51–60 of 288 posts
I'm assuming this works similarly to WhatsApp Web ( https://web.whatsapp.com/ )
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whisper Systems has a track record of prioritizing 'good enough' ease-of-use ahead of 'perfect' security as a practical way of expanding its user base. Edit: Tried to word the above most neutrally; I believe this approach has both pros and cons.
moxie has stated previously someplace that the goals are 1. Simple encryption for everyone to prevent mass data collection 2. Prevent targeted collection for the crypto enthusiasts The main focus is on step 1. now and they are doing a great job at it. It's slow like anything new, but I managed to convince my parents to switch so that means it's working!
Google might be the second biggest mass data collector, after the U.S. government. Using Chrome, one of Google's tools of collection (if I understand correctly), wouldn't seem to further that goal.
I have a question about this... Say a team of volunteers were willing to spend time to make something like a QT- or GTK-based native desktop application instead. How much more difficult would this be compared to what they did/used now? (the chrome-app) ? Also, will it take significantly longer to build such a native app? Anybody with experience building native apps, please share.
I have a question about this... Say a team of volunteers were willing to spend time to make something like a QT- or GTK-based native desktop application instead. How much more difficult would this be compared to what they did/used now? (the chrome-app) ? Also, will it take significantly longer to build such a native app? Anybody with experience building native apps, please share.
> Signal Desktop is a Chrome app That surprises me. I don't trust Chrome for confidentiality; I assume it collects data for Google and I don't know that it protects my data from others. If Chrome isn't trustworthy for confidentiality, it would seem to fatally cripple the security of Signal Desktop. However, I believe the people at Whisper Systems would see that obvious flaw so I suspect that I'm misunderstanding some…
Whisper Systems has a track record of prioritizing 'good enough' ease-of-use ahead of 'perfect' security as a practical way of expanding its user base. Edit: Tried to word the above most neutrally; I believe this approach has both pros and cons.
Why is Telegram always under for their flawed security challenge despite the good-enough track record then? They also have perfect usability, native apps, 3rd party clients, etc. If the security is not the first priority then Signal isn't very attractive compared to the competition I think.
Why make it a Chrome app instead of a node-webkit app?
Why are all these encrypted chat programs (Signal, Telegram, &c.) still centralized and not TOR-style onion-routed?
For what it's worth, I am the author of a decentralized messaging app myself [1], and have spent a lot of time thinking about stuff like this, and eventually reached this unfortunate conclusion and decided to leave the project at the prototype stage.
[1] http://toc.im/
And I'm disappointed. I tend to repeat the 'central server' and 'a phone number is not an address and not public information, it certainly is no identity' criticism.
When I read the headline/title, I thought 'Now maybe that would be enough to be ~good enough~ to ditch Telegram' in spite of these problems (which Telegram has as well, ofc). But really. A Chrome app. And works only (yeah, I think I said it before: Phone numbers suck) as a secondary client. And only if the first client is Android?
I seriously don't get it. And it certainly is not for me: I don't like that browser (I do have it installed for testing and to follow it at times, but there's no 'app' I'd run in Chrome). I don't want to tie something to my phone and I don't think that it should matter what platform my handset runs on - SailfishOS looks nice, FxOS progresses slow but ticks a good number of boxes for me.
Full circle to the first line: I don't _like_ to be negative and the headline gave me hope for a couple seconds. Unfortunately this release just deepened my belief that Signal wasn't meant to be for me.
Requiring a google email address and chrome for a secure messaging system? Very strange move.
They're using Google groups to manage the beta testing program. Make sense since that's how you sign into the Chrome app store to download the app.