    Look up Pandemic Legacy for an example, I think they may have started the trend.
GistNoesis 5y ago
Sorry for the confused rant that follow (Hopefully HN will auto-delete it in 42 hours ): The variable duration of the message adds one additional layer of complexity to the already messy game of social communication. It's not like a session at the park or a phone call that once you close it, it's over. I already had trouble understanding the concept of ephemeral message, like you say something to me but expect me to not remember it in one hour, so why say it in the first place. It gets even more confusing when people don't remember what they have told you in the past and change their mind. I am also confused by the fact they acknowledge that this is pointless in an adversarial scenario. It's like submitting to the rules of social norms instead of playing reality ; But people who are fluent in social communication will instinctively use it for soft lies while others suffer trying not to infringe stupid rules. It's like a social norm that restrict usage of external memory (and by extension internal memory). Why not make alcoholic beverage consumption or taking memory-suppressant-drugs mandatory then ? This change of rule distort the game and not for the greater good as only cheaters will take advantage. Promises now only hold for the duration of the timer. What value of the timer, am I supposed to put so that people are comfortable. I don't necessarily want to pressure them in answering quickly, but also I don't want to always be sending weak signals by always configuring a different default, and I don't want to handle the various other people timers preferences.
- andrepd 5y ago
  I think you're making a wrong comparison here. Disappearing messages is not akin to forcing the other party to take memory-suppressant drugs (wtf?), it's more akin to asking them not to record your conversation.
  - hoseja 5y ago
    If you remember something in your brain, you have recorded it. Electronic records are only different in scale/capability and guaranteed perfect recall.
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      The scale and guaranteed perfect recall are not "only" different, they are fundamental differences. I would find it odd if someone were writing down everything I said. I already find it quite strange when I write something (on Signal or similar), and the person responds with a quote-reply of something I said years ago. "But I thought you wanted to visit Moscow?" or even "I'm sure you said you wanted to visit Moscow" are quite different from "here's the message you sent on 2019-02-05 at 14:32 telling me you wanted to visit Moscow".
cblconfederate 5y ago
it should be the default for all users. so much cybercrime and spying wouldn't be possible if we lost information by default. People can learn to protect their valuable information, and it's a worthwhile risk to take
hk1337 5y ago
So, like the app Dust. I do not think there is a way to turn it off in Dust though.
hemiv12 5y ago
Signal associates users to their phone numbers. Does this mean if they are subpoenaed by the government they can give the list of their users ?
- hhlbf 5y ago
  Is this a rhetorical question?
  - hemiv12 5y ago
    No I have Signal installed and also have recently came across Session Messenger. I like Signals user experience and was wondering if there are systemic risks to using it.
    - renata 5y ago
      Yes, they can confirm that you have a Signal account. They actually publish their subpoena responses so you can see exactly what information they have: https://signal.org/bigbrother/central-california-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/central-california-grand-jury/.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  "the only information we can produce in response to a request like this is the date and time a user registered with Signal and the last date of a user’s connectivity to the Signal service" https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/
Brokenspot 5y ago
How does this get prioritized over backups on all operating systems and restoration between operating systems?
AnonHP 5y ago
The disappearing messages timer settings are really convoluted and complex. It could've been a lot more flexible without adding more complexity to the code. This is not going to change why I don't use Signal as much though. I try to partition my conversation modes if possible (since not many people I know use Signal). If there's anything very sensitive or isn't needed after a while, I'd use Signal. The fact that it doesn't even have chat backup and restore for iOS (I'm not talking about transferring from one phone to another when they're in close proximity) forces me to avoid using it for important stuff that I'd prefer to have around. I use Telegram for the conversations that matter, and the fast search feature in Telegram has come to be of great use for more times than I can count or remember. Not to mention Telegram is far too feature rich than Signal can hope to be in the next few years.
nimbius 5y ago
not to get too off-topic but does it feel like Signal is more or less a rudderless ship these days? nobody asked for this sort of thing, just like no one asked for signals bizarre crypto currency or the security passphrase stuff that comes with a weekly reminder. what we did ask for was a full post-mortem of the outage that crippled the service six months ago, and a better more consistent (and buildable) source code released to the git repo regularly but we still didnt get those. we've pushed (albeit for a while now) for a decentralized signal...one that would arguably be more resilient and reliable, but still havent seen it. It feels like the projects just doing whatever Moxie wants.
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  I asked for it in conversations with a Signal developer. Also that it stop recording the timestamps of when adjustments to the disappearance period were made. While you make some valid criticisms this functionality seems firmly related to Signal's core goal of truly private messaging.
stereoradonc 5y ago
What's the point? They copied Telegram's "secret chat" feature, which is completely encrypted and spun out a WhatsApp equivalent. The narrative has been spun around "journalists and dissidents" and precisely, the same group of users, can use Telegram too with usernames instead of actual mobile phone numbers. It's appealing to the feature set I know, but it boils down to the dumbification of UI. Telegram is a complete platform - secret chats don't sync across devices (I have a reason to believe it might be using the on-device system to generate keys), but it is not a show-stopper for me. I fail to understand the hoopla around Signal.

