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Still: • relies on a centralized authentication server • bans third party clients • requires a phone number to create an account despite no longer supporting

by RunSet 3y ago

Still: • relies on a centralized authentication server • bans third party clients • requires a phone number to create an account despite no longer supporting SMS • marketing "Perfect Forward Secrecy" AKA "Forward Secrecy"[0]. I favor Session Private Messenger[1] because it is decentralized and allows third party clients, but Signal enthusiasts warn me that the Session client may, hypothetically, at some future date, integrate a cryptocurrency, as the Signal client already does[2]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_secrecy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_secrecy [1] https://getsession.org https://getsession.org [2] https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/signal.html https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/signal.html

tcfhgj 3y ago
> • marketing "Perfect Forward Secrecy" AKA "Forward Secrecy"[0]. what do you mean by that?
- bawolff 3y ago
  Indeed this is a bizarre criticism. Why wouldn't signal market a crypto property that is especially important in the context of a messenger app?
  - nullc 3y ago
    Because lay users misunderstand "Perfect forward secrecy" as "perfect security". It's actively misleading when included in marketing material targeted at a lay audience. OTOH it's also probably read by most as meaningless hyperbole, so the actual damage from being misleading is probably minimal.
    - bawolff 3y ago
      I also hate the name, but its not like signal was the one who came up with the term. I somewhat think most marketing discussions of cryptography are highly misleading, although i suppose its reasonable to want signal to be better.
sneak 3y ago
Signal does not ban third party clients. I use a private fork of Signal Desktop every day and it works fine. I know several others who operate Signal bots using API clients (in Java, IIRC). They don't like it, but the ToS doesn't prohibit it. We would consider it ridiculous if Google updated their ToS to say you must use Chrome to access google.com. I consider HTTP APIs of which I am a legitimate user to be the same; I will use whatever client I wish.
- kuschku 3y ago
  Well, they threatened LibreSignal with legal action, both for accessing their service and for using the Signal name, demanding that any third party client runs their own entire separate server network. Sounds pretty much like a ban.
  - sneak 3y ago
    That's a trademark (or perhaps trade dress) issue because it had "Signal" in the name. They (the forkers) were stupid to induce brand confusion like that. Signal is GPL free software; you can fork it and release it with any API URLs you like in the source or binary. It is perfectly legal to fork Signal and remove the user-hostile expiration timer, the image scaling enshittifier that happens on upload, and leave the signal.org API URLs completely unchanged. You just can't call it Signal (or LibreSignal, or BetterSignal, or ExtraSignal, or whatever) when distributing it. The API ToS is what applies to end users who connect to the API. It says nothing about what software you are allowed to use to do so. Signal would prefer to pretend that they get to choose what tools their users get to use to consume their service. Unfortunately for them (but good for us), they don't. It's the web and such a restriction would be insane. Don't confuse software and services. They aren't the same.
    - kuschku 3y ago
      > Signal would prefer to pretend that they get to choose what tools their users get to use to consume their service. Unfortunately for them (but good for us), they don't. It's the web and such a restriction would be insane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act Sadly, they do get to choose what is considered "authorised" use of their service :(
nebulous1 3y ago
> • relies on a centralized authentication server The reality is that most of Signal's popularity stems from them using phone numbers for initial authentication. Obviously there are people who can work without phone number, but the general population cannot. Or perhaps more correctly, will not. They'll just continue using a system that does.
- xoa 3y ago
  >Obviously there are people who can work without phone number, but the general population cannot. I think you're wrong in multiple ways. First, you are asserting a false dichotomy. Using phone numbers as one option for authentication in absolutely no way requires using them exclusively. To take a fairly large scale example, Apple's iMessage does not require any phone number. People can transparently use it with their phone numbers easily, but it will also work fine and always has with any email-based Apple ID. No telephone is required at all. Second and more foundationally, we can objectively observe given the popularity of a range of online accounts using email or just user names (Facebook, Google, etc) that the general population is perfectly capable of working without a phone number. The UX might require more effort, and onboarding in some countries might be easier of course with phone numbers.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  The general population is doing just fine with emails, Twitter handles or Instagram names without a phone number.
CuriousCosmic 3y ago
> but Signal enthusiasts warn me that the Session client may, hypothetically, at some future date, integrate a cryptocurrency Session actually already does. It's just not exposed to the user because the OPTF foots the bill for it. But theoretically if the OPFT was to completely fold and Oxen & Session were to keep chugging along, you'd need to pay some minuscule per message fee for the service you are getting from the network. The OPTF intends on footing the bill for basic messaging as long as they continue to exist but they probably will need to add some degree of user facing fees for video chat, etc in the long run if it ever seriously takes off.
lxgr 3y ago
I feel like at this point, we can consider Signal the Mozilla of messaging: They deliver a desperately needed high-quality, open-source alternative to an oligopoly of sometimes secure but always closed-source competitors, yet we hold them to much higher standards than any of these. Yes, Signal is (intentionally, i.e. as a stated design goal!) not federated, and I'm not super happy about it. Yes, it includes a cryptocurrency nobody asked for, and I'm definitely not happy about that. Yes, they've dared to dabble with trusted computing, and Intel SGX at that! (Although only in a purely-additive way, which I find really hard to disagree with, personally.) But they have done so much for giving users a reasonable chance at evading the warrant-less wiretapping that is dragnet data collection. Signal has pushed WhatsApp to become end-to-end encrypted by default, and that might have very well set the most important precedent for encryption-by-default in the recent past (see the UK's current legislation, and the EU's attempts of doing the same). They're continuously pushing the envelope and are collaborating with academic cryptgraphic researchers on pq-safety, which will trickle down into all non-Signal users of the Signal protocol before too long (which includes WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, making up for multiple billion daily users). Yes, we should continue to hold them to a high standard, but I'd love if we could sometimes also keep things in perspective.
- spoiler 3y ago
  I might be out of the loop a little bit, but wasn't Telegram the first that offered E2E encryption[1] for the "general public" (at least it was very popular in Europe)? So, I feel attributing WhatsApp etc implementing E2E because of Signal is overselling it a bit. [1] I know there was some controversy because someone (Signal, maybe?) accused them of using a custom encryption scheme that was poorly designed. I didn't follow that drama very closely, but given Telegram is still around and there hasn't been any outrageous news claiming its encryption getting cracked, I assume it was a mistaken claim.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    No, Telegram was neither the first to offer end-to-end encryption (Signal started out as TextSecure in 2010), nor do they make end-to-end encryption the default. Defaults matter. > given Telegram is still around and there hasn't been any outrageous news claiming its encryption getting cracked, I assume it was a mistaken claim. “Innocent until proven guilty” is for criminal systems, not security analysis. And the controversy you are referring to, regarding unusual (to put it mildly) design choices in their E2E protocol is indeed very concerning, but the fact that Telegram by default is not end-to-end encrypted and stores all chat history server-side in a way that is accessible to its operators is undisputed.
ComodoHacker 3y ago
Please can we refrain from arguments like "this is from the same people I don't like because ..."?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by RunSet 3y ago

