Signal Desktop • Hacker News Board

Re: Signal Desktop

#121

Post by darklajid » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 8:59 PM UTC

plusquamperfekt wrote: post #88

darklajid wrote: post #59

I'm feeling dirty, because I don't like to be that negative, especially if we're talking open-source software. And I feel that I kinda hold this project to higher standards: If I compare this to WhatsApp/Telegram/Threema/Whatever, I inheritently, somewhat subconciously expect more from Signal. And I'm disappointed. I tend to repeat the 'central server' and 'a phone number is not an address and not public information,…

> 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. Your phone number is not your identity in Signal. If you change SIM cards then your friends won't notice and the app works as before. Signal is based on asym encryption - your private key effectively encodes your identity in combination with your public key. > And only if t…

We had a similar exchange earlier.

If the phone number isn't my identity - what is the phone number for? I don't need a phone number to generate my key, do I? It seems, as far as I can follow from the outside, that phone numbers are used as namespace. Maybe 'identity' goes too far, but so far I understand that the number you register with is your - erm - user id?

Help me out. If that's totally wrong, if I "didn't get it", I'd be glad to learn more. But .. then again: Why require a phone number (-> No standalone client on the desktop)?

Thomas basically destroyed that security argument already, and I'd actually prefer a niche OS (FxOS, but I'm getting more and more into SailfishOS demos atm).

Re: Signal Desktop

#122

Post by maxerickson » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 9:00 PM UTC

nemoniac wrote: post #116

moxie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we were going to rank our priorities, they would be in this order: 1) Make mass surveillance impossible. 2) Stop targeted attacks against crypto nerds. It's not that we don't find #2 laudable, but optimizing for #1 takes precedence when we're making decisions. If you don't want to use your phone number, don't use it. You can register with any GV, Twilio, Voicepulse, or other throwaway VoIP number. If you don't wan…

What is GcmCore? It doesn't show up on ddg or google.

It's a typo of GmsCore:

https://github.com/microg

Re: Signal Desktop

#123

Post by morsch » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 9:00 PM UTC

I've been looking forward to this! Thanks for all the hard work.

Re: Signal Desktop

#124

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 9:00 PM UTC

finnn wrote: post #99

Drdrdrq wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Chrome app a standalone app which doesn't run inside Chrome browser, but instead only uses its engine? I don't know anything about security or privacy implications of using this tech though, anyone care to comment?

No, you're likely thinking of Electron[0]. A Chrome App[1] is a browser extension that tries to act more like a native app. [0]: http://electron.atom.io/ [1]: https://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps

[deleted]

Re: Signal Desktop

#125

Post by Lazare » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 9:01 PM UTC

moxie wrote: post #84

darklajid wrote: post #59

I'm feeling dirty, because I don't like to be that negative, especially if we're talking open-source software. And I feel that I kinda hold this project to higher standards: If I compare this to WhatsApp/Telegram/Threema/Whatever, I inheritently, somewhat subconciously expect more from Signal. And I'm disappointed. I tend to repeat the 'central server' and 'a phone number is not an address and not public information,…

If we were going to rank our priorities, they would be in this order: 1) Make mass surveillance impossible. 2) Stop targeted attacks against crypto nerds. It's not that we don't find #2 laudable, but optimizing for #1 takes precedence when we're making decisions. If you don't want to use your phone number, don't use it. You can register with any GV, Twilio, Voicepulse, or other throwaway VoIP number. If you don't wan…

> 1) Make mass surveillance impossible.

A worthy goal. But let's be real; to stop mass surveillance by writing a new chat program, you need mass adoption of your new program, and that means you need truly amazing UX.

If you write something which is technically perfect and would work if it was widely used, but nobody uses it because Telegram is just a little bit easier to get started with, and has nice cartoon drawings to explain their features (or whatever), then you've completely failed.

Re: Signal Desktop

#126

Post by _jomo » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 9:02 PM UTC

nemoniac wrote: post #116

moxie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we were going to rank our priorities, they would be in this order: 1) Make mass surveillance impossible. 2) Stop targeted attacks against crypto nerds. It's not that we don't find #2 laudable, but optimizing for #1 takes precedence when we're making decisions. If you don't want to use your phone number, don't use it. You can register with any GV, Twilio, Voicepulse, or other throwaway VoIP number. If you don't wan…

What is GcmCore? It doesn't show up on ddg or google.

