26 ms·
New Year, New CEO
- PaywallBuster 5y agoWhere can I see the annual report/budget?
- izzytcp 5y agoSignal is the purely the best messenger we have so far, I remember OpenWhisper Systems RedPhone and TextSecure and how much it evolved since then. It pushed and helped other messengers to roll e2ee too. PS. On Twitter Moxie mentioned that Usernames and e2ee Statuses are coming soon -- last missing pieces IMO, what a legend, huge respect and thanks for changing the industry Moxie!
- okneil 5y agoGreat to see Brian Acton (founder of WhatsApp) taking over as interim CEO and the logical choice.
- capableweb 5y agoHopefully remains as interim. I'm still suspicious based on previous experience with him selling Whatsapp to Facebook and all that. Actually, very surprising move, are they planning to sell Signal?
- zzzbra 5y agoI can't imagine they intend to sell Signal but then when I say "they" it's always been a stand in for Marlinspike. We can only hope he's correct in terms of the team he's built continuing the mission that had formerly been guided by his judgment.
- nicoburns 5y agoObviously you can't be sure he's sincere, but he's on record as saying he regrets that sale.
- anonporridge 5y ago* step 1: Make bucket of money selling your private comm app to FB. * step 2: Publicly declare your regret for that decision. * step 3: Take leadership of big competitor to previous app. * step 4: Goto step 1 for double profit and to continue tearing down functioning attempts at large scale private communications platforms.
- _heimdall 5y agoThere's a step between 1 and 2 that you missed - choose to quit from FB and leave $800,000,000 in stock on the table
- anonporridge 5y agoThat's an important part of getting step 3 to happen. You need proof of regret, and $800 million seems to have been enough. Cheap money if you can make step 4 happen such that it nets more than 0.8 billion.
- gonehome 5y agoThe only reason Whatsapp was bidded up to an insane 19 Billion sale value was because Acton did not want to sell. Note that it's not insane in terms of value (in hindsight this was clearly a good buy for FB), but insane when considering that value for your small 30 person company. That's a crazy sale price, I'd like to see you turn it down. It can be true that he didn't want to sell and regrets it and just couldn't reject that offer, the opportunity costs available to you at the level are nuts. This is a risk with centralized services, it's why we need systems that don't require benevolence: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/07/14/the-serfs-of-facebook.html https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/07/14/the-serfs-of-facebook... Most people don't have principles valued at 19B. I think Urbit is a potential way to get there, but a lot of the web3 ownership model points in this direction.
- lelandbatey 5y agoGiven that Brian Acton apparently "left over a dispute with Facebook regarding monetization of WhatsApp, and voluntarily left $850 million in unvested options on the table by leaving a few months before vesting was completed"[0] and that he went on to found the Signal Foundation one year later with Moxie Marlinspike in 2018, I feel it's not a super clear signal that Acton or Marlinspike are trying to "sell" Signal. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Acton#WhatsApp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Acton#WhatsApp
- lovecg 5y agoJust for context, that’s after vesting a few billions already.
- Hasu 5y agoOkay, but still. It seems like a stretch that the guy is secretly evil but voluntarily gave up almost $1 billion to deceptively prove he's not actually a bad guy. You can claim to be a good guy and wait a few months to cash out - leaving money on the table IS a real signal, even if he's already rich.
- avarun 5y agoYou're the only one that has used the word "evil" here.
- anonporridge 5y agoDepends on if he actually left money on the table or if he speculated that there would be more money coming to him if he publicly left FB when he did. Social/public good will is a kind of money itself that can't easily be measured in dollars. That's a big part of the reason extremely wealthy people engage in philanthropy. Good will is a currency that opens some doors that no amount of raw dollars can open.
- s17n 5y agoThey incorporated Signal as a nonprofit, so it is illegal for anybody to personally profit from the sale of Signal. Of course, that hasn't always stopped people from trying (eg, the recent debacle with the .org tld).
- ehPReth 5y agoWhat happened there?
