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Signal and Giphy

whispersystems.org

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Re: Signal and Giphy

#101

Post by mnx »

hollander wrote: post #99
mnx wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, than I guess I got the wrong idea about them. I thought WhatsApp was supposed to be "for the common people", and Signal was more targeted towards the paranoid.

Signal is suitable to the paranoid, while targeting "normal" people. Snowden uses it, so that's a good indicator for the paranoid. Similar: If my mom uses it as well, that doesn't mean she's paranoid. (And I'm not saying that you said this.) And interestingly, knowing some paranoid people (by disease not profession), they usually don't care about this.

And what I was originally trying to say, is that people like Snowden, or more precisely, people requiring Snowden-like security, should probably not use this feature despite the very impressive way they made it more secure.

Re: Signal and Giphy

#102

Post by Bartweiss »

makomk wrote: post #86
Bartweiss wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been really impressed with Open Whisper's focus on usability and functionality. So many privacy products take the stance of "if you care about privacy, you won't want to do this", and it seriously harms uptake.

Meanwhile, people are accidentally leaking their phone numbers and their contacts' phone numbers because Signal replaced fingerprints that could safely be posted publicly with QR codes that can't, and didn't explain it: https://twitter.com/webster/status/793657469381713920

Shit, really? I hadn't published any QR codes, but I sure didn't realize that was part of the new system.

That's a pretty bad round of dropping the ball... Normally I respect that OWS explains security stuff in detail if you care, but also has a product that "just works" if you use defaults without much knowledge. This is pretty much the exact opposite of that, where they released a dangerous default with minimal explanation even for people who do read their stuff.

Re: Signal and Giphy

#103

Post by pliu »

wst_ wrote: post #36

Can I, as a receiver, turn off this feature? Ex : get text messages instead of gifs.

I don't have an iPhone, but with the Android client at least, you can disable image auto downloading in the settings page. If you hate fun and are dead inside.

Re: Signal and Giphy

#105

Post by mahyarm »

piotrjurkiewicz wrote: post #43
berdario wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The desktop app is available since almost 1 year (in closed beta at the beginning), and recently apparently it's also working with iOS https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-desktop/ It's also a real app[1], independent from the phone's: after the initial key exchange, you can send/receive messages even when your phone is off [1] Compare with the Whatsapp webapp, which solves/sidesteps the E2E encryption among multip…

Are you kidding me? Do you consider this Chrome extension as a 'real app' (sic!)? I won't install Chrome just to host Signal extension.

Almost every modern desktop chat app is a web app, which is what a chrome app is. It's how something like franz is possible: http://meetfranz.com/

Re: Signal and Giphy

#106

Post by MichaelGG »

aluhut wrote: post #60

It makes me sad so see that they waste time on decoration like gif search but they don't have a client I can use on my PC for example.

Or basic message reliability? There's no reason I should be getting "Bad encrypted message" so often. Or tons of repeats. And out of order messages. And random deliverability problems.

And it seems like it has a way of picking just the right time to fuck up. Right when there's a big question or when I need to say something important, bam, Signal will start being erratic. Plus the repeat messages has on at least one occasion ended up providing a totally different meaning.

I'd say with one particular contact, we exchange screenshots of Signal over MMS once a day to avoid misunderstandings.

Re: Signal and Giphy

#107

Post by morsch »

knz wrote: post #77
morsch wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a desktop client. It's packaged as a Chrome app. Some people downthread think a "decent" desktop app must be (more) standalone. You seem to think a "decent" desktop app should live inside a browser tab. It's hard to make everybody happy. People need to stop claiming there is no desktop app just because the very clearly existing one does not fulfill their own arbitrary set of criteria. I don't know if you can…

I don't mean to be negative about Signal. I appreciate the work they have put into it and understand that the platform is maturing - as you said, they can't please everyone. The chrome app vs tab is definitely a minor issue related to user preference. It's not a deal breaker for me personally but others in my network (who are less concerned about privacy) will not switch if it's not easy. Not being able to sign out i…

Okay, I checked now, and you're right, there does not seem to be a way to sign out (or, as they call it, unlink) the desktop app from within the desktop app. I agree, that's weird.

As a workaround, you can unlink using the phone app[1], and I assume (but have not checked) deleting the desktop app will also work.

[1] http://support.whispersystems.org/hc/en-us/articles/21645978...

Re: Signal and Giphy

#108

Post by uola »

uola wrote: post #56
brainfire wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely missing features would make it the "lesser version of something else."

A feature like this doesn't really matter in the context of competing with mainstream messaging services because their value is to a large extent in things like brand and network effect. The notion that you're just one feature away from mainstream adaptation is often a misconception. In reality there's limited potential in living in the shadow of something else.

It would be more interesting if people could reply why they disagree. I'm not the first one to come to this conclusion, hemlis is a public example. You simply can't compete with large companies several years after the fact without differentiating.

Re: Signal and Giphy

#109

Post by droopybuns »

aluhut wrote: post #60

It makes me sad so see that they waste time on decoration like gif search but they don't have a client I can use on my PC for example.

1) We're moving from a mobile-first to mobile-only world. This prioritization shows that the signal team are fundamentally pragmatic.

2) Most people rely on cliche to communicate. It's obvious that gifs are another cheat that is being commonly integrated by most people. It's kind of silly to avoid acknowledging the reality of how younger people are commonly communicating.

3) Please don't be sad because a software team prioritized a feature you don't like. You deserve to have more control over your own emotions. Why would you let a software feature have such a drastic impact on your own happiness?

Re: Signal and Giphy

#110

Post by Arathorn »

berdario wrote: post #33
sschueller wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a Synapse server ( http://matrix.org/ ) which is federated and works very well. There are many clients but the nicest at the moment is Riot. Full encryption is now available in the Riot webclient and it's coming to the app soon.

I'm just a Matrix (and Signal) user, I haven't yet had a look into its encryption implementation yet, but for those who are interested, I think these are the docs: http://matrix.org/speculator/spec/drafts%2Fe2e/client_server...

There's also https://matrix.org/docs/guides/e2e_implementation.html for those interested in the guts of Matrix's E2E and https://matrix.org/docs/spec/olm.html and https://matrix.org/docs/spec/megolm.html itself. We're currently reviewing the PRs for E2E on the iOS & Android SDKs, and after they land apps like Riot will have (beta) E2E across all of Web/iOS/Android :)
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