204 points by colesantiago 5y ago

Although a welcome addition to Signal, personally would like to see the 'phone number sign up' 'disappear' from the app and instead add email signup. Thats all.

ggm 5y ago
I'd like tablet/Android without SIM.
- afiori 5y ago
  Signal is a secure comunication app not a messaging app. All they do is optimized towards providing security, confidentiality, and/or privacy with a decent UX, but they make it very clear that the UX is on a lower level of priority. So since message transfers are a confidentiality risk they do not provide it. Signal is an analogue of the tor browser, most people get diminishing returns after an adblocker/incognito mode.
  - ggm 5y ago
    They did desktop sidecar. why not do a sidecar for SIMless tablets? they did iPad. presuambly the secure region coding for iDevices is better?
vertis 5y ago
This is one of the biggest things that stops me from using Signal. I don't have a phone number really any more (I'm a digital nomad, and pick up regional sims) I'm not really interested in the disappearing message either if I wanted that I could just use Slack Free edition :troll:. In all seriousness though, my messages are part of my memory. They're shared experience with my partner and a record of decisions. I understand they're useful for some people, but they're an anti-feature for me.
- afiori 5y ago
  > In all seriousness though, my messages are part of my memory. They're shared experience with my partner and a record of decisions. Thanks for saying this, I moved to Telegram[1] before I had a chance to learn about/suffer from Whatsapp take on backups, but it would have been devastating to lose years of messages with people over a bricked phone. [1] I know Telegram has a bad rep due to their home cooked crypto and maybe other stuff, but I like the app, I vaguely trust the author, and it works fine for me.
  - lmm 5y ago
    > [1] I know Telegram has a bad rep due to their home cooked crypto and maybe other stuff, but I like the app, I vaguely trust the author, and it works fine for me. Is that because you assume the NSA aren't reading all your messages or you don't mind if they are? Because the whole problem with dodgy crypto is that it still seems to "work fine for me" even when it isn't.
    - theshrike79 5y ago
      My main chat platforms are IRC, Telegram and Discord. None of them are E2E encrypted and don't sell themselves as such. I keep that in mind when discussing things. If I want to start doing something shady, I can pick up something else than Signal, since I don't want my phone number ending up on random people's phones.
      - lmm 5y ago
        > My main chat platforms are IRC, Telegram and Discord. None of them are E2E encrypted and don't sell themselves as such. Telegram's initial marketing heavily emphasised privacy. If I search for Telegram then the very first search result blurb starts "Telegram messages are heavily encrypted". Maybe they don't explicitly claim to be E2E, but they absolutely are selling themselves as an encrypted, privacy-friendly messenger. > If I want to start doing something shady, I can pick up something else than Signal, since I don't want my phone number ending up on random people's phones. Completely agreed, I dislike the Signal hype as much as anyone. But I trust Telegram even less.
fastball 5y ago
Or at least allow me to change my number without losing all my history.
jraph 5y ago
Yes. Or, at the very least, support people who have a phone that is not Android or iOS by allowing them to register from a desktop application. Does not seem misaligned with Signal's aim for privacy.
- boondaburrah 5y ago
  One of the things I've noticed is that Signal doesn't seem to care about privacy at all. They care a lot about security though, which is a different thing, and tell you that's privacy.
  - beermonster 5y ago
    See Best WhatsApp alternatives that respect your privacy[1]. Signal has: Pros Free Very good encryption Almost no metadata kept Protocol independently audited Seamless to use on Android Disappearing messages E2EE text, voice, and video group chat Cons Requires a valid phone number to register Hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) [1] https://protonmail.com/blog/whatsapp-alternatives/ https://protonmail.com/blog/whatsapp-alternatives/
    - uuddlrlr 5y ago
      Google Play Services or microg is also required.
      - iHaveRegrets 5y ago
        This hasn't been true for quite a long time. Signal works perfectly fine on a google-free phone. Edit to clarify: Signal sets up a background connection instead, which still results in real-time notifications (the same way that Wire works on a phone without Google Play services)
        jraph 5y ago
        Your comment was dead, I vouched for it. I think you are correct. It was correct a while ago anyway. A year ago or two, I wanted to build Signal for Android without the proprietary library that talks with google play services. It was possible by modifying the source code a bit, because the code checks for the presence of the handles the absence of the Google play Services and enables some sort of fallback. I would not know if it is still the case today, I don't currently own an Android device.
pmlnr 5y ago
That is called XMPP.