- aspenmayer 5y agohttps://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/victory-icann-rejects-org-sale-private-equity-firm-ethos-capital https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/victory-icann-rejects-...
- izacus 5y agoHopefully that means he'll prioritize things that are making Signal a hard sell to WhatsApp and Telegram users. Making Signal a messenger on equal footing would go a long way to increase adoption.
- marricks 5y agoHe did leave Facebook because of privacy issues right? That should be a good sign…
- lovecg 5y agoI wouldn’t be so sure. He also benefitted greatly from selling it to Facebook in the first place, and stayed on for a few years.
- dymk 5y agoEverybody that joins Facebook thinks they can "fix" it, and many stick around trying to do so. Eventually they leave.
- saxonww 5y agoThe WhatsApp sale also happened back in 2014. I don't think FB was especially well liked at that time, but they didn't have as bad a reputation as they do now. 7-8 years is a long time.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoI remember WhatsApp touting the fact that they charge a $1/year subscription to be evidence that they will not sell out data about your use of the app and your contacts, presumably as a contrast to the chat apps offered by Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and others wanting to sling ads. Obviously, the offer from FB was worth selling out for.
- lelandbatey 5y agoAs a five-year user of Signal, thanks for making Signal such a fantastic messenger, Moxie.
- frisco 5y agoI just hope that moxie's replacement is someone with as strong a reputation for fighting for the principles at stake and the ability to defend them. How many people could have written the Cellebrite blog post? Probably not many. The hidden pressures on Signal staff must be enormous, as likely the the world's single most valuable surveillance target.
- capableweb 5y ago> I just hope that moxie's replacement is someone with as strong a reputation for fighting for the principles at stake and the ability to defend them Yes, and who has a better reputation for fighting for principles than Brian Acton, one of the guys who made Whatsapp and subsequently sold it to the most morally correct company in the world: Facebook.
- skrebbel 5y agoPeople make mistakes. Seems to me Acton is trying to do everything he can to correct it.
- bigiain 5y agoWhat he's been trying to do can also be interpreted as spending a few tens of millions here and there to generate PR with the goal of whitewashing his treachery when he sold out his WhatsApp userbase to Zuck and the most privacy invasive company on the planet... I'm reminded of the old gag: Would you sleep with me for a million dollars? Yes, of course! Would you sleep with me for one dollar? What kind of woman do you think I am? We've already established that, now we're just haggling over the price. Acton already whored himself out to Zuck for $19billion. We've established what kind of person he is.
- Dylan16807 5y agoThat gag really shouldn't be used seriously. Doing something for instant riches is not the same as doing it for day job money.
- zzzbra 5y agowonder what Moxie will get up to next, given his web3 skepticism and the state of the tech industry today.
- 0xy 5y agoAnother scamcoin or "open source" (not really) project, no doubt.
- dang 5y agoPlease don't cross into personal attack.
- CameronNemo 5y agoHopefully he finds some time to sail heh.
- creamytaco 5y agoHis web3 skepticism did not stop him from getting involved with "MobileCoin" some time ago, or was that conveniently forgotten? https://www.wired.com/story/mobilecoin-cryptocurrency/ https://www.wired.com/story/mobilecoin-cryptocurrency/
- 4ggr0 5y agoSince when is MobileCoin web3?
- aemreunal 5y agoI'm wondering if the recent "adding crypto transfers to Signal" stuff had anything to do with this...
- djanogo 5y agoI was wondering the same, what if this is to avoid conflict with monetization of Mobilecoin.
- gringoDan 5y agoThe New Yorker profile of Moxie stuck with me. Worth reading in full: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/26/taking-back-our-privacy https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/26/taking-back-ou... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24824956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24824956
- nxtbl 5y agoand from TFA above: > In early 2018, Acton and Marlinspike announced the formation of the Signal Foundation, a nonprofit. Acton, the foundation’s chairman and sole member, seeded it with a no-interest, fifty-million-dollar loan. additionally from Wikipedia: > By the end of 2018, the loan had increased to $105,000,400, which is due to be repaid on February 28, 2068. The loan is unsecured and at 0% interest.
