Signal is having technical difficulties • Hacker News Board

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#221

Post by oblio » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #174

oblio wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Matrix server?

E.g. OVH, Hetzner, TransIP... idk whatever kinda server you like. Or repurpose an old laptop at home, for a few Watts you get something that's usually more powerful per ¤ than a VPSes (or "cloud instances" in newspeak). Then install a Matrix server, add your domain, and you've got your own Signal alternative. Or just use the standard matrix.org home server if you're just trying it out / don't mind a not-super-fast ho…

IRC all over again. I don't see this taking over until someone comes up with its Gmail.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#222

Post by caturopath » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

JUjFJE2I9Y wrote: post #172

alan5 wrote: post #71

I just donated to Signal after seeing the error banner in the app. I realised I was more than happy to pay WhatsApp's yearly charge back in the pre-Facebook days (think it was 70p or so?). Figured I could give Signal a few quid every now and then, maybe keep a server up for a few seconds :) Donation link should anyone be interested: https://signal.org/donate/

"...As of June 2020, Signal had more than 32.4 million total downloads, and the app had approximately 20 million monthly active users as of December 2020...." [0] "...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…

Why is this structured as a loan? It sounds like it's structured in such a way that he isn't interested in getting paid back. Is it so he can exercise control in a weird scenario like a buyout? Is it some weird tax thing?

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#223

Post by zamadatix » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

roughly wrote: post #197

zamadatix wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how much covers my use?

Hell if I know. Give what feels right to you - imagine the service going away tomorrow, and someone saying "If only you'd paid $X/mo, this wouldn't be happening!" What's the value of X where you'd regret not having done so?

Not really worried about funding its existence for the sake of it just not freeloading my use while it's here and I decide it's worth it which is what the gp was referring to as well.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#224

Post by okso » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

Reedx wrote: post #49

okso wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article from 2018 illustrates the architecture of Signal: https://sorincocorada.ro/signal-messanger-architecture/

Based on that, they use Google, Apple, Twilio and AWS in the backend. All who have shown they are willing to deplatform with little notice as the result of kneejerk public pressure. How easily can Signal replace those dependencies if this comes for them? "Extremists move to secret online channels": https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/extremists-move-se...

As far as I know, Google and Apple are only used to send Push notifications to users. These are optional, and Signal on Android can be used without Google.

AWS S3 is/was used to share files with other users. It became a standardized API, with many alternatives supporting the protocol, so switching to a different provider or on-premises should not be difficult.

Signal intends to remove the dependency on phone numbers, and therefore Twilio, but this has not be done yet.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#225

Post by neltnerb » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

zamadatix wrote: post #103

neltnerb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a perfect time to learn about using matrix... which is how I told my friends that I usually talk to on signal that signal was broken. It's actually decentralized so like email only one server goes out at a time.

How does this change things for the user though. E.g. in email it doesn't matter if your email is down or everyones email is down, you're not switching to a new email host every time yours goes down and you don't particularly care if someone else can communicate while you cant.

That's true, even if only 1% of users are on each of 99 servers while the rest do something else, 1% of users will be frustrated when their server breaks, like with email.

Good point.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#226

Post by didibus » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

eitland wrote: post #72

faitswulff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it’s par for the course for newly popular services. Some don’t survive the popularity and some thrive in spite of the degraded service. Signal will figure it out. All the best to the engineering team at Signal right now!

One of those annoying Telegram users here. I too wish Signal engineers good luck! (Even if I personally mostly use Telegram and hope for Matrix to "win", Signal is a fantastic piece of software as far as I can see, both as an extremely secure (I think) messaging client in its own right and also as an inspiration for other messaging platforms.)

Telegram is not a secure chat application though. It's more similar to Facebook Messenger. You're better off using WhatsApp over it if you care about security.

Or obviously Signal.

When it comes to Matrix, it's a little trickier. Riot, the most common Matrix client does E2E encryption on DMs and invite only rooms. What I'm not sure is what happens if you send a private message to someone who is using Matrix client that doesn't do E2E. Will it fail to send? Or will it like fallback to not encrypted?

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#227

Post by dave_sid » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

dt3ft wrote: post #191

dave_sid wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good point. People will happily pay 50 pounds a month for an IPhone and thinking nothing of it. But then really struggle to pay a penny for an app that runs in that iPhone. There’s some funny psychology going on.

There is very little to no awareness of what it takes to create software. We, the developers who have released our work for free, have allowed this to happen. It feels like mobbing, heck, we keep reading about other devs mobbing others by opening GitHub issues and demanding new features or bugfixes for software they did not pay for. I really hope that we can do something about raising awareness.

I can’t remember if it was always that way. When the App Store opened I guess there was a standard price of 59p for an app. Before that, 59p would have been seen as a ridiculous price to pay for a copy of software. Imagine buying windows 95 on a CD for 59p. By setting the bar so low for app prices at the start, it’s possibly just become the way it is now.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#228

Post by scambier » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

Reedx wrote: post #49

okso wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article from 2018 illustrates the architecture of Signal: https://sorincocorada.ro/signal-messanger-architecture/

Based on that, they use Google, Apple, Twilio and AWS in the backend. All who have shown they are willing to deplatform with little notice as the result of kneejerk public pressure. How easily can Signal replace those dependencies if this comes for them? "Extremists move to secret online channels": https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/extremists-move-se...

All IM apps rely on Google or Apple (on their respective platforms) for the push notifications. The alternative is polling in relatively small intervals, but that wakes up the app, which uses the battery without any real usage.

And if the OS decides to kill your app's process, your polling dies with it and you don't get notifications.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#229

Post by caturopath » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

bilal4hmed wrote: post #217

alg0 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loan seems to be more a techinical stand-point than a real loan.

The loan is not a loan, its a gift. There was some tax reason it was done this way

Do you understand what the tax play is?

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#230

Post by pbronez » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #183

glerk wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> since the latter wasn't end to end encrypted in the first place I’m pretty sure keybase is end-to-end encrypted, at least that’s what they are claiming. What makes you think it isn’t?

This makes me think it isn't: https://security.stackexchange.com/q/222055/10863 > after [installing the Keybase app] and starting a chat with your friend, you still need to verify that the server sent you the right encryption key. Since you can't host your own server, it has to be the Keybase, Inc's server that sends you the encryption key of your friend. > there is no way to display [the 'signature chain' of the per…

The whole point of Keybase is that you could verify the keys that the server sent you by looking at signed statements posted on third-party websites. That verification happens client side.