Rd6n6 5y ago

The max timer is too short. 6 months would be a convenient value - enough time to reference the messages while they might be relevant, but also not floating around forever

pwdisswordfish8 5y ago
> The max timer is too short Short enough to hopefully nudge people into immediately writing the whole thing off as a terrible idea and then choosing not to enable it. Apparently dumb shit like this is what Moxie had in mind when he wrote the infamous blog post about why disallowing personal (patched) builds and third party clients gives them the advantage of being able to control the user experience in a way that they wouldn't be able to if people were using an unsanctioned client.
dddw 5y ago
I agree, some conversations like spouse you'll like to look back and forth a little. I've sent in a issue omg GH about a year ago, will look it up.
Vinnl 5y ago
I suppose that's why: > We’ve also added the ability to set custom timer durations on your conversations, so that some content can be gone in 60 seconds and others can exist for 18 minutes or 4 weeks.
- mrpotato 5y ago
  I thought the same as you until I checked how it worked in the app. Maximum is 4 weeks, there is no higher option.
  - Vinnl 5y ago
    Shame! Thanks for verifying though.
benhurmarcel 5y ago
I agree, I don't use it for most conversations because 1 month is too short. I'd go for 6 months or even 1 year.

brnt 5y ago

I've had the timer on for about a year now, it's pretty nice not to have all that history accumulate. On my device or others'. One week was a bit short though, I'm glad they added 4 weeks recently.

afiori 5y ago
Is there a "star message" option to save messages? It would be a very Marie Kondo approach to message history
- uuddlrlr 5y ago
  Snapchat has this, it is cozy. It's a simple swipe on the message, and either party can unsave it. Of course my ex-girlfriend just saved everything. Snapchat's UX is (was?) really incredible for privacy, and did a great job of mimicking the IRL experience, they just didn't bother with E2EE unfortunately.
- Vinnl 5y ago
  Yeah, that would be nice. Looks like the feature request for that is here: https://community.signalusers.org/t/bookmarks-favorites-starred-messages/6004 https://community.signalusers.org/t/bookmarks-favorites-star...

jillesvangurp 5y ago

I've been in a few slack communities that were on the freemium plan. On that plan, older messages become in-accessible if you don't pay. They don't get deleted of course: you will get them back if you switch to a paid plan. But in practice that seems to be rarely interesting. Chat is all about what happened recently and not about what happened weeks/months ago. Ephemeral messages are a good default.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> They don't get deleted of course: you will get them back if you switch to a paid plan. I'm curious what the legality of that is under the GDPR and other preceding data-protection regs... If you're using Slack in a personal capacity, then don't you have the legal right to demand an archive of your messages without paying them anything?
- a_t48 5y ago
  You actually can, without paying. Just use the export button. The restriction is on search and display in the UI.
actuator 5y ago
> Chat is all about what happened recently and not about what happened weeks/months ago. While I agree in principle that email should be used for things that are not ephemeral, chat is used for a lot of things where history becomes important like - A command a coworker pinged you which has some special flags for a build - A doc that was shared with you

feliyur 5y ago

Love signal. However - couldn't make it work in the workplace's network, so unfortunately can't give up whatsapp completely. Just a matter of time hopefully.

