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Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

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Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#281

Post by y04nn »

katastic wrote: post #213
jrhurst wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does look like IBM does own a p2p instant messaging patent[1]. So I think this checks out. - https://www.google.ms/patents/US7675874

It's remarkable that companies can "own" things so fundamental, and obvious in computing--even if they don't actually utilize their IP's. "Hey guys, I've got a patent for talking from one machine to another over a connection." (Don't give SCO any ideas.) The purpose of patents was to foster innovation, not squander it. What if Issac Newton and Liebniz had a "foundation" that owned the rights to every mathematical con…

Skype itself was founded in 2003, so I doubt this patent is valid.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#282

Post by Paraesthetic »

EdSharkey wrote: post #218
MikeHolman wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the reason Microsoft broke Skype so badly was because they used centralised servers with backdoors for countries who wanted them. That seems like pretty unreasonable tinfoil. There is no reason for Microsoft to want to give information to governments. I assume they don't pay, and the cost is consumer trust. Makes a lot of sense to rearchitect such that you can't give in to government demands.

> That seems like pretty unreasonable tinfoil. There is no reason for Microsoft to want to give information to governments. No? I don't think you are being fair. First of all Microsoft is not one mind. There are lots of motivations bouncing around inside that entity, and not all of those motivations are 'reasonable' like you purport to be. Second, secret court orders get issued to these big companies all the time. Yo…

Highly plausible, but I would suggest the reason would more likely be competition than anything else. Right now Skype's biggest competitor is whatsapp which is growing quickly, has end to end encryption and you dont need a skype name and password you've probably forgotten.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#283

Post by Paraesthetic »

QAPereo wrote: post #267
paule89 wrote: post #160

The thing is. How will Microsoft and Skype handle backdoors now. As far as I understood the reason Microsoft broke Skype so badly was because they used centralised servers with backdoors for countries who wanted them. Not always the good countries. But this. This baffles me. Deeply.

Which are “the good countries” in this context?

The ones with the governments full of corrupt politicians, you know, first world ones

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#284

Post by Digital-Citizen »

Jeaye wrote: post #120

Skype is proprietary software. Even if it encrypts my messages E2E, it still needs to display them with its proprietary UI and see them in plain text. There's no way I could trust that or recommend anyone else to. The thing about E2E encryption is that you still need to have reasonable trust in each E.

I concur.

It's interesting that so many people who claim they understand what the software is doing don't appear to understand that proprietary software is always untrustworthy. Users have no real control over proprietary software, no matter how technical and willing they are to change their copy of the software.

Therefore it doesn't matter which apps are installed on a proprietary OS. The proprietary OS (or possibly some hardware beneath it) is untrustworthy. Every keystroke, drag/gesture, location change, camera/mic input, and more pass through proprietary software before they get to the ostensibly trustworthy app.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#285

Post by uph »

emddudley wrote: post #262
uph wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve designed the Signal service to minimize the data we retain about Signal users, so the only information we can produce in response to a request like this is the date and time a user registered with Signal and the last date of a user’s connectivity to the Signal service. Notably, things we don’t have stored include anything about a user’s contacts (such as the contacts themselves, a hash of the contacts, any othe…

Ok, that's good. But Signal automatically created conversations with people in my address book who I never want to communicate with via Signal. I didn't authorize it, the app did it automatically. I think that is what the grandparent was referring to.

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/115005045728-Do...

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#286

Post by styfle »

katastic wrote: post #213
jrhurst wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does look like IBM does own a p2p instant messaging patent[1]. So I think this checks out. - https://www.google.ms/patents/US7675874

It's remarkable that companies can "own" things so fundamental, and obvious in computing--even if they don't actually utilize their IP's. "Hey guys, I've got a patent for talking from one machine to another over a connection." (Don't give SCO any ideas.) The purpose of patents was to foster innovation, not squander it. What if Issac Newton and Liebniz had a "foundation" that owned the rights to every mathematical con…

I was working for a large hardware company (I'm not going to name names) that typically files for hardware/firmware patents. There was a push for everyone to file more patents, even from the software teams.

I was working on an app that had graph-like data so we decided to use a graph database...nothing super innovative. My coworker, who apparently had a couple patents, said that we could probably patent this algorithm. I looked at him and said, how can you patent traversing nodes and vertices... that's graph theory 101?!

Big companies try to patent everything because its a metric they can use to show how amazing they are, and acts as blackmail (or cold war). If you sue me, I'll sue you.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#287

Post by nofilter »

While they are it, could they make the Skype application an actually reliable one? I find WhatsApp video and call quality far superiour to that of Skype, which has years on WhatsApp. Not only is the video and call quality subpar, the app itself often behaves in odd ways. Personally, I've come to dislike Skype greatly.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#288

Post by sattoshi »

danjoc wrote: post #73
tptacek wrote: post #45

Just to get a sense of the track record here, Signal Protocol powers: * Facebook/WhatsApp * Google/Allo * Microsoft/Skype * Signal Signal is also the basis for the protocols for Wire (Proteus) and Matrix (Olm).

Speaking of track records, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants... Facebook Google Microsoft

They cut off 1 letter off the url by replacing "june" with "jun"

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#289

Post by est »

antimatter wrote: post #183
wilhil wrote: post #137

Now if only they can partner with someone to get chat working as well as it used to or get syncing between multiple devices working...

This. I wish Signal's own native apps had the user experience of Telegram.

Telegram clients are open source, I think Signal could just fork it patch the protocol and be done with it.

Or better, support dual account logins.

Re: Signal partners with Microsoft to bring end-to-end encryption to Skype

#290

Post by est »

sgtmas2006 wrote: post #178
AgentME wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Discord gives people access to past message history when joining a group. I don't know of any limitations of Signal's group chats that would be a problem for Discord's group chat behavior.

It does give access to past messages.

Discord support chat history sever side searches, they even posted a blog about how to optimise ElasticSsearch clusters.

E2E encryption is useless here. Unless you setup some kind of dedicated channel for secretive group chats.

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