- ushakov 5y agounsecure 0% interest 105M loan? where can i get this?
- scrollbar 5y agoI see the terms as a donation or grant. The money still is a loan (vs a grant), but the terms are well below "market" in order to support the non-profit's cause.
- wmf 5y agoBut why structure it that way? Does anyone know?
- cge 5y agoMy guess was that it is a way of keeping the organization from failing the public support test (https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizations-annual-reporting-requirements-form-990-schedules-a-and-b-public-charity-support-test https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizatio...), which generally requires that at least 1/3 of the organization's support comes from the general public, not from, eg, one individual donor. Failing the public support test would make the foundation a private foundation instead of a public charity, which would change a number of regulations and have a small (usually 2%) on investment income. What's particularly odd is that, if they were they a private foundation, as Acton is a board member (who also appears to have sole power to determine board members), I think the loan itself would be a prohibited act of self-dealing.
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoNow it becomes clear why he was attacking Telegram and web3 so tirelessly lately.
- x3ro 5y agoHe was attacking Telegram because he’s resigning as the CEO of Signal? What is the obvious connection there that you have seen?
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoIMHO, he was attacking Telegram because Signal lost in popularity to Telegram, and investors were not happy. And he was attacking web3 because these same investors pushed cryptocurrency features into Signal, and he was wildly against it.
- tptacek 5y agoSignal doesn't have investors.
- sam_lowry_ 5y ago
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
- gordon_freeman 5y agoThank you Moxie for all your hard work, commitment and mission driven leadership to get Signal where it is today. I have many friends and family living across the world and I was able to replace WhatsApp with Signal and got out of FB ecosystem and really enjoying the peace of mind that comes with Signal’s privacy and non-tracking for my communication needs. A big thank you indeed.
- geek_at 5y agomoxie really made the project big. But with the new CEO I hope a slight change in core principals including but not limited to - Allowing Bots (I'm tired of running another self hosted messaging app just to send me movement data from my security cams at home) - Allowing the use of third party clients (like CLI)
- berkes 5y agoThere is a cli version. Is that not stable enough? I imagine at Signal this is not decided based on the whim of a CEO, but on how to implement it secure,privacy friendly and free enough. E.g. if you havd to upload your private keys to some bot service, that may work but is terrible. Or if the service can easily bd flooded with bots spamming us. Or if the security model requires some apple alike central checking comittee. And so on.
- kbenson 5y agoThis post, and how it explains that there's 30 people working there now, made me realize that if I care about signal continuing (and I do, since I really like it, especially that it has a dedicated desktop client), that I should see how it makes money and whether that's sustainable. Turns out it's donations, and now I'm a donor through monthly charges through the mobile app. I actually opted for that specifically because their web site noted that they can't give you a badge in the app if you donate online, and I thought showing the badge would be a good way for other people to see and inquire about, and hopefully realize they can donate too if they care to.
- 8ytecoder 5y agoAmazon Smile also has signal foundation as a non profit.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> Turns out it's donations Are they still doing the crypto scheme? I stopped donating when that started, but would be more than happy to pick it back up if they reversed course.
- anonporridge 5y agoThey just rolled it out globally, https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-cryptocurrency-payments/ https://www.wired.com/story/signal-mobilecoin-cryptocurrency...
- frabcus 5y agoThis feels more interesting than most cryptocurrency uses. One thing a cryptocurrency can be is an open protocol for payments - it makes sense to try and make one into such a protocol. The privacy preserving aspects of MobileCoin are interesting and feel like they fit with Signal too.
- kelnos 5y agoI am ridiculously negative on all things "crypto", but person-to-person payments (in fiat) are currently pretty annoying and limited (at least in the US, even with things like Venmo and Zelle), and integrating private payments with a privacy-preserving messenger would seem to be a good thing. I don't know if MobileCoin is the best solution here, but I also don't see Signal starting partnerships with big traditional banks or payment processors, either (and wouldn't really want to see Signal in bed with those sorts of folks). So something like this might be the right move, even though I'm unlikely to use it myself.