cmwelsh 5y ago

The main thing that I dislike about disappearing messages is that there’s an obnoxious clock and username next to each and every message, even if you write two in quick succession. It really breaks up the flow of the chat when someone is having a stream of consciousness moment.

andy_ppp 5y ago

We have seen the UK government magically lose phones and supposedly WhatsApp messages where we all presume illegal business was being done that financially benefits those involved. I think we need a blockchain version of messaging the does the opposite and using anything like this for government communication should have mandatory 5 year sentences attached.

vineyardmike 5y ago
Can't imagine a negative second order affect of moving all government discussions to the public /s
- andy_ppp 5y ago
  Where did I say public - I meant available to the courts if required...
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    Isn't that already the requirement? Hence why Lord whatever is in trouble.
    - hkt 5y ago
      Not as severely as the GP suggested. It seems to be extremely common in govt now. To the point where actively requiring surveillance of personal devices of government officials seems pretty reasonable.
- WhyNotHugo 5y ago
  TBH, anything that a public official says in representation of the public should be a matter of public record.

blfr 5y ago

I'm more worried about appearing than disappearing messages and wish there was a spoiler/nsfw tag for them so that recipient's device only displays messages (and especially attached images) after a tap or some other deliberate action. Right now there are a few people I need to take a pause to think if I want to open that conversation with others around.

Y_Y 5y ago

I don't want my phone to delete messages.

Vinnl 5y ago
Then don't set this option?
- h_anna_h 5y ago
  Isn't it something that the sender decides?
  - Vinnl 5y ago
    The person who initiates the conversation does, yes; that is already the case today. However, you can change the conversation settings not to do that. Of course, if the other party would prefer history to be deleted, it's generally nice to go along with that.
    - h_anna_h 5y ago
      > However, you can change the conversation settings not to do that. Can I do that without the other party knowing or being able to override it? I would check it myself but signal requires a phone number so I can't.
      - Y_Y 5y ago
        Looking in the app I can't see a way to do that. It seems like you just set an expiry time which applies to the chat as a whole, and anyone in the chat can change it, which sends a notification (which doesn't expire). Maybe you could patch it and build your own client though.
      - Vinnl 5y ago
        No, your client will send a message to the other participants saying that conversation history is now stored. Of course, you can just take screenshots or memorise the messages and write them something else - as mentioned in TFA, the feature is not meant to be used with an adversary.

Ericson2314 5y ago

I dunno, I think being able to hoard your own data shouldn't be demonized or valorized? Fine with whatever the default is, but I feel like the subtext here is that Signal thinks people's phones are going to be increasingly compromised so this will be a more necessary, and the "remember the passing acoustic conversation" is just a way to put a less depressing spin on that.

chucky 5y ago
The default, if I'm reading the article correctly, is to not disappear messages. What's new is the ability to disappear messages by default for all conversations, instead of having to remember to set it for each conversation. For some people (e.g. journalists) this is exactly what they need, because forgetting to set disappearing before sending a message could be problematic, and I'm glad they added this feature for that use case.
- mike_hock 5y ago
  > The default, if I'm reading the article correctly, is to not disappear messages. But that is exactly what the default should be and what's needed to thwart large-scale blanket surveillance of the whole population. If the mere fact that ephemeral messages are enabled raises a flag, that kind of defeats (part of) the purpose.
  - leppr 5y ago
    I don't reckon Signal disappearing messages have much to do with "large-scale blanket surveillance of the whole population". This seems more about reducing potentially incriminating evidence in the absence of blanket surveillance.
    - riedel 5y ago
      The problem is that all personal data is potentially incriminating and harmful if not tightly controlled. I am not thinking about actually people/governments trying to do bad. It is a matter of chance and false positives, that plainly increase with the amount of data. There is cases when it is totally legitimate for law enforcement to seize all communication. It happened to me once and it does not feel good if all your communication is seized and searched. You give away personal information of so many individuals. Actually one should in those cases inform everyone about such information 'leak'. Alternatively having a red button that deletes/hides all your data, would also not look all to wise and it will put further stress on you in such a situation, in which you know that most probably everything will turn out well for you. Even if not giving away third party information would be the ethically thing to do , you will not likely do so even if the claims against you are not justifiable. So better delete your conversations and reduce your footprint. This is also good for email. Everyone should just do what we expect from companies...

