Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Darpa wants to make a better, more secure, version of WhatsApp

trustedreviews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 100 posts

Re: Darpa wants to make a better, more secure, version of WhatsApp

#71

Post by iDon »

toast0 wrote: post #64
abalone wrote: post #57

This makes it sound like DARPA wants to take some commercially developed tech and adapt it to the military, but just for the record that grossly misstates the relationship and the general history of Silicon Valley. Ever wonder how Siri got her name? From SRI International, a research org largely funded by the DoD.[1] DARPA is the origin of much of the tech, including secure Internet tech. Just one recent example: Tor…

I don't think there's an official origin for Siri's name. Someone said it was named after a child. I suspect (without evidence) it was named after the female robot in the pilot episode of the Logan's Run who ran Mountain City, a paradise city.

From : https://www.sri.com/engage/ventures/siri

https://www.sri.com/work/timeline-innovation/timeline.php?ti...

"Siri, the first virtual personal assistant, arose from decades of SRI research in artificial intelligence (AI). The technology was developed through the SRI-led Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes (CALO) project within DARPA's Personalized Assistant that Learns (PAL) program, the largest-known AI project in U.S. History, and joint work with EPFL, the Swiss institute of technology.

SRI spun off Siri, Inc. in 2007 to bring the technology to consumers, raising $24 million in two rounds of financing.

In April 2010, Apple acquired Siri, and in October 2011, Siri was unveiled as an integrated feature of the Apple iPhone 4S."

I'm not verifying that - I just found it via google search "sri Siri"

I like the link to Logan's Run :-), it could be also true.

Re: Darpa wants to make a better, more secure, version of WhatsApp

#72

Post by usuallymatt »

dominotw wrote: post #67
nothrabannosir wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use signal on the reg, and the short comings are both superficial and unrelated to the security. In my opinion. What are your specific concerns? I could list things like: lack of bold and italic , poor voice message UI, lack of video conferencing , lack of group names, ... Note that WhatsApp was wildly popular for over half a decade before it got most of those features. In other words: I don’t get the point of talk…

they are not just cosmetic.. * no search (big one for me) * no web client ( another big one) * app gets stuck in "retrieving message..." if there is a poor signal like travelling under a tunnel and there are many cosmetic ones like the ones you pointed out.

Not sure if it's because I run the beta version but I have the search feature in individual conversations and use it often. There is a desktop app and I agree it's not the best. The desktop app is the only place I've had the retrieving messages issue. So really the only gripe I see you having is no decent non-phone client. For me that's not a show stopper at this point in exchange for a secure, easy to use application.

Re: Darpa wants to make a better, more secure, version of WhatsApp

#73

Post by tsunamifury »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #25
YeahSureWhyNot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried signal, much more inferior to WhatsApp in terms of functionality and usability

I use signal on the reg, and the short comings are both superficial and unrelated to the security. In my opinion. What are your specific concerns? I could list things like: lack of bold and italic , poor voice message UI, lack of video conferencing , lack of group names, ... Note that WhatsApp was wildly popular for over half a decade before it got most of those features. In other words: I don’t get the point of talk…

Note that the horse a buggy was wildly popular before the car came along, so as this follows Tesla would be find starting a horse and buggy company. I'm a bit exaggerated in my sarcasm here to really illustrate how arrogant it is to assume that features you don't value are 'cosmetic blemishes' when they really do fundamentally hinder the adoption of the product. While you may value security as a priority that overcomes all others, but most by network effect influence, do not. And if you really care about security, it follows that the 'cosmetics' matter as well.

Re: Darpa wants to make a better, more secure, version of WhatsApp

#74

Post by sandov »

tehlike wrote: post #69
nsuser3 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -full desktop support for video and voice calls Any desktop support would be nice. WhatsApp web is not a real solution.

It kind of is, at least it is 80% there. What is your problem eith it? Having to handshake almost everytime?

What if you left your phone at home and it's not connected to the Internet?.

I usually leave my phone at random places in my house and have to find it and 'wake it up' so that it connects to the wifi and I can use Whatsapp web.

Re: Darpa wants to make a better, more secure, version of WhatsApp

#75

Post by dominotw »

usuallymatt wrote: post #72
dominotw wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are not just cosmetic.. * no search (big one for me) * no web client ( another big one) * app gets stuck in "retrieving message..." if there is a poor signal like travelling under a tunnel and there are many cosmetic ones like the ones you pointed out.

Not sure if it's because I run the beta version but I have the search feature in individual conversations and use it often. There is a desktop app and I agree it's not the best. The desktop app is the only place I've had the retrieving messages issue. So really the only gripe I see you having is no decent non-phone client. For me that's not a show stopper at this point in exchange for a secure, easy to use applicatio…

> . So really the only gripe I see you having

you ignored all my complaints saying you don't experience them. wtf.

Re: Darpa wants to make a better, more secure, version of WhatsApp

#76

Post by gsich »

tehlike wrote: post #69
nsuser3 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -full desktop support for video and voice calls Any desktop support would be nice. WhatsApp web is not a real solution.

It kind of is, at least it is 80% there. What is your problem eith it? Having to handshake almost everytime?

no gif upload support

Re: Darpa wants to make a better, more secure, version of WhatsApp

#77

Post by nothrabannosir »

tsunamifury wrote: post #73
nothrabannosir wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use signal on the reg, and the short comings are both superficial and unrelated to the security. In my opinion. What are your specific concerns? I could list things like: lack of bold and italic , poor voice message UI, lack of video conferencing , lack of group names, ... Note that WhatsApp was wildly popular for over half a decade before it got most of those features. In other words: I don’t get the point of talk…

Note that the horse a buggy was wildly popular before the car came along, so as this follows Tesla would be find starting a horse and buggy company. I'm a bit exaggerated in my sarcasm here to really illustrate how arrogant it is to assume that features you don't value are 'cosmetic blemishes' when they really do fundamentally hinder the adoption of the product. While you may value security as a priority that overcom…

Yes, although pushing a firmware update to turn a horse carriage into a model Y is, perhaps, slightly less practical than adding Markdown support to a chat client.

The original comment was a blanket "much more inferior in terms of functionality and usability." I hope to elucidate that, in the context of a DARPA grant, it might be worth the effort to look to the future, and differentiate between fundamental problems and fixable issues.

I wouldn't say the same for an XMPP client, for example. But WhatsApp and signal are very, very close.

Perhaps even closer than a horse and a model Y. ;)

Re: Darpa wants to make a better, more secure, version of WhatsApp

#78

Post by snazz »

dominotw wrote: post #68
snazz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right and I agree with you, but as to point 1, they don’t really act like a proper open source project and it seems more like a “source dump” than anything. It’s hard to compile on your own and they don’t like forks connecting to official servers either.

> It’s hard to compile on your own It was pretty easy to compile your own desktop version. I had to change some colors because white was hurting my eyes and i was able to do it easily.

Unfortunately, the Android app requires Play Services to compile even if not to run, which means F-Droid can’t include it by their own free software requirements. See the forum thread: https://forum.f-droid.org/t/signal-discussion-about-google-p...

Building it reproducibly and with 100% FOSS is very hard and you can’t fork it, otherwise they’ll stop you from using the official servers.

Post reply on HN