- Canada 5y agoIf you get good value out of Signal and you can afford 5, 10 or 20 bucks a month get that auto-donate signed up. I can't think of a more cost effective way to directly contribute to practical privacy.
- gordon_freeman 5y agoWill Apple still able to get the 30% cut if I do using in app payment? Any idea? Does it make more sense to sign up for monthly donation via web to get more money donated to Signal vs not getting a badge?
- saurik 5y agoIf you are using In-App Purchase then yes, for almost whatever it is (I think they might have at least a couple special deals with major publishing companies... not Signal ;P) you are "donating" 30% of your money to Apple.
- gordon_freeman 5y agoThanks - I would like to get all my money to Signal in this case so I just signed up for monthly donation using their website link.
- nacs 5y agoNot in this case. According to Signal, neither Google nor Apple get a cut: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/4408365318426-Sustainers-Boost-Badges#cut https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/4408365318426-S...
- saurik 5y agoThen this must not be using In-App Purchase (and looking at that website and the ones it links to, that seems to be the case: it is using Apple Pay).
- Canada 5y ago
- warning26 5y agoMy hope is that maybe with new leadership Signal can finally get export/migration features. There seems to have been a deliberate resistance to adding them.
- wolverine876 5y agoA big risk is that the new leader, having less authority and fewer credentials for their choices, will compmromise Signal's security to pressure from the public. With only 30 people, I am glad things are delayed. That is necessary if Signal doesn't develop and release them before they can be done right.
- pseudalopex 5y agoSecurity isn't just confidentiality. It's availability too. Losing all your data if a single device is lost or stolen or breaks is bad availability. Export isn't delayed. The Android app has export and import already. They said it's likely they'll remove it once the Android app has history transfer like the iOS app.
- nicholasjarnold 5y agoI've been a user and evangelizer of Signal (aka TextSecure and even RedPhone when the audio piece was split off as a separate app) for a very long time now. I admire the work that Moxie and the entire team have put in over all these years. Thank you all so much for the great work, whether it be writing blog posts rebutting the "I have nothing to hide" people or implementing open and secure-by-default protocols and apps that put privacy within reach of even the least technically-savvy among us! I hope the next adventure is as fruitful as this one was Moxie. Cheers!
- irq 5y agoMaybe Signal will finally add native Apple M1 support now? It’s been over a year and they already have ARM code in their iOS version.
- celsoazevedo 5y agoThe beta version of the client received M1 support last month: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/4461#issuecomment-998192919 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/4461#issu... It opens way, way faster than the Intel version.
- irq 5y agoThanks for pointing that out, as I was quite unaware! Last time I checked this wasn’t available and I didn’t see any news about it. I should have checked before posting.
- celsoazevedo 5y agoI just noticed v5.27.1 stable was released a few days ago... There's no need to use the beta version anymore. Check the about page, it should say "M1". If it says "Intel", reinstall the app (replacing the old .app with the new should be enough).
- monocasa 5y agoYeah, JITs on top of Rosetta2 is one of it's weakest areas.
- dstroot 5y agoMoxie - thank you so much for building Signal for the world.
- 650REDHAIR 5y agoThanks for everything, Moxie! I'm sure you don't remember this story, but I remember years ago (2011?) having a drink with you and Stuart while we were working out of I/O Ventures. I was talking about buying a cheap sail boat and you very calmly told me that the ocean will kill me. That it was always trying to kill me. Anyway, I think about that conversation nearly every time I'm in or on the water and it's definitely kept me alive.
- pabs3 5y agoHis documentary Hold Fast about being at sea is interesting to watch: https://vimeo.com/15351476 https://vimeo.com/15351476 The 100Rabbits folks are tech people who live at sea: https://100r.co/ https://100r.co/
- 650REDHAIR 5y agoI'll watch that this evening! I used to race/rally $500 cars and had mentioned we had planned to do something similar with boats in the Caribbean and Moxie looked like I slapped his mother. Moxie and Stuart are arguably some of the kindest and smartest people I've crossed paths with in SF.