Jnr 5y ago

Wire messaging app does this nicely, allowing to set the default time per conversation and showing a small non-distracting timer icon (progress bar) next to a message.

uuddlrlr 5y ago
Signal does the same FWIW.

KingOfCoders 5y ago

Not so happy. I'm often searching Signal messages for information etc.

Quanttek 5y ago
Well, then you don't got into the settings and configure a default disappearance timer, as the blog post describes. If you don't want to use this feature, don't use it
- KingOfCoders 5y ago
  Thanks!

compsciphd 5y ago

as the app is open source, isn't it easy for someone to just create a fork that causes the messages to not disappear on the receiver end without the sender having any idea? I'd think a better idea would simply be to accept this as reality, and have a config entry or utility that lets you batch delete messages marked "ephemeral" (or better in this context, "unimportant").

somebodythere 5y ago
You could do that. The point of the feature isn't to prevent that. The feature has two functions. The first is to decrease the severity of the consequences if a conversation partner's device falls into the wrong hands, say a government who wants to use chat messages as evidence, a corporate competitor who stole the phone, or just a friend who is rifling through your unlocked phone. The other purpose is to make it easier to participate in a social contract where your chat history won't be kept around forever for all participants to dig up in the future. Yes, someone could modify the client code, or take screenshots, or do any number of things to preserve data. You still have to take care about what you send. But most people won't, because it is additional effort and generally people want to adhere to social contracts. Security is never all or nothing. It is always about taking as many reasonable steps as you can to limit your risks.
- legrande 5y ago
  > Or take screenshots Came here to say this but someone beat me to it. I imagine forging a screenshot to 'put words in someone's mouth' is hard to do though. You'd have to find a way of injecting words into the Signal app by messing with the code. You'd also have to use the correct font, make sure the metadata of the file is consistent, etc Since there's no permalinks for a Signal message, you could forge anything you wanted, and you just have to get some dummy to believe the screenshot is an actual screenshot of a conversation. Treat screenshots of messenger apps with plenty of skepticism.
Vinnl 5y ago
The article addresses that: > This is not for situations where your contact is your adversary — after all, if someone who receives a disappearing message really wants a record of it, they can always use another camera to take a photo of the screen before the message disappears. However, this is a nice way to automatically save storage space on your devices and limit the amount of conversation history that remains on your device if you should find yourself physically separated from it.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago

I really like the idea of disappearing chat. I want my chats to be like an old landline telephone call. Hang up the phone and the conversation is over and what we both take from it are the parts we remember. Massive backlogs of text conversations are just added digital mental baggage in the already overstimulated digital world I live in. We already have email for things we need permanent record of.

EvanAnderson 5y ago
My view is exactly the opposite. Having suffered from the "I thought you said..." problem (where other parties recall a verbal conversation differently than me, out of forgetfulness on either of our parts or to serve their interests) for so much of my life I welcome these ubiquitous devices that augment my memory and provide black and white clarity to what was actually said. I have no nostalgia for lossy recall and the inability to quote myself or others verbatim. My memory probably isn't what it used to be in my 20's either. The role of memory augmentation in my life will likely only become greater.
- medstrom 5y ago
  Funny, I can't say I've suffered problems from that, and my conversation memory is terrible. Are you sure it's not a matter of attitude, communication style or expectations turning it into a problem for you?
  - jan_Inkepa 5y ago
    I find it often useful to be able to go back and search through conversations. Even trivial things can become part of a richer back and forth if you can remember + reference them. It helps keep the oblivion of forgetting at bay, which is for me terrifying and really depressing. People who turn on transient messaging, it's their right, and I get it, but it's also hobbling me from doing what I'm quite good at and basically exposing what's for me an upsetting functional disability, which bums me out a bit. (If I really cared I could take notes elsewhere, yes, but jeeze that's a lot of work for daily chitchat)

GrumpyNl 5y ago

To what kind of society have we become that we have to delete our communications instantly. For what?

