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Signal is having technical difficulties

status.signal.org

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Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#381

Post by prostoalex »

dave_sid wrote: post #185
dt3ft wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is being used by at least 10 well-paid medical professionals (group chat) that I know of, and one of them proclaimed today that Signal is owned by Elon Musk (probably because he tweeted about it). I did not care to educate them. And this is in a first world country with a rather wealthy population. Why am I saying this? Users don't give a damn, they expect free things, and they expect things which work. They h…

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.

Free messaging apps are a scroll away.

Free iPhones not so much.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#382

Post by z77dj3kl »

stonesweep wrote: post #332

For those unaware, the Signal protocol developed by Open Whisper (previous name) is what was adopted by WhatsApp / Facebook Messenger / Skype and possibly others. In a sense, Signal is the original reference implementation of the specification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Protocol

Facebook Messenger at least does not use the protocol by default, maybe for secret conversations.

But the Signal folks did indeed help WhatsApp implement the Signal protocol, which is kind of ironic.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#383

Post by tw04 »

caturopath wrote: post #222
JUjFJE2I9Y wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...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?

I'm assuming so that if moxy gets hit by a bus and someone else tries to step in and monetize it, he gets his money back. If it remains free and open source I'm sure he'll forgive it.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#384

Post by input_sh »

bitcharmer wrote: post #289
godelski wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure a 5x+ growth in under a week is really "for a while now". If anything I'm surprised they've kept it together this long. The growth looks more like an exponential function too, so that's even more difficult. Good luck Signal team!

As much as I'm cheering for Signal, yes this was absolutely foreseeable.

From their tweet:

> We have been adding new servers and extra capacity at a record pace every single day this week nonstop, but today exceeded even our most optimistic projections. Millions upon millions of new users are sending a message that privacy matters. We appreciate your patience.

https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1350165610936766464

They've seen it coming, just never expected this much new traffic.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#385

Post by bgentry »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #380
bgentry wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when a whistleblower or dissident wants to use Signal? Should they be forced to cough up a payment with a traceable credit card or app store account in order to use it? For that reason alone I think it's important for the service to be free. Though I would perhaps support some reasonable free usage limits if needed to prevent abuse.

How sympathetic are the Signal developers to the concerns of dissidents, really? Signal has had a policy of many years to require a phone number – buying a SIM card now requires providing government ID in so many countries – and only now have they promised progress on this front someday. They also recommend that users install through the Play Store, and they only grudgingly provide a standalone APK. Anyone with the P…

They've actually said publicly that they're working on making it possible to use Signal without a phone number, via usernames. Here's a recent hint at that: https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1347248608660185089

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#386

Post by olah_1 »

bilal4hmed wrote: post #258
olah_1 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird that it isn't listed in the data in that document. I have no idea why anyone would donate $20 when they're sipping on $100m ...

$100 million given current growth wont last as long. Telegram 4 years had a run rate of $1 million per month for servers and dev costs. At that time they had about 200 million users. Signal is using AWS & GCP ( for cloud fronting ), they could be approaching that spend level.

> $100 million given current growth wont last as long.

That is 100% their problem, though. I trust that they will develop a sustainable business model when it becomes necessary. Otherwise, look at their tax info shared above. Sporadic donations won't even make a small dent.

I mean, shoot, they won't even give us a hint at how much to donate to cover our own costs. That would be a start.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#387

Post by rammy1234 »

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/

Thanks for this link. I donated seeing this link. Should encourage signal to do more

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#388

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

bgentry wrote: post #385
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How sympathetic are the Signal developers to the concerns of dissidents, really? Signal has had a policy of many years to require a phone number – buying a SIM card now requires providing government ID in so many countries – and only now have they promised progress on this front someday. They also recommend that users install through the Play Store, and they only grudgingly provide a standalone APK. Anyone with the P…

They've actually said publicly that they're working on making it possible to use Signal without a phone number, via usernames. Here's a recent hint at that: https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1347248608660185089

Yes, and I acknowledged that in my own post. But it took years to get to the point where they are even talking about upcoming support for this, let alone actually providing it. In the interim, this aspect of great importance to people living in authoritarian regimes was ignored.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#389

Post by eitland »

didibus wrote: post #203
sedev wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Telegram is a rational decision if you want a service that's good at fun conversations. Signal's value proposition is _secure conversations_ and it does that much better than other services. "Fun" is not part of Signal's value proposition. More people want/need fun conversations than need secure ones. Regardless of what people "should" want, Telegram serves people's mundane everyday needs materially better than…

I'm a little confused because you brought up Telegram specifically. WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger offer the same level of security as Telegram. In fact, I think WhastApp is more secure since it does E2E encryption by default. It's true that Telegram is about "fun" and not security. I just wasn't sure if you tried to imply Telegram is like Signal with a focus on fun as well, or you just meant most people don't care…

> WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger offer the same level of security as Telegram.

If you look only at encryption, WhatsApp is even better.

Once you factor in the fact that all your metadata is vacuumed into Facebooks data lake and that it might very well end up in Google Cloud if either you or someone you chat with activate cloud backups.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#390

Post by pmlnr »

lucb1e wrote: post #84
shafyy wrote: post #67

Just a friendly reminder that Signal runs on donations and that if you can go and give them some money: https://signal.org/donate/

Or that you can use that money for a Matrix server instead of supporting centralization. Element is less polished than Signal app but they've been catching up quite fast. If you and your friends aren't locked into the Signal ecosystem yet, might be worth considering, especially if you're techies.

If anything, they are better off with conversations.im, blabber.im, etc for now, given how rough matrix can get.
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