tcfhgj 3y ago

> • marketing "Perfect Forward Secrecy" AKA "Forward Secrecy"[0]. what do you mean by that?

bawolff 3y ago
Indeed this is a bizarre criticism. Why wouldn't signal market a crypto property that is especially important in the context of a messenger app?
- nullc 3y ago
  Because lay users misunderstand "Perfect forward secrecy" as "perfect security". It's actively misleading when included in marketing material targeted at a lay audience. OTOH it's also probably read by most as meaningless hyperbole, so the actual damage from being misleading is probably minimal.
  - bawolff 3y ago
    I also hate the name, but its not like signal was the one who came up with the term. I somewhat think most marketing discussions of cryptography are highly misleading, although i suppose its reasonable to want signal to be better.

sneak 3y ago

Signal does not ban third party clients. I use a private fork of Signal Desktop every day and it works fine. I know several others who operate Signal bots using API clients (in Java, IIRC). They don't like it, but the ToS doesn't prohibit it. We would consider it ridiculous if Google updated their ToS to say you must use Chrome to access google.com. I consider HTTP APIs of which I am a legitimate user to be the same; I will use whatever client I wish.

kuschku 3y ago
Well, they threatened LibreSignal with legal action, both for accessing their service and for using the Signal name, demanding that any third party client runs their own entire separate server network. Sounds pretty much like a ban.
- sneak 3y ago
  That's a trademark (or perhaps trade dress) issue because it had "Signal" in the name. They (the forkers) were stupid to induce brand confusion like that. Signal is GPL free software; you can fork it and release it with any API URLs you like in the source or binary. It is perfectly legal to fork Signal and remove the user-hostile expiration timer, the image scaling enshittifier that happens on upload, and leave the signal.org API URLs completely unchanged. You just can't call it Signal (or LibreSignal, or BetterSignal, or ExtraSignal, or whatever) when distributing it. The API ToS is what applies to end users who connect to the API. It says nothing about what software you are allowed to use to do so. Signal would prefer to pretend that they get to choose what tools their users get to use to consume their service. Unfortunately for them (but good for us), they don't. It's the web and such a restriction would be insane. Don't confuse software and services. They aren't the same.
  - kuschku 3y ago
    > Signal would prefer to pretend that they get to choose what tools their users get to use to consume their service. Unfortunately for them (but good for us), they don't. It's the web and such a restriction would be insane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act Sadly, they do get to choose what is considered "authorised" use of their service :(