0x000000001 5y ago
Communicating on the internet is a lot like hanging out in a pub. You say stuff to your friends, you don't expect it to be held against you for eternity. Ephemeral communications are pretty healthy for humans, especially as we change over time.

vasiliys 5y ago

Persistent messages seem like the obvious better default. 99.9% of my conversations have no obscene secrets, but a solid 1% have information that might be search-worthy. Hangouts / gChat seemed to get this right - extremely fast search and an "off the record" function for when you can't switch to an ephemeral alternative (usually a phone call). I know HN has a higher proportion of the reasonably-paranoid EFF-loving population, and I appreciate their push for options like Signal, but do you folks really prefer acknowledging that a secret number has changed every time someone screws up new device setup? I don't know how many times I've been saved by searchable chat in gMail or got a key piece of info from my Location History, or answered someone's question by scrolling back through https://myactivity.google.com/ https://myactivity.google.com/ - am I the exception? And, hypothetically, if we were scheming terrorists or dissidents in a totalitarian state, who here would trust their conversations to _any_ mainstream communication tool, no matter its privacy reputation?

Symbiote 5y ago
Persistent messenges always were, and remain, the default.
stavros 5y ago
It's not about obscene secrets, I was just a different person at 18 than I am at 40. Having what I said back then persist forever serves no purpose. Same for things I said months ago, what's the use?
- Y-bar 5y ago
  > Same for things I said months ago, what's the use? Messages in my phone are now the only remaining words from someone I once knew. I now and then scroll through them like they were an old shoe-box of letters. I don't know (and will never be able to ask) what emotional connection they had of their own messages. I only know that I am glad to still have those...
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  I mean... you can get cancelled now, when someone disagrees with you here, and starts going through all your old posts/messages/tweets, and finds something that was perfectly OK back then, but now the PC culture deems a cancellable-offence. So yeah, I agree... having things disappear after a reasonable amount of time is a great feature. Sadly, most networks (eg. twitter, facebook,...) don't have this.

Vinnl 5y ago

To emphasise, since people seem to be getting this wrong (since "default" is overloaded): this allows you to change the default action for your conversations, i.e. you can explicitly set new conversations you create to automatically disappear. The default default (i.e. for new users) will still be set to keep messages.

fitblipper 5y ago

Ive shifted to disappearing messages by default for about 4 months now and I like how it feels to communicate in this way! It feels more like talking directly with someone instead of collaboratively filling out a log. One mental shift is to remember that if something is said that I need to remember I need to write it down in a different place (much like I would need to if we were talking face to face). I've also found it somewhat therapudic to let go of the past in other places as well. This included throwing away tshirts I got at a successful startup 10 years ago and even cleaning out my "digital closet" by delete my 10 years of location history on Google and old emails. Playing legacy board games, which require destroyibg pieces of the game as it progresses so you can not back out or do it again a different way, introduced me to this feeling and I enjoy it. Funnily enough, around the same time I made this mental change I also started keeping a journal.

pixxel 5y ago
> One mental shift is to remember that if something is said that I need to remember I need to write it down in a different place I write it down in the same place. I have a pinned conversation with myself that I drop notes (typed/audio). Also useful for recording audio messages which you can play back to yourself before forwarding to a Signal contact (I hate that there’s no preview before sending audio).
h4waii 5y ago
Curiously, which board games are you referring to?
- sandyarmstrong 5y ago
  Look up Pandemic Legacy for an example, I think they may have started the trend.

GistNoesis 5y ago

Sorry for the confused rant that follow (Hopefully HN will auto-delete it in 42 hours ): The variable duration of the message adds one additional layer of complexity to the already messy game of social communication. It's not like a session at the park or a phone call that once you close it, it's over. I already had trouble understanding the concept of ephemeral message, like you say something to me but expect me to not remember it in one hour, so why say it in the first place. It gets even more confusing when people don't remember what they have told you in the past and change their mind. I am also confused by the fact they acknowledge that this is pointless in an adversarial scenario. It's like submitting to the rules of social norms instead of playing reality ; But people who are fluent in social communication will instinctively use it for soft lies while others suffer trying not to infringe stupid rules. It's like a social norm that restrict usage of external memory (and by extension internal memory). Why not make alcoholic beverage consumption or taking memory-suppressant-drugs mandatory then ? This change of rule distort the game and not for the greater good as only cheaters will take advantage. Promises now only hold for the duration of the timer. What value of the timer, am I supposed to put so that people are comfortable. I don't necessarily want to pressure them in answering quickly, but also I don't want to always be sending weak signals by always configuring a different default, and I don't want to handle the various other people timers preferences.

