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How is Signal any better? US based, centralized, hostile towards alternate clients. Not much better IMO.

RNAlfons 4y ago
I'd say it's a lot better since it doesn't do unknown things with your address book. It actually doesn't do any unknown things and the fact that they're US based is irrelevant since they have nothing to give away thanks to E2EE.
- thih9 4y ago
  What kind of unknown things with an address book is WhatsApp doing?
  - thehta 4y ago
    The idea is that Meta uses WhatsApp contact lists to build and maintain their social graphs, which is in turn used for advertising.
  - em500 4y ago
    WhatsApp uploads the address book from the user's phone to Meta's servers and after that it's unclear to outsiders what they do with it. Hence "unknown".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
palata 4y ago
Much better in that it is open source (so you can audit the e2ee), and it does a lot about metadata. It is actually better at protecting metadata than many decentralized alternatives. Nobody said it was perfect. It's just better.
- THENATHE 4y ago
  WhatsApp actually uses signal protocol for e2ee
  - stavros 4y ago
    Can I see the source to make sure?
  - wfriesen 4y ago
    Signal doesn't press you to setup (by default) unencrypted cloud backups.
  - fguerraz 4y ago
    It doesn't matter, the app is closed source so they can still access your messages regadless of what protocol they use. https://gizmodo.com/whatsapp-moderators-can-read-your-messages-1847629241 https://gizmodo.com/whatsapp-moderators-can-read-your-messag...
    - d1sxeyes 4y ago
      That article doesn't support what you're saying. It says that WhatsApp has access to metadata, which it hands over to law enforcement. This does not necessarily mean that they can read your messages. It does say that 'WhatsApp can read some of your messages if the recipient reports them'. That 'if' is doing a lot of work in this sentence. It means that the recipient has to decrypt your message. Although there are forms etc. within the app for doing this, it's essentially no different to taking screenshots. There is no way to ensure 100% privacy if the other party you are communicating with does not keep data they have access to private. I'm not a big Meta fan, but as far as I am aware, they can't normally read your messages. The fact that it's closed source just means that we can't verify that for ourselves.
      - palata 4y ago
        > The fact that it's closed source just means that we can't verify that for ourselves. That's really the whole point. As far as we know, it could be that it is not e2ee at all. Also from the moderation article, it's not clear to me what that means: if I report you, does that mean that the moderators will get access to all your recent conversations? Could be, right? But then the FBI could report you for no reason, and then ask WhatsApp to provide your recent conversations. Which would effectively act as some kind of backdoor, right?
Heikete 4y ago
Actually very nice to integrate with. I'm not using Google or Apple in my life. On the phone I'm using sailfish OS, so the main stream apps are not usually ported natively. Fortunately someone used libsignal and added frontend so signal is my main means of communication with friends. And I still don't have to drown into Google or FB services.
sph 4y ago
US based isn't a concern in this case, as the data they store is pretty much unusable. They publish the subpoenas they receive and the dump of relevant data to the authorities, and it's usually a timestamp associated with some ID and that's it. https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-as-the-world-moves-forward/ https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-as-the-world-moves-forw...

I'd say it's a lot better since it doesn't do unknown things with your address book. It actually doesn't do any unknown things and the fact that they're US based is irrelevant since they have nothing to give away thanks to E2EE.

thih9 4y ago
What kind of unknown things with an address book is WhatsApp doing?
- thehta 4y ago
  The idea is that Meta uses WhatsApp contact lists to build and maintain their social graphs, which is in turn used for advertising.
- em500 4y ago
  WhatsApp uploads the address book from the user's phone to Meta's servers and after that it's unclear to outsiders what they do with it. Hence "unknown".

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

palata 4y ago

Much better in that it is open source (so you can audit the e2ee), and it does a lot about metadata. It is actually better at protecting metadata than many decentralized alternatives. Nobody said it was perfect. It's just better.

THENATHE 4y ago
WhatsApp actually uses signal protocol for e2ee
- stavros 4y ago
  Can I see the source to make sure?
- wfriesen 4y ago
  Signal doesn't press you to setup (by default) unencrypted cloud backups.
- fguerraz 4y ago
  It doesn't matter, the app is closed source so they can still access your messages regadless of what protocol they use. https://gizmodo.com/whatsapp-moderators-can-read-your-messages-1847629241 https://gizmodo.com/whatsapp-moderators-can-read-your-messag...
  - d1sxeyes 4y ago
    That article doesn't support what you're saying. It says that WhatsApp has access to metadata, which it hands over to law enforcement. This does not necessarily mean that they can read your messages. It does say that 'WhatsApp can read some of your messages if the recipient reports them'. That 'if' is doing a lot of work in this sentence. It means that the recipient has to decrypt your message. Although there are forms etc. within the app for doing this, it's essentially no different to taking screenshots. There is no way to ensure 100% privacy if the other party you are communicating with does not keep data they have access to private. I'm not a big Meta fan, but as far as I am aware, they can't normally read your messages. The fact that it's closed source just means that we can't verify that for ourselves.
    - palata 4y ago
      > The fact that it's closed source just means that we can't verify that for ourselves. That's really the whole point. As far as we know, it could be that it is not e2ee at all. Also from the moderation article, it's not clear to me what that means: if I report you, does that mean that the moderators will get access to all your recent conversations? Could be, right? But then the FBI could report you for no reason, and then ask WhatsApp to provide your recent conversations. Which would effectively act as some kind of backdoor, right?

Heikete 4y ago

Actually very nice to integrate with. I'm not using Google or Apple in my life. On the phone I'm using sailfish OS, so the main stream apps are not usually ported natively. Fortunately someone used libsignal and added frontend so signal is my main means of communication with friends. And I still don't have to drown into Google or FB services.

sph 4y ago

US based isn't a concern in this case, as the data they store is pretty much unusable. They publish the subpoenas they receive and the dump of relevant data to the authorities, and it's usually a timestamp associated with some ID and that's it. https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-as-the-world-moves-forward/ https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-as-the-world-moves-forw...