It's GmsCore, moxie typo'd. However you can also install via F-Droid by adding this repo https://fdroid.eutopia.cz

Moxie is probably going to hate you for it, but it works very well and doesn't require Google Services or anything else.

Re: Signal Desktop

#127

Post by moxie » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 9:03 PM UTC

darklajid wrote: post #111

moxie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we were going to rank our priorities, they would be in this order: 1) Make mass surveillance impossible. 2) Stop targeted attacks against crypto nerds. It's not that we don't find #2 laudable, but optimizing for #1 takes precedence when we're making decisions. If you don't want to use your phone number, don't use it. You can register with any GV, Twilio, Voicepulse, or other throwaway VoIP number. If you don't wan…

Thank you for your reply. I really appreciate it. As I stated earlier, I feel bad about 'expecting more' here - I certainly see the appeal of a popular ~decent~ option. Without trying to derail this further, let me look at those points: If I use throwaway numbers: What happens if I lose access? Do I _need_ the number for anything in the future (say, device died)? Can someone else mess with me if they get access to th…

That's a pretty big holiday wishlist. =)

This is the world we live in: people do most of their communication on mobile devices running iOS or Android, use Chrome on the desktop, and expect contact discovery to be automatic in their social apps. The browser has won the desktop, iOS and Android have won mobile, and the velocity of the ecosystem is unlikely to make "distributed" communication mechanisms possible for some time.

We're trying to make mass surveillance impossible within this world of ours. We want to produce technology that is privacy preserving but feels just like everything else people already use, not somehow convince everyone to fundamentally change their workflow and their expectations.

It'd be sweet if we lived in an alternate reality where everyone ran SailfishOS or something (and maybe this year will be the year of Linux on the desktop!), but we can't just pretend that's already the case.

Re: Signal Desktop

#128

Post by haffenloher » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 9:07 PM UTC

_jomo wrote: post #126

nemoniac wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is GcmCore? It doesn't show up on ddg or google.

It's GmsCore, moxie typo'd. However you can also install via F-Droid by adding this repo https://fdroid.eutopia.cz Moxie is probably going to hate you for it, but it works very well and doesn't require Google Services or anything else.

Using that websocket stuff instead of Play Services or GmsCore will make receiving Signal calls impossible.

Re: Signal Desktop

#129

Post by Certhas » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 9:07 PM UTC

JetSetWilly wrote: post #103

darklajid wrote: post #59

I'm feeling dirty, because I don't like to be that negative, especially if we're talking open-source software. And I feel that I kinda hold this project to higher standards: If I compare this to WhatsApp/Telegram/Threema/Whatever, I inheritently, somewhat subconciously expect more from Signal. And I'm disappointed. I tend to repeat the 'central server' and 'a phone number is not an address and not public information,…

I just found it unreliably slow. Principles are all good, but if I message my gf saying "see you at the bus stop in 20 minutes" and she doesn't receive the message for 2 hours, that's majorly annoying and it happened so often I had to leave it. The basic functionality isn't fit for purpose, for me.

I used to have the problem but just trying it again now the situation has dramatically improved for me.

Re: Signal Desktop

#130

Post by mapgrep » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 9:08 PM UTC

newman314 wrote: post #107

fweespeech wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh, Signal's UX on Android is pretty good. Is Telegram just better on iOS or am I missing something when you say it has better UX?

Enh. Signal's UX is still not effortless. For example: * Does not make it clear it's a point to point mapping (on iOS) right now. I discovered this the hard way. * Unclear failure modes (see above). It's entirely possible to have messages be silently dropped. * Texting vs. call methods unclear. I.e. there's a phone icon but no text icon (select name instead). * Contacts list has some text only, some phone only, some…

What do you mean it's a point-to-point mapping? Genuinely curious.

You mean that there is no server to buffer failed delivery attempts if one of the devices is off or disconnected?

(Side note, I've hit that the same bug where the other person has to contact me first because they don't show up in my contacts, even though they should.)