andrepd 5y ago
I think you're making a wrong comparison here. Disappearing messages is not akin to forcing the other party to take memory-suppressant drugs (wtf?), it's more akin to asking them not to record your conversation.
- hoseja 5y ago
  If you remember something in your brain, you have recorded it. Electronic records are only different in scale/capability and guaranteed perfect recall.
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    The scale and guaranteed perfect recall are not "only" different, they are fundamental differences. I would find it odd if someone were writing down everything I said. I already find it quite strange when I write something (on Signal or similar), and the person responds with a quote-reply of something I said years ago. "But I thought you wanted to visit Moscow?" or even "I'm sure you said you wanted to visit Moscow" are quite different from "here's the message you sent on 2019-02-05 at 14:32 telling me you wanted to visit Moscow".

cblconfederate 5y ago

it should be the default for all users. so much cybercrime and spying wouldn't be possible if we lost information by default. People can learn to protect their valuable information, and it's a worthwhile risk to take

hk1337 5y ago

So, like the app Dust. I do not think there is a way to turn it off in Dust though.

hemiv12 5y ago

Signal associates users to their phone numbers. Does this mean if they are subpoenaed by the government they can give the list of their users ?

hhlbf 5y ago
Is this a rhetorical question?
- hemiv12 5y ago
  No I have Signal installed and also have recently came across Session Messenger. I like Signals user experience and was wondering if there are systemic risks to using it.
  - renata 5y ago
    Yes, they can confirm that you have a Signal account. They actually publish their subpoena responses so you can see exactly what information they have: https://signal.org/bigbrother/central-california-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/central-california-grand-jury/.
wolverine876 5y ago
"the only information we can produce in response to a request like this is the date and time a user registered with Signal and the last date of a user’s connectivity to the Signal service" https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/eastern-virginia-grand-jury/

Brokenspot 5y ago

How does this get prioritized over backups on all operating systems and restoration between operating systems?

AnonHP 5y ago

The disappearing messages timer settings are really convoluted and complex. It could've been a lot more flexible without adding more complexity to the code. This is not going to change why I don't use Signal as much though. I try to partition my conversation modes if possible (since not many people I know use Signal). If there's anything very sensitive or isn't needed after a while, I'd use Signal. The fact that it doesn't even have chat backup and restore for iOS (I'm not talking about transferring from one phone to another when they're in close proximity) forces me to avoid using it for important stuff that I'd prefer to have around. I use Telegram for the conversations that matter, and the fast search feature in Telegram has come to be of great use for more times than I can count or remember. Not to mention Telegram is far too feature rich than Signal can hope to be in the next few years.

nimbius 5y ago

not to get too off-topic but does it feel like Signal is more or less a rudderless ship these days? nobody asked for this sort of thing, just like no one asked for signals bizarre crypto currency or the security passphrase stuff that comes with a weekly reminder. what we did ask for was a full post-mortem of the outage that crippled the service six months ago, and a better more consistent (and buildable) source code released to the git repo regularly but we still didnt get those. we've pushed (albeit for a while now) for a decentralized signal...one that would arguably be more resilient and reliable, but still havent seen it. It feels like the projects just doing whatever Moxie wants.

anigbrowl 5y ago
I asked for it in conversations with a Signal developer. Also that it stop recording the timestamps of when adjustments to the disappearance period were made. While you make some valid criticisms this functionality seems firmly related to Signal's core goal of truly private messaging.

stereoradonc 5y ago

What's the point? They copied Telegram's "secret chat" feature, which is completely encrypted and spun out a WhatsApp equivalent. The narrative has been spun around "journalists and dissidents" and precisely, the same group of users, can use Telegram too with usernames instead of actual mobile phone numbers. It's appealing to the feature set I know, but it boils down to the dumbification of UI. Telegram is a complete platform - secret chats don't sync across devices (I have a reason to believe it might be using the on-device system to generate keys), but it is not a show-stopper for me. I fail to understand the hoopla around Signal.