- null0pointer 5y agoI'm a big fan of Moxie. Thanks for all the work you've done to give people a free and secure way of communicating. A truly important cause. Ultra-cynical take: I wonder if there's an element of avoiding conflict-of-interest accusations regarding Mobilecoin.
- iqanq 5y ago
- onphonenow 5y agoThe mobile coin pumpup powered by the nonprofit Signal Foundation was weird. They got the coin up to $60 from something like $3. This starts to be another hustle (and with the money folks can make exploiting a nonprofit in this way no surprise really). Normally the nonprofit would own the asset it is improving in this situation or get a BIG cut of the upside for leveraging an asset like the Signal network (just as any crypto coin company would). In this case it all seemed very very shady. My guess is someone wants to cash out somewhere on using the nonprofit to pump things up perhaps? I'd pay attention to what they are doing in the crypto space recently to see if there are any correlated activities
- tasha0663 5y agoYeah, I hate to get all tinfoil, but something smells off. MobileCoin patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200184467A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200184467A1/en One of the men listed on there was the subject of a wild gossip thread that had to be deleted here recently. One is the MobileCoin CEO. The other is dead.
- hammyhavoc 5y agoCare to explain more? Maybe an archive.org link?
- cosmojg 5y agoWell, there's this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29816098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29816098
- ignoramous 5y ago
- onphonenow 5y agoGoodness - that's a lot more wild then I thought it would be. But there is something about nonprofit pumping a crypto which may benefit directors of the nonprofit that strikes me as weird with signal.
- tandav 5y agoStill require SIM to sign up
- chagaif 5y agoI'm still really disappointed he didn't go for a more long term solution, federation: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom
- goodpoint 5y agoUser lock-in is not just a glitch. It's the whole reason why people invested in signal. It's yet another walled garden masked as an open source no-profit.
- gonehome 5y agoMoxie's post that your Matrix link was a response to: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ I think Moxie is right, federation will lead back to recentralized services (for the reasons Moxie outlines in his recent Web3 post). People don't want to run their own servers. In that world you'll have federated services that are mostly centralized with a much worse user experience than centralized competition. Signal's real competition isn't Matrix, it's FB messenger, Whatsapp, and iMessage. The incentive failures are actually upstream from the application layer of the web. Running a linux server is too hard, spam and auth are issues with the current tech stack, dependencies are a mess of complexity and federated systems built on the current stack can't really solve these issues so end up recentralizing to sysadmins that do (at best). This is the reason I started working on Urbit, I think to fix this for real you have to fix problems farther up the stack. Given the current landscape, Signal is the best available option imo for most people. Hopefully if Urbit succeeds we can have the federated system we want with UX that's actually competitive.
- chagaif 5y agoI prefer the Element UX especially since I can actually use it for WhatsApp/Telegram which I still use heavily, there are a lot of people/businesses/governments backing on Matrix, Signal is just another app that is controlled by the US government and I don't see much privacy there in the long term... Yes it will be recentralized but not completely, how come E-Mail did so good?
- sulam 5y agoThis all seems like good stuff, but as someone who used to work with Moxie, I think the obvious should be stated: the only reason for an interim CEO is to move out of the role immediately. He could just as easily have stayed in the role while he hunted for a successor. I'm curious why he wants to vacate post haste, but I'm used to not having my curiosity satisfied when it comes to Moxie. :)
- xeromal 5y ago>I will continue to remain on the Signal board, committed to helping manifest Signal’s mission from that role, and I will be transitioning out as CEO over the next month in order to focus on the candidate search. Brian Acton, who is also on the Signal Foundation board, has volunteered to serve as interim CEO during the search period. I have every confidence in his commitment to the mission and ability to facilitate the team for this time.
- wolverine876 5y agoI noticed that too. Why is it so important to leave this month, after 10 years? I hope everything is ok, with the Signal organization and with Moxie.
- voltagedivider 5y agoI wonder what a canary from Moxie would look like these days.
- stagger87 5y agoCould be he's getting pushed out?
