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Or, he took a barely niché messaging app plugin (OTR), improved it to provide forward secrecy for non-round trips, and deployed the current state-of-the art end
by maqp 9mo ago
Or, he took a barely niché messaging app plugin (OTR), improved it to provide forward secrecy for non-round trips, and deployed the current state-of-the art end-to-end encryption to over 3,000,000,000 users, as Signal isn't the only tool to use double-ratchet E2EE.
>broken SGX metadata protections
Citation needed. Also, SGX is just there to try to verify what the server is doing, including that the server isn't collecting metadata. The real talking is done by the responses to warrants https://signal.org/bigbrother/ https://signal.org/bigbrother/ where they've been able to hand over only two timestamps of when the user created their account and when they were last seen. If that's not good enough for you, you're better off using Tor-p2p messengers that don't have servers collecting your metadata at all, such as Cwtch or Quiet.
>weak supply chain integrity
You can download the app as an .apk from their website if you don't trust Google Play Store.
>a mandate everyone supply their phone numbers
That's how you combat spam. It sucks but there are very few options outside the corner of Zooko's triangle that has your username look like "4sci35xrhp2d45gbm3qpta7ogfedonuw2mucmc36jxemucd7fmgzj3ad".
>and agree to Apple or Google terms of service to use it?
Yeah that's what happens when you create a phone app for the masses.
- josephg 9mo ago> You can download the app as an .apk from their website if you don't trust Google Play Store. I wish apple & google provided a way to verify that an app was actually compiled from some specific git SHA. Right now applications can claim they're opensource, and claim that you can read the source code yourself. But there's no way to check that the authors haven't added any extra nasties into the code before building and submitting the APK / ios application bundle. It would be pretty easy to do. Just have a build process at apple / google which you can point to a git repo, and let them build the application. Or - even easier - just have a way to see the application's signature in the app store. Then opensource app developers could compile their APK / ios app using github actions. And 3rd parties could check the SHA matches the app binaries in the store.
- rcxdude 9mo agoThis is what F-droid does (well, I suspect most apps don't have reproducable builds that would allow 3rd-party verification), but Signal does not want 3rd-party builds of their client anyhow.
- actionfromafar 9mo agoThey could still figure out a way to attest their builds against source.
- fsflover 9mo agoThis is much harder when Signal actively goes against that.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- Maken 9mo ago>over 3,000,000,000 users Is that a typo or are you really implying half the human population use Signal? Edit: I misread, you are counting almost every messaging app user.
- rcxdude 9mo agoYeah, whatsapp uses the same protocol.
- lrvick 9mo agoWell, we do not really have any idea what Whatsapp uses, because it is proprietary.
- maqp 9mo agoJust WhatsApp. Moxie's ideas are used in plenty of other messengers. The context was "what Moxie did for the field of instant messaging".
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- stavros 9mo agoExactly. These arguments are so weak that they read more like a smear campaign than an actual technical discussion. "You have to agree to Apple's terms to use it"? What's Signal meant to do, jailbreak your phone before installing itself on it?
- kelipso 9mo agoMoxie Marlinspike sounds like some 90s intelligence guy’s understanding of what an appealing name to hacker groups would sound like. Put a guy like that as so-called creator of some encryption protocol for messaging and promote the app like it’s for secret conversations and you think people won’t be suspicious? It screams honeypot like nothing else.
- stavros 9mo agoSo the argument against Signal is now "the creator's nickname sounds odd"? I mean, OK? Keep using WhatsApp, Telegram or Instagram if you think those are more private than Signal.
- fsflover 9mo ago>> and agree to Apple or Google terms of service to use it? > Yeah that's what happens when you create a phone app for the masses. No, that's what happens when you actively forbid alternative clients and servers, prevent (secure) alternative methods of delivery for your app and force people to rely on the American megacorps known for helping governmental spying on users, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38555810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38555810
- sudahtigabulan 9mo ago>>broken SGX metadata protections >Citation needed. https://sgx.fail https://sgx.fail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Guard_Extensions#List_of_SGX_vulnerabilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Guard_Extensions#List...