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

Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

signal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 121 posts

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#41

Post by viccuad »

kelnos wrote: post #17
gspr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it odd that packaging for a specific distro is an upstream effort. I never understood why upstream source should include Debian/Fedora-specific files. This is generally frowned-upon in Debian too. Upstream's effort are nearly always wrong from the distribution's point of view, and extra busywork has to be done to get rid of upstream's attempt.

On the flip side, I definitely do appreciate when upstream includes a debian directory, as that means I can easily self-build my own package with the latest source, even if I'm on Debian stable or whatever and don't expect and update or backport.

That's also the case if there's an official Debian package; you can build whatever package from whatever distribution (you may be missing dependencies, but it would be the same with an upstream debian directory). If one is going to contribute a debian directory, maybe it's more efficient to contribute it to Debian directly.

Note also that making "a" .deb package is not the same as making an official Debian package that satisfies the Debian Policy and passes the automated linters (lintian, piuparts, autopkgtest, etc). The second will have the minimum quality that Debian expects.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#42

Post by viccuad »

soziawa wrote: post #38
brobinson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threema is not open source yet so I wouldn't use it for that reason. I did like their security whitepaper, though, and they do have some impressive clients (Mercedes-Benz, etc.).

Additionally they have regular audits [1]. Open source only without any actual thorough reviews doesn't cut it in my opinion. [1]: https://threema.ch/en/blog/posts/audit-2020-en

Open source is a precondition. They can promise you the world, but if you can't build it yourself and get reproducible builds, who knows what's in there.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#43

Post by ffpip »

zaroth wrote: post #32
dastx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> apps are close to malware installers I'm probably out of the loop, do you mind expanding on this?

IMO this was part of a misinformation campaign against Zoom from several months back. Zoom is not malware and never was malware, although Zoom did so some installer tricks to help computer illiterate users get into meeting more quickly, which coincidentally is their entire value-add. Note I own no shares in Zoom, do not and never have worked for Zoom, and have no financial interest in Zoom.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/zoom-tech...

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/2/21204648/zoom-macos-instal...

> Zoom is not malware and never was malware

I have never said that. I said that installers are close to malware.

> which coincidentally is their entire value-add.

Yes. This also enabled full camera and mic access without user interaction. Entire value-add.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/8/20687014/zoom-security-fla...

https://twitter.com/mathowie/status/1148393069667991552

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#44

Post by ffpip »

dastx wrote: post #20
ffpip wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Duo started with up to 4 participants back in 2019. Facetime is apple only. Zoom is not even end to end encrypted (edit: now), and was built for businesses, and apps are close to malware installers

> apps are close to malware installers I'm probably out of the loop, do you mind expanding on this?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/zoom-tech...

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/2/21204648/zoom-macos-instal...

https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/8/20687014/zoom-security-fla...

https://twitter.com/mathowie/status/1148393069667991552

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#45

Post by akvadrako »

zaroth wrote: post #32
dastx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> apps are close to malware installers I'm probably out of the loop, do you mind expanding on this?

IMO this was part of a misinformation campaign against Zoom from several months back. Zoom is not malware and never was malware, although Zoom did so some installer tricks to help computer illiterate users get into meeting more quickly, which coincidentally is their entire value-add. Note I own no shares in Zoom, do not and never have worked for Zoom, and have no financial interest in Zoom.

That's hogwash – Zoom is more difficult to get working for computer newbies than say Jitsi, which doesn't need any weird installer tricks.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#46

Post by robert_foss »

axegon_ wrote: post #3

While Signal is pretty awful on desktop(not to mention this[1] thing), it is my goto messenger on my phone. Brilliant security and props for being one of the very few to extensively use Rust in production. I was really sad to see they hire in the US only. [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/1630

The only terrible thing about is it being Electron based. Most mobile IMs have no desktop client at all.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#47

Post by robert_foss »

viccuad wrote: post #42
soziawa wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally they have regular audits [1]. Open source only without any actual thorough reviews doesn't cut it in my opinion. [1]: https://threema.ch/en/blog/posts/audit-2020-en

Open source is a precondition. They can promise you the world, but if you can't build it yourself and get reproducible builds, who knows what's in there.

Yeah, agree. We've had enough fun recently with the likes of the CIA backed Crypto-AG.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#48

Post by robert_foss »

tW4r wrote: post #35
jayp1418 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix is great IRC, slack replacement but signal is WhatsApp replacement.

Matrix is self hosted and more of a protocol while signal is not

The difference is only that signal doesn't allow anyone else to run the host side of the service.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#49

Post by hiq »

ffpip wrote: post #18
Ansil849 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Zoom is not even end to end encrypted https://blog.zoom.us/zoom-rolling-out-end-to-end-encryption-...

It's not by default, and still hasn't rolled out here.

And I don't want to diminish the skills of Zoom engineers, but when Google and Facebook (WA) can't offer more than 32 / 8, which tradeoff is Zoom doing to be able to offer E2EE calls with 1000 people?

I don't think my phone would be able to receive 1000 different video streams simultaneously for instance.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#50

Post by vinay427 »

anewguy9000 wrote: post #4

i want to like signal but the UX is wanting. i installed it today and it only imported some of my sms messages; found almost 1000 open issues on github. then i sent the "get signal" message to a friend who installed it but our messages still kept saying they were insecure sms. turns out we had to "refresh" our contact lists (there is no menu option to do this, you're just supposed to know to pull down on the contacts…

> i also find the contrast ratio too high in dark mode

I actually tend to prefer this style of dark mode for messaging or other short-term use apps on an AMOLED display because it's just "off" with no background, but I agree that there really should be another option. Plenty of apps I've seen have Dark and Dark (AMOLED) versions, or similar.

Post reply on HN