- EGreg 5y agoI wish Moxie sees this, would love to have a conversation and maybe have him work together with our project: https://community.intercoin.org/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram-and-why-decentralization-matters https://community.intercoin.org/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram...
- WaitWaitWha 5y agoCome up with a commercial Signal server, where the server is not at/by Signal. Sell the server to secret squirrels, etc.
- hammyhavoc 5y agoOr, just use Matrix protocol and cut out the corporate politics entirely.
- streamofdigits 5y agoSignal has already changed history in a way. The past few years, as trust in a certain type of ethically challenged tech company has come crashing down it was vitally important to have a tangible example of a working, usable alternative. Important for users, but also important for policy makers and other people in high places that are typically tech-illiterate and may assume that trillion dollar valuation implies TINA (there is no alternative). Moxie and that tiny group of developers @ signal have been granted a moment of extreme leverage and they made great use of it. Godspeed
- apayan 5y agoThank you to Moxie and the entire team at Signal for building this incredible software and releasing it out in the world! I've been using it since the TextSecure and RedPhone days and moving more and more of friends and family to it ever since. To the HN crowd, please become a sustainer (monthly donations) of Signal through the app. You get a badge that way, which is an opportunity for those you communicate with to learn about becoming a sustainer too.
- mplewis 5y agoWill the new CEO remove the Mobilecoin scam asset from the secure messaging product?
- xwvvvvwx 5y agoSignal is wonderful. Huge respect and gratitude to moxie for his dedication and integrity, a true inspiration.
- hammyhavoc 5y agoIf anybody is displeased by this news, check out Matrix protocol. Grab yourself a client like Element for it. You can even bridge Signal to Matrix if others don't want to switch.
- b5XeVDQZ 5y agoI stopped believing in Signal some time ago because of their attempts to avoid taking a side in the moderation issue - their policy is just not clear enough [1, 2, 3]. Moxie advocating that you don't need to trust the servers just worsens it [4]. Another thing I don't like about Signal is how they conduct their development, doing everything in their own private repo and just throwing the code at GitHub to say they are open-source and trustable (remember when the server code wasn't updated for months because they were adding the mobilecoin feature ?). The only way you can really discuss some bigger thing is in the beta testing forum posts. I hope the new CEO changes some things. [1] https://community.signalusers.org/t/reporting-cp-groups/40059 https://community.signalusers.org/t/reporting-cp-groups/4005... [2] https://community.signalusers.org/t/could-signal-become-the-new-criminal-network/19283 https://community.signalusers.org/t/could-signal-become-the-... [3] https://www.theverge.com/22249391/signal-app-abuse-messaging-employees-violence-misinformation https://www.theverge.com/22249391/signal-app-abuse-messaging... [4] https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1457005910136549379 https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1457005910136549379
- sydthrowaway 5y agoMan, the WhatsApp founder hit it big. I Really need to join a startup.
- pingsl 5y agoTo host a privacy-first IM platform is really challenging. If they took advantage of the users' privacy (behavior, interests, contacts, etc.), they would make good revenue. But they will not. Then how to make this good thing sustainable is a question. Users would think donation is fair enough. But the fact is a world-class IM platform needs an exceptional engineering workforce. Those people are not just looking for users' donations at will.
- herodoturtle 5y ago> It’s a new year, and I’ve decided it’s a good time to replace myself as the CEO of Signal. Best of luck to them, and to the rest of the team at Signal. No matter how we cut it in these comments, competition to the incumbent(s) is a positive for humanity.
- soheil 5y agoCan someone shed some light on moxie's true identity? Did he change his name at some point and why is there no record of a name change nor does even the topic ever come up online?
- aspenmayer 5y agoMy pet theory: Moxie is a CIA plant.
- hendry 5y ago"a very accomplished and committed leadership team", yet a search for an external CEO, did I read that right? Seems kinda risky to push the reins onto someone new to me. Unless I am missing something?
- pjs_ 5y agoThanks a lot moxie. Epitome of "this guy gets it". You don't have to have had scabies to gain my trust as a CEO of a tech company, but it helps.