nebulous1 3y ago

> • relies on a centralized authentication server The reality is that most of Signal's popularity stems from them using phone numbers for initial authentication. Obviously there are people who can work without phone number, but the general population cannot. Or perhaps more correctly, will not. They'll just continue using a system that does.

xoa 3y ago
>Obviously there are people who can work without phone number, but the general population cannot. I think you're wrong in multiple ways. First, you are asserting a false dichotomy. Using phone numbers as one option for authentication in absolutely no way requires using them exclusively. To take a fairly large scale example, Apple's iMessage does not require any phone number. People can transparently use it with their phone numbers easily, but it will also work fine and always has with any email-based Apple ID. No telephone is required at all. Second and more foundationally, we can objectively observe given the popularity of a range of online accounts using email or just user names (Facebook, Google, etc) that the general population is perfectly capable of working without a phone number. The UX might require more effort, and onboarding in some countries might be easier of course with phone numbers.
wkat4242 3y ago
The general population is doing just fine with emails, Twitter handles or Instagram names without a phone number.

CuriousCosmic 3y ago

> but Signal enthusiasts warn me that the Session client may, hypothetically, at some future date, integrate a cryptocurrency Session actually already does. It's just not exposed to the user because the OPTF foots the bill for it. But theoretically if the OPFT was to completely fold and Oxen & Session were to keep chugging along, you'd need to pay some minuscule per message fee for the service you are getting from the network. The OPTF intends on footing the bill for basic messaging as long as they continue to exist but they probably will need to add some degree of user facing fees for video chat, etc in the long run if it ever seriously takes off.

lxgr 3y ago

I feel like at this point, we can consider Signal the Mozilla of messaging: They deliver a desperately needed high-quality, open-source alternative to an oligopoly of sometimes secure but always closed-source competitors, yet we hold them to much higher standards than any of these. Yes, Signal is (intentionally, i.e. as a stated design goal!) not federated, and I'm not super happy about it. Yes, it includes a cryptocurrency nobody asked for, and I'm definitely not happy about that. Yes, they've dared to dabble with trusted computing, and Intel SGX at that! (Although only in a purely-additive way, which I find really hard to disagree with, personally.) But they have done so much for giving users a reasonable chance at evading the warrant-less wiretapping that is dragnet data collection. Signal has pushed WhatsApp to become end-to-end encrypted by default, and that might have very well set the most important precedent for encryption-by-default in the recent past (see the UK's current legislation, and the EU's attempts of doing the same). They're continuously pushing the envelope and are collaborating with academic cryptgraphic researchers on pq-safety, which will trickle down into all non-Signal users of the Signal protocol before too long (which includes WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, making up for multiple billion daily users). Yes, we should continue to hold them to a high standard, but I'd love if we could sometimes also keep things in perspective.

spoiler 3y ago
I might be out of the loop a little bit, but wasn't Telegram the first that offered E2E encryption[1] for the "general public" (at least it was very popular in Europe)? So, I feel attributing WhatsApp etc implementing E2E because of Signal is overselling it a bit. [1] I know there was some controversy because someone (Signal, maybe?) accused them of using a custom encryption scheme that was poorly designed. I didn't follow that drama very closely, but given Telegram is still around and there hasn't been any outrageous news claiming its encryption getting cracked, I assume it was a mistaken claim.
- lxgr 3y ago
  No, Telegram was neither the first to offer end-to-end encryption (Signal started out as TextSecure in 2010), nor do they make end-to-end encryption the default. Defaults matter. > given Telegram is still around and there hasn't been any outrageous news claiming its encryption getting cracked, I assume it was a mistaken claim. “Innocent until proven guilty” is for criminal systems, not security analysis. And the controversy you are referring to, regarding unusual (to put it mildly) design choices in their E2E protocol is indeed very concerning, but the fact that Telegram by default is not end-to-end encrypted and stores all chat history server-side in a way that is accessible to its operators is undisputed.

ComodoHacker 3y ago

Please can we refrain from arguments like "this is from the same people I don't like because ..."?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]