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Is that why Signal collects your phone number? Hah. Any E2E app that doesn't collect your phone number or any identifiable info that you can use as a standalon

by _8j50 3y ago

Is that why Signal collects your phone number? Hah. Any E2E app that doesn't collect your phone number or any identifiable info that you can use as a standalone app on the desktop and E2EE is the only way it works (not optional or opportunistic like jabber/xmpp, whatsapp, matrix, telegram,etc...) and is developed ouside the US by a well known/reputed dev(s). Is what I recommed. Check out wire and briar if they meet these requirements. Personally, I would not use digital media if I don't want the US gov knowing about it entirely. The solution is legislative not technical. Kind of like how you get a free TSA body massage at the airport, the people have willed it.

jvanderbot 3y ago
Well there's layers here. You could easily snoop who is messaging whom, but it's very different than knowing what is being messaged. End to end encryption would protect the second. Carrying a second phone intuitively protects the first, but in reality does not.
woodruffw 3y ago
“End-to-end encrypted” and “private identity mapping” are orthogonal properties: a chat system can have both, but doing so is significantly harder (both in terms of engineering complexity and teaching users to operate the system safely). Signal chooses (or more accurately chose, since they’re working on eliminating it) to depend on telephone numbers for identity mapping, which was and is a reasonable design constraint given their target audience.
- throw10920 3y ago
  > which was and is a reasonable design constraint given their target audience Who do you think their target audience is, and why do you think that this a reasonable constraint?
  - barsonme 3y ago
    Their target audience is literally the general population. It should be obvious why phone numbers are a reasonable constraint.
    - _8j50 3y ago
      No, that's the deception of signal. The general population is already using other identifiers like whatsapp and viber numbers (which almost every country outside the US use even more than sms). Signal refuses to opt-out of phone number collection and usage. With the tens of millions at their disposal and with the time they spend on mobile payments, crypto,etc... you are telling me they can't auto-generate identifiers as alternative to phone numbers? They can't make it alphanumeric and consider any id that is all numbers a phone? It's all culting around tech/crypto personalities and ignoring the obvious things that don't pass the smell test. Explain to me why Signal is special as opposed to more popular apps made for the general population that also do E2EE? Explain to me specifically why phone numbers and mobile usage is not optional? Even after like a decade of people begging for it? This is a lot like PGP email, the same circles of people promoted it (still do in some cases) but the government loves it because email metadata is unencrypted and tech circles insist on email dependency on every app because of the same cult mindset even though hostile middle parties love it. Everything I do in amazon, netflix, uber, slack you name it you can tell my whole life pattern just looking at email subjecte in the clear on an MTA! All because of tech sector refusal to apply critical thinking and creativity when it comes to these things. So again I ask, if I am allowed to criticaly examine Signal: why is it special and unique that it needs phone numbers no matter what? Especially given device compromise of people you talk to is not in their threat model. e.g.: you are a source and the journalist's phone is compromised, that is exactly what governments do! If signal didn't collect phone numbers all they would see on the journalist's phone would be your nick or in-app id, but thanks to signal they can find out who the source is, and using exploit kits like pegasus this way is not uncommon! Real people are put in danger by signal. Look at all my downvotes and tell me this is not tech sector conspiracy or at best culting after personalities.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    Non-technical users, including people who don’t know what “end-to-end encryption” means. The right to privacy isn’t just for dorks who practice keyring bonsai.
    - throw10920 3y ago
