4 ms·

You can use wire instead

rvz 5y ago
Exactly. Why on earth is it so hard or difficult for Signal to do just that? Regardless, I don't know why they are pushing in a somewhat unregulated, volatile cryptocurrency that will be used by extremists, terrorists and the like who in no doubt will not only use it to fund their activities and will be sitting in their group chats but now they can change their phone numbers to hide even further? The road to hell is been paved with good intentions. Hasn't it? But at least Wire does not still require a phone number, nor does it have silly cryptocurrencies in their product for pump and dump purposes.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  This has been discussed literally 1000 times. The alternative is having the server know who is talking to whom. Further, phone numbers provide a valuable bootstrap to connect with people. Other secure messengers have chosen a different design than Signal. This means you can choose the one you prefer.
  - SailingSperm 5y ago
    How about no ph number and only UUIDs- You send a msg that only personA can decrypt - but you broadcast the encrypted message to all contacts /+ random UUIDs ... So signal doesn't know who it was intended for exactly, and only personA gets the information. Of course you'd want the app to only alert users getting the broadcast once a received comm is successfully decrypted, otherwise discard. It's clearly a lot higher data overhead, but that'd acheive phone numberless accounts without signal knowing 100% A is talking to B.... Only that 'A' might be talking to 'B'..Or C..or D.. Or sending decoy msgs intended for nobody. Settling for phone numbers on a privacy based messenger because it's too hard to do an alternative implem is a cop out I feel. What do you think of the above proposal?
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      > You send a msg that only personA can decrypt How are you going to do this without getting this person's public key? And how are you going to get their public key without asking signal?
      - SailingSperm 5y ago
        Yes, signal would manage that. This is still more privacy preserving than a phone number because the the public key isn't attached to your identity in the way a phone number is. You'd still need to getAllContactsPubKey()->encr(PersonAKey)->SendToAllContacts So signal knows you requested all your contact pubkeys, that you sent a duplicate broadcast to all contacts, obscuring who it was intended for... that could be 0-n of m persons.
sschueller 5y ago
Or Threema
_joel 5y ago
Myself and another geeky friend tried to get out non-geeky friends away from messenger and whatsapp (well, at least get them to use Signal, talk to us via it and perhaps migrate, baby steps). Despite a really good uptake, some didn't make the move and it's definitely fragmented some of our online groups (makes it more interesting when physically catching up though, silver linings!). I'm not sure throwing yet another messaging platform would help.
- Aachen 5y ago
  I totally get the fragmentation, I asked in some techy groups if they prefer matrix, signal, wire, anything. Virtually nobody knows anything but telegram (because we were currently on tg) and facebook messaging systems. So I made a choice and now the tg side is dead and the new platform is missing some people... yup fragmentation at work. But at that moment a choice for a new system was made, it's not so much about doing yet another move right after the previous and fragmenting it further. Any particular reason you didn't try Wire in the first place, if you don't like the phone number requirement?

rvz 5y ago

Exactly. Why on earth is it so hard or difficult for Signal to do just that? Regardless, I don't know why they are pushing in a somewhat unregulated, volatile cryptocurrency that will be used by extremists, terrorists and the like who in no doubt will not only use it to fund their activities and will be sitting in their group chats but now they can change their phone numbers to hide even further? The road to hell is been paved with good intentions. Hasn't it? But at least Wire does not still require a phone number, nor does it have silly cryptocurrencies in their product for pump and dump purposes.

UncleMeat 5y ago
This has been discussed literally 1000 times. The alternative is having the server know who is talking to whom. Further, phone numbers provide a valuable bootstrap to connect with people. Other secure messengers have chosen a different design than Signal. This means you can choose the one you prefer.
- SailingSperm 5y ago
  How about no ph number and only UUIDs- You send a msg that only personA can decrypt - but you broadcast the encrypted message to all contacts /+ random UUIDs ... So signal doesn't know who it was intended for exactly, and only personA gets the information. Of course you'd want the app to only alert users getting the broadcast once a received comm is successfully decrypted, otherwise discard. It's clearly a lot higher data overhead, but that'd acheive phone numberless accounts without signal knowing 100% A is talking to B.... Only that 'A' might be talking to 'B'..Or C..or D.. Or sending decoy msgs intended for nobody. Settling for phone numbers on a privacy based messenger because it's too hard to do an alternative implem is a cop out I feel. What do you think of the above proposal?
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    > You send a msg that only personA can decrypt How are you going to do this without getting this person's public key? And how are you going to get their public key without asking signal?
    - SailingSperm 5y ago
      Yes, signal would manage that. This is still more privacy preserving than a phone number because the the public key isn't attached to your identity in the way a phone number is. You'd still need to getAllContactsPubKey()->encr(PersonAKey)->SendToAllContacts So signal knows you requested all your contact pubkeys, that you sent a duplicate broadcast to all contacts, obscuring who it was intended for... that could be 0-n of m persons.

sschueller 5y ago

Or Threema

_joel 5y ago

Myself and another geeky friend tried to get out non-geeky friends away from messenger and whatsapp (well, at least get them to use Signal, talk to us via it and perhaps migrate, baby steps). Despite a really good uptake, some didn't make the move and it's definitely fragmented some of our online groups (makes it more interesting when physically catching up though, silver linings!). I'm not sure throwing yet another messaging platform would help.

Aachen 5y ago
I totally get the fragmentation, I asked in some techy groups if they prefer matrix, signal, wire, anything. Virtually nobody knows anything but telegram (because we were currently on tg) and facebook messaging systems. So I made a choice and now the tg side is dead and the new platform is missing some people... yup fragmentation at work. But at that moment a choice for a new system was made, it's not so much about doing yet another move right after the previous and fragmenting it further. Any particular reason you didn't try Wire in the first place, if you don't like the phone number requirement?