Signal has been my daily messenger for messaging my SO and family for the past couple of years, so I'm looking forward to the moment when our legacy group gets upgraded and we can finally do group (video) calls.
Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal
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Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
But to be clear it's rather the other way around [0] :) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Protocol#Usage
Assuming you’re suggesting WhatsApp is a Signal replacement, rather than what the previous commentor said, I’m afraid you’re mixing things up. From your Wikipedia link: > The Signal Protocol's development was started by Trevor Perrin and Moxie Marlinspike (Open Whisper Systems) in 2013. From the WhatsApp Wikipedia page: > After months at beta stage, [WhatsApp] launched in November 2009, exclusively on the App Store f…
WhatsApp integrated Signal protocol to all communication around 2014, so not much is left after the 2009 old school WhatsApp.
It's mentioned on the same wiki page.
So the branding and history of WhatsApp is longer, but the core is Signal. Also if you used both apps and their desktop clients you can easily see how close these two are.
Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal
#73Does Signal still fore you to use a phone number? This is a huge deal breaker for a privacy concerned messenger. That's why I prefer using Threema.
It seems that Threema charges for the app instead of requiring a phone number. Do they offer anonymous payment options like cryptocurrency or cash by mail?
I'm not sure how data protection works with Google Play and App Store payments, but I feel like this could be a potential privacy problem.
Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal
#74Calls are unusable in Signal: they drain a fully charged battery in about half an hour.
My biggest issue with calls on Signal is that if the app crashes, the call disconnects. This has happened to my on my up-to-date iPhone (10S) if I'm on a long call and get another Signal message, which means I need to unlock the app again.
On the desktop, I really wish that you could resize the contacts sidebar to just show the sender's icon, as you can in iMessage, but the maintainers don't seem to be particularly interested: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/2510
Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disagree. Signal on desktop works very well for me and is very useful for quickly sending files from desktop to phone and back, especially when the phone isn't handy.
The desktop app is very useful but it's mainly because there's no alternative. It's bloated, slow, under-featured. Telegram also has an electron desktop app but at least it lets me do ultra-advanced things like changing the spellchecker's language on the fly. As somebody who's used to 100KB snappy and fully featured IRC clients I'm always baffled when I use these modern clients that use 3 orders of magnitude more res…
IIRC there are a few unofficial Signal CLI clients.
Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal
#76While 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
Yeah it's so odd to me that Signal has such top tier engineers and they can't manage to get a presentable desktop app. It looks and feels like a boilerplate Electron chat app with no styling and subpar performance (oh but they have stickers :eyeroll:).
Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal
#77Really waiting for matrix to add native group video calls without jitsi
Matrix is great IRC, slack replacement but signal is WhatsApp replacement.
Check out Fluffy Chat for a more personal messenger vibe with Matrix https://fluffychat.im/en/
There are other of these style apps too, but fluffy is furthest along I think. https://matrix.org/clients/
Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal
#78Does someone know more about the architecture of Signal's group calls? From looking at the ringrtc source, it seems that the calls are not fully meshed, but use some kind of group key and a SFU for server-side media distribution. Is that correct?
I work at Signal and wrote much of that code, so I'm familiar with it :).
Yes, it uses a server for media distribution and uses encryption keys that the server does not know.
Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal
#79> Group calls are currently limited to 5 participants Compared to other apps which offer group E2EE video calls: Duo - 32 participants Facetime - 32 participants Zoom - 100 participants (or 1000 w/ a Large Meeting License)
I work at Signal on group calls. We're being careful with rollout. The limit will hopefully be increased soon.
Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assuming you’re suggesting WhatsApp is a Signal replacement, rather than what the previous commentor said, I’m afraid you’re mixing things up. From your Wikipedia link: > The Signal Protocol's development was started by Trevor Perrin and Moxie Marlinspike (Open Whisper Systems) in 2013. From the WhatsApp Wikipedia page: > After months at beta stage, [WhatsApp] launched in November 2009, exclusively on the App Store f…
WhatsApp integrated Signal protocol to all communication around 2014, so not much is left after the 2009 old school WhatsApp. It's mentioned on the same wiki page. So the branding and history of WhatsApp is longer, but the core is Signal. Also if you used both apps and their desktop clients you can easily see how close these two are.
Fair points. The whatsapp backend and protocol may have changed significantly to essentially just be a clone of open whisper systems.
The front end, however, remains significantly better on WhatsApp than on Signal.
I continue to use both daily, and as much as I loathe Facebook, I still prefer the UX on WhatsApp way more than Signal. That they look similar is more down to the fact that messengers today all look the same (look at facebook messenger, iMessage) than that WhatsApp has taken Signal's front end. If anything, Signal is slowly trying to emulate WhatsApp features, in a more privacy-preserving way, which understandably takes time.