      > The right to privacy isn’t just for dorks who practice keyring bonsai. I never said anything contrary to that. I know that normal people are part of the intended audience - I'm interested in whether you think that Signal's target audience includes or excludes "keyring bonsai" users (which, admittedly, is an amusing and not entirely inaccurate way of describing much of the security community). If it includes those users - then why Signal couldn't have been designed such that use of phone numbers for identification are optional (but the default)?
      - woodruffw 3y ago
        I think the short version is that doing so substantially complicates Signal’s design (meaning more edge cases, more complicated threat models, more exploitable bugs) for a marginal user case. Parsimony is a significant virtue in E2EE designs. But for those users: you can effectively use Signal without a phone number by using a virtual number or similar for the one-time registration process. That’s clunky and not ideal, but IMO is a reasonable hurdle for “bonsai” users.
        throw10920 3y ago
        > I think the short version is that doing so substantially complicates Signal’s design (meaning more edge cases, more complicated threat models, more exploitable bugs) for a marginal user case. Marginal users are just as human as the rest of us. Can you show examples of how this complicates Signal's design? The idea in my head requires only marginally more complexity to serve ~hundreds of thousands of more users.
        woodruffw 3y ago
        Closer to tens of thousands, if you use other “keyring bonsai” metrics (such as maintaining a PGP key). Signal’s intended userbase is O(humanity). The complexity here is in crossing domains: Signal will need to decide how to communicate which “kind” of identity a user has, what that means, etc. They’ll need to decide whether to use random-but-intelligible identifiers (easy to make errors with) or allow people to configure identifies (which means storing more personal data, plus impersonation risks). And so forth.
- _8j50 3y ago
  Bullshit! When you compromise the phone of someone you find out the phone numbers of everyone they talked to. I won't even get into how signal can abuse this willingly or against their will. Signal is no better than just using imessage or whatsapp. The terribly deceptive thing about it is that it is marketed as a super secure messaging app better than alternatives but in the most important way that matters: not crypto but metadata and plausible deniability it makes such compromises. Explain to me why signal on the desktop can't function without a mobile app?! Governments have complete control over mobile phone infrastructure and can perform targeted compromises by using signal contacts for target selection. Do not use signal thinking it will protect you better than any other encrypted app. Governments and private partires are not out there cracking the crypto itself.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    Do you have something _in evidence_ indicating that Signal is abusing contact information? The rest of this is scattershot: what matters for the overwhelming majority of use cases is end-to-end encryption between parties that know each others' identities but aren't necessarily technically proficient enough to play key management games. This is the user story that matters for dissidents, journalists, public figures, and ordinary people: if you aren't servicing those people, then it's extremely likely that you're (1) servicing nobody at all, or (2) servicing people who treat security as a LARP rather than a practical concern.
    - _8j50 3y ago
      Signal is not the abuser, threat actors are. > between parties that know each others' identities And Signal needs to collect their identities and reveal them to each other despite the risk of one of them getting compromised? > This is the user story that matters for dissidents, journalists, public figures, and ordinary people When you are outed as a source, as the romantic partner of an estranged spouse, as the public figure losing an election because of an embarassing message,etc... it matters. And you have not given me a technical reason why Signal can't protect people as they expect it to. None of these people are concerned about the FBI doing a forensic investigation or wiretapping them. > servicing people who treat security as a LARP rather than a practical concern. Or normal people who don't know enough to think about security and threat models who simply trust you the tech savvy person recommending them Signal which will protect them, you know, the general population. Matter of fact I would bet good money most signal users don't even know you have to verify each other's codes in person for the e2ee to even mean anything other than false security!

