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Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

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Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

#321

Post by salex89 »

oblio wrote: post #294
salex89 wrote: post #293

I actually like Signal, and would use it a lot more, but don't because of one feature - link previews. I understand the technical reasoning why are they so slow to adopt it, but I (and a group of people I communicate on a daily basis) would probably accept even a half-baked solution like the one on WhatsApp.

Why do you find WhatsApp's solution half baked?

Even though it's generated sender-side, AFAIK, you wound't even know it is there as a feature. You paste a link, wait some time, and a preview appears. If you send it immediately, there is no preview. Which is acceptable, but at least give some kind of indication that the preview is being generated. Or for some links there is just no preview, and you stay there like an idiot waiting for a preview to appear without any notice it failed. Sometimes the preview is just not that good, although it's also up to the link optimisation.

Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

#322

Post by mehrdadn »

Loughla wrote: post #284
vincentmarle wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard this before but here’s my practical problem: I don’t know any lawyers. I have literally no idea who to call in such a situation. Do I have to go find and retain a lawyer beforehand just in case I might need one later?

It's not a bad idea to have a relationship with a lawyer. Talk to family/friends/co-workers. Somebody will have a name for you. We made a relationship with one I found through family via estate planning (not his specialty) and land deals (not his specialty). Now I have a name to say out loud when I interact with police. This has happened twice. The OP is right, they'll do everything they can to get you to talk, but u…

> but understand that if a police officer is talking to you, they're digging for information to incriminate you

Are you sure you're not exaggerating? I've totally seen incidents where cops were only talking to see if they've even found the right person. They lose interest pretty damn quickly when they realize they're talking to the wrong person (even to the point of rejecting extra evidence you might offer yourself). Whereas I'm pretty damn sure in these cases you cause yourself a lot of (short-term maybe, but still) grief if you suddenly go on the defensive and plead the 5th. It unnecessarily makes you look guilty, whereas a couple minutes of talking can make it crystal clear to them you're totally clueless.

Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

#323

Post by hiq »

salex89 wrote: post #293

I actually like Signal, and would use it a lot more, but don't because of one feature - link previews. I understand the technical reasoning why are they so slow to adopt it, but I (and a group of people I communicate on a daily basis) would probably accept even a half-baked solution like the one on WhatsApp.

It's already there, but there are only a few websites supported:

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/0ef01cc620c...

If you opened a PR with the websites you're missing, I'm sure they'd be open to it.

I see sibling comments mentioning that they wouldn't want this feature (which is already there) because of its privacy implications, but I think that it basically works like gifs, with a proxy controlled by Signal.

Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

#324

Post by prophesi »

detaro wrote: post #249
romanr wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram indeed have better UX and same level of e2e security. Why Signal is getting all the publicity?

Telegram has off-by-default E2E encryption with a less vetted algorithm that only works for 1:1 chats, and less focus on minimizing server knowledge. That's clearly not > same level of e2e security

And both users need to be online at the same time for the E2E-encrypted chat. Very limiting.

Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

#325

Post by fsflover »

nix23 wrote: post #246
romanr wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram indeed have better UX and same level of e2e security. Why Signal is getting all the publicity?

Telegram is not opensource, Signal is...and yes you can setup your own server with Signal. Why trust a Closed-source-Software? Do you even know that it is encrypted?

You can setup your own server with Signal, but you will not participate in the same network, so this is not really relevant.

Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

#326

Post by stevehawk »

0xADEADBEE wrote: post #65
stevehawk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oof the pin nag is brutal, i hear that. as someone who doesn't back up or transfer their message is completely unnecessary to me to even have it.

Same. How hard is it to make it optional?

well it took them like 2 years to add an option to drop the "invite this contact" nag so I reckon pretty difficult /s

Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

#327

Post by antisocial »

m12k wrote: post #114
hjek wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is not only used by protesters[0][1] so discovering that a phone number is connected to a Signal account by no means implies that the phone is used by a protester. [0]: https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2020/01/23/deploye... [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/17/tories-swit...

Yeah, if you're ever asked why you're on Signal, just say you wanted to stay in touch with a programmer friend who's not on Facebook/WhatsApp, and they suggested Signal (that is now literally true as well - I suggest you try Signal, friend)

I want to emphasize that DeleteWhatsapp, DeleteInstagram should trend equally with DeleteFacebook.

Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

#328

Post by whiskeykilo »

jwr wrote: post #164
AtHeartEngineer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's my default and over a few years I've pretty much converted everyone in my life except my mom

Sadly, Signal neglects user experience, and as a result people around me all tend to migrate to WhatsApp. They don't care that they are uploading their entire contact list to Facebook — "death before inconvenience".

Signal cares so much about UX that they're starting to agitate security/privacy diehards. They've implemented features like stickers and message reactions that the diehard community calls "useless". And they recently implemented PINs with the intention of storing your encrypted profile and settings for easy recovery on a new device.

I applaud the direction they've taken. These are the kinds of features that will acquire and retain a broader user base.

Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

#329

Post by [deleted] »

AnonC wrote: post #92

The biggest drawback with Signal for protesters is that it exposes the user's phone number to everyone else in groups (just like WhatsApp does). There is no way to even hide the fact that you have an account on Signal. I can add phone numbers by enumeration into my contacts and Signal will show who among my contacts is on it. If the authorities don't use tactics like they did in Hong Kong, the protesters may be safe…

[deleted]

Re: Signal app downloads spike as US protesters seek message encryption

#330

Post by thu2111 »

im3w1l wrote: post #312
thu2111 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SGX is for the servers not the clients. Their enclave is open source so you can theoretically audit it using RA. I say theoretically because these schemes all have a core problem when they're not federated - you have no idea what your client is really doing and it's the client performing remote attestation with the enclave. You have no control over it. It could update tomorrow and switch every last bit of encryption…

> That didn't stop [facebook] blocking people from forwarding links related to coronavirus. Source?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=facebook+whatsapp+covid+forwarding...

Pick any version of the story. Or read their blog post:

https://blog.whatsapp.com/Keeping-WhatsApp-Personal-and-Priv...

How do they know a message is forwarded? The encryption is meant to make identical plaintexts encrypt to different ciphertexts, so obviously they must be leaking the forwarding status in unencrypted parts of the message. And why is an encrypted service trying to combat misinformation to start with - isn't that a contradiction in terms? These things raise difficult questions. You'd hope that once a service decides to go fully encrypted, its staff would believe that what kind of information going over it or how accurate that is, isn't any longer their concern.

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