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Moxie Marlinspike has a plan to reclaim our privacy

newyorker.com

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Re: Moxie Marlinspike has a plan to reclaim our privacy

#71

Post by UncleMeat »

cwkoss wrote: post #61
3np wrote: post #2

I was vouching for Signal for all my friends for years, supported them with donations, and was really rooting for them. However, I regrettably can't trust in moxie having the best intentions with Signal anymore. Lost count of the number of times this has been recycled on HN so I'm not taking the time to formulate this extremely well but: * For the longest time, requires phone number as identifier. When asked to remov…

I've also heard that Signal on android leaks message text because of google's keyboard auto-prediction feature. They should implement their own keyboard or find a way to disable text prediction - and educate their users.

> They should implement their own keyboard or find a way to disable text prediction - and educate their users.

They do disable personalized text prediction. You are just misleading readers.

Re: Moxie Marlinspike has a plan to reclaim our privacy

#72

Post by toast0 »

upofadown wrote: post #29
elevation wrote: post #14

It's frustrating to see Signal's reputation undermined in technical circles by the shortsighted zeitgeist. Signal's constitutional emphasis on usability supports user demographics that no other security product can attract. My elderly relatives use Signal now instead of Skype. This drew in other family members who just wanted to video chat with grandma and grandpa. Matrix will never win markets like this. When tech n…

>Like the key agility that makes the Axolotl Ratchet so superior to GPG, I am not sure how you can usefully compare a thing originally intended to secure email to a thing intended to secure IM. The ratchet only provides forward secrecy anyway. My take on that is that it is a pointless thing for something like email and pointless in practice for most IM applications. Most IM users keep their old messages and practical…

It provides forward secrecy and deniability. Your chat database doesn't prove that I said what your database says I said.

Re: Moxie Marlinspike has a plan to reclaim our privacy

#73

Post by walrus01 »

sk2020 wrote: post #16
schoolornot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some concerns around the Signal foundation: The initial $50M in funding was a loan, not a donation, from Brian Acton to the new nonprofit Signal Technology Foundation. By the end of 2018, the loan had increased to $105,000,400, which is due to be repaid on February 28, 2068. The loan is unsecured and at 0% interest.[5] The Foundation is completely controlled by Brian Acton, who is the sole "member" of the nonp…

Is there a reason to suspect Brian Acton’s motives? I’m always skeptical of celebrity-hackers, but I don’t know why I should be worried about Acton in particular.

I sincerely hope that he is like a younger version of Mitch Kapor, who used his money to launch the EFF.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitch_Kapor

I would be very disappointed if I found out that Acton had any hidden motivations behind his philanthropic support.

Re: Moxie Marlinspike has a plan to reclaim our privacy

#74

Post by tw04 »

elevation wrote: post #14

It's frustrating to see Signal's reputation undermined in technical circles by the shortsighted zeitgeist. Signal's constitutional emphasis on usability supports user demographics that no other security product can attract. My elderly relatives use Signal now instead of Skype. This drew in other family members who just wanted to video chat with grandma and grandpa. Matrix will never win markets like this. When tech n…

I’m not even sure how you get there. Signal can’t move my messages from my iphone to a new laptop, it’s just all gone unless I was fortunate enough to have been manually making unencrypted copies of the database on the laptop, and I’m technically literate.

Saying the usability mode of: “you lose your history when you get a new device unless it happens to fall into a very narrow window” isn’t user friendly. And it has nothing to do with geeky nitpicking.

Re: Moxie Marlinspike has a plan to reclaim our privacy

#75

Post by stevespang »

Moxie Marlinspike is not his real name, it is Matthew Rosenfeld. Registration to the Signal app requires a phone no., so if you desire true privacy - - use a burner phone, and know that you are giving up your GPS location wherever/whenever you turn the phone on and connect.

Rosefield, one guy, can be "bought" and you would never even know it, whereas a community of open source developers who all watch each other is a bit harder to infiltrate and take over.

Re: Moxie Marlinspike has a plan to reclaim our privacy

#77

Post by dexterdog »

askvictor wrote: post #48
p1necone wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Signal is OSS and you can start your own fork & network if you want to. You can't though, what use is your own fork when nobody uses it?

If you're really paranoid, you'd convince your contacts to use your fork.

I can't even convince my contacts to use signal.

Re: Moxie Marlinspike has a plan to reclaim our privacy

#78

Post by joecool1029 »

schoolornot wrote: post #6
3np wrote: post #2

I was vouching for Signal for all my friends for years, supported them with donations, and was really rooting for them. However, I regrettably can't trust in moxie having the best intentions with Signal anymore. Lost count of the number of times this has been recycled on HN so I'm not taking the time to formulate this extremely well but: * For the longest time, requires phone number as identifier. When asked to remov…

I have some concerns around the Signal foundation: The initial $50M in funding was a loan, not a donation, from Brian Acton to the new nonprofit Signal Technology Foundation. By the end of 2018, the loan had increased to $105,000,400, which is due to be repaid on February 28, 2068. The loan is unsecured and at 0% interest.[5] The Foundation is completely controlled by Brian Acton, who is the sole "member" of the nonp…

> The Foundation is completely controlled by Brian Acton, who is the sole "member" of the nonprofit

It doesn't seem unusual to have a single member nonprofit. However, is it a usual thing to loan to your own nonprofit foundation at 0%? Without a plan to generate positive cashflow into the foundation, would he forgive this loan to offset future taxes?

Genuinely curious.

Re: Moxie Marlinspike has a plan to reclaim our privacy

#79

Post by joecool1029 »

codethief wrote: post #54
schoolornot wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some concerns around the Signal foundation: The initial $50M in funding was a loan, not a donation, from Brian Acton to the new nonprofit Signal Technology Foundation. By the end of 2018, the loan had increased to $105,000,400, which is due to be repaid on February 28, 2068. The loan is unsecured and at 0% interest.[5] The Foundation is completely controlled by Brian Acton, who is the sole "member" of the nonp…

I think you intended to link the sources but you didn't. Could you still provide them please? I'd be very interested in where those numbers come from.

Here's the foundation's Form 990 from 2018: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/82450...

Re: Moxie Marlinspike has a plan to reclaim our privacy

#80

Post by senectus1 »

est31 wrote: post #33
bilal4hmed wrote: post #7

Other than matrix, what are some other alternatives or upcomers in the messaging field I should try. Matrix still has a high burden of me setting up my own server and maintaining it. Till their P2P solution doesnt release, they have their own metadata problem.

In addition to what the siblings said, Threema. Doesn't require phone numbers, is end to end encrypted like Signal. https://threema.ch/ Also they announced that they will open source their client.

Long time signal user here, threema looks very interesting and seems to be trucking along quite well
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