by _8j50 3y ago

jvanderbot 3y ago

Well there's layers here. You could easily snoop who is messaging whom, but it's very different than knowing what is being messaged. End to end encryption would protect the second. Carrying a second phone intuitively protects the first, but in reality does not.

woodruffw 3y ago

“End-to-end encrypted” and “private identity mapping” are orthogonal properties: a chat system can have both, but doing so is significantly harder (both in terms of engineering complexity and teaching users to operate the system safely). Signal chooses (or more accurately chose, since they’re working on eliminating it) to depend on telephone numbers for identity mapping, which was and is a reasonable design constraint given their target audience.

throw10920 3y ago
> which was and is a reasonable design constraint given their target audience Who do you think their target audience is, and why do you think that this a reasonable constraint?
- barsonme 3y ago
  Their target audience is literally the general population. It should be obvious why phone numbers are a reasonable constraint.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    No, that's the deception of signal. The general population is already using other identifiers like whatsapp and viber numbers (which almost every country outside the US use even more than sms). Signal refuses to opt-out of phone number collection and usage. With the tens of millions at their disposal and with the time they spend on mobile payments, crypto,etc... you are telling me they can't auto-generate identifiers as alternative to phone numbers? They can't make it alphanumeric and consider any id that is all numbers a phone? It's all culting around tech/crypto personalities and ignoring the obvious things that don't pass the smell test. Explain to me why Signal is special as opposed to more popular apps made for the general population that also do E2EE? Explain to me specifically why phone numbers and mobile usage is not optional? Even after like a decade of people begging for it? This is a lot like PGP email, the same circles of people promoted it (still do in some cases) but the government loves it because email metadata is unencrypted and tech circles insist on email dependency on every app because of the same cult mindset even though hostile middle parties love it. Everything I do in amazon, netflix, uber, slack you name it you can tell my whole life pattern just looking at email subjecte in the clear on an MTA! All because of tech sector refusal to apply critical thinking and creativity when it comes to these things. So again I ask, if I am allowed to criticaly examine Signal: why is it special and unique that it needs phone numbers no matter what? Especially given device compromise of people you talk to is not in their threat model. e.g.: you are a source and the journalist's phone is compromised, that is exactly what governments do! If signal didn't collect phone numbers all they would see on the journalist's phone would be your nick or in-app id, but thanks to signal they can find out who the source is, and using exploit kits like pegasus this way is not uncommon! Real people are put in danger by signal. Look at all my downvotes and tell me this is not tech sector conspiracy or at best culting after personalities.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  Non-technical users, including people who don’t know what “end-to-end encryption” means. The right to privacy isn’t just for dorks who practice keyring bonsai.
  - throw10920 3y ago
    > The right to privacy isn’t just for dorks who practice keyring bonsai. I never said anything contrary to that. I know that normal people are part of the intended audience - I'm interested in whether you think that Signal's target audience includes or excludes "keyring bonsai" users (which, admittedly, is an amusing and not entirely inaccurate way of describing much of the security community). If it includes those users - then why Signal couldn't have been designed such that use of phone numbers for identification are optional (but the default)?
    - woodruffw 3y ago
      I think the short version is that doing so substantially complicates Signal’s design (meaning more edge cases, more complicated threat models, more exploitable bugs) for a marginal user case. Parsimony is a significant virtue in E2EE designs. But for those users: you can effectively use Signal without a phone number by using a virtual number or similar for the one-time registration process. That’s clunky and not ideal, but IMO is a reasonable hurdle for “bonsai” users.
      - throw10920 3y ago
        > I think the short version is that doing so substantially complicates Signal’s design (meaning more edge cases, more complicated threat models, more exploitable bugs) for a marginal user case. Marginal users are just as human as the rest of us. Can you show examples of how this complicates Signal's design? The idea in my head requires only marginally more complexity to serve ~hundreds of thousands of more users.
        woodruffw 3y ago
        Closer to tens of thousands, if you use other “keyring bonsai” metrics (such as maintaining a PGP key). Signal’s intended userbase is O(humanity). The complexity here is in crossing domains: Signal will need to decide how to communicate which “kind” of identity a user has, what that means, etc. They’ll need to decide whether to use random-but-intelligible identifiers (easy to make errors with) or allow people to configure identifies (which means storing more personal data, plus impersonation risks). And so forth.
_8j50 3y ago
Bullshit! When you compromise the phone of someone you find out the phone numbers of everyone they talked to. I won't even get into how signal can abuse this willingly or against their will. Signal is no better than just using imessage or whatsapp. The terribly deceptive thing about it is that it is marketed as a super secure messaging app better than alternatives but in the most important way that matters: not crypto but metadata and plausible deniability it makes such compromises. Explain to me why signal on the desktop can't function without a mobile app?! Governments have complete control over mobile phone infrastructure and can perform targeted compromises by using signal contacts for target selection. Do not use signal thinking it will protect you better than any other encrypted app. Governments and private partires are not out there cracking the crypto itself.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  Do you have something _in evidence_ indicating that Signal is abusing contact information? The rest of this is scattershot: what matters for the overwhelming majority of use cases is end-to-end encryption between parties that know each others' identities but aren't necessarily technically proficient enough to play key management games. This is the user story that matters for dissidents, journalists, public figures, and ordinary people: if you aren't servicing those people, then it's extremely likely that you're (1) servicing nobody at all, or (2) servicing people who treat security as a LARP rather than a practical concern.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    Signal is not the abuser, threat actors are. > between parties that know each others' identities And Signal needs to collect their identities and reveal them to each other despite the risk of one of them getting compromised? > This is the user story that matters for dissidents, journalists, public figures, and ordinary people When you are outed as a source, as the romantic partner of an estranged spouse, as the public figure losing an election because of an embarassing message,etc... it matters. And you have not given me a technical reason why Signal can't protect people as they expect it to. None of these people are concerned about the FBI doing a forensic investigation or wiretapping them. > servicing people who treat security as a LARP rather than a practical concern. Or normal people who don't know enough to think about security and threat models who simply trust you the tech savvy person recommending them Signal which will protect them, you know, the general population. Matter of fact I would bet good money most signal users don't even know you have to verify each other's codes in person for the e2ee to even mean anything other than false security!