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Signal is having technical difficulties

status.signal.org

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Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#471

Post by jelliclesfarm »

caturopath wrote: post #304
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There could be conflict of interest if it’s a gift considering Acton was involved with WhatsApp before Signal was formed. And a donation would bring him deductions which he probably doesn’t want.. And there is a gift tax but since it’s a non profit, it gets different treatment. But having said that IRS scrutiny increases with such large donations. Chances high for an IRS audit. Etc. So many reasons why the loan aspec…

I don't understand practically any of this very well. > There could be conflict of interest if it’s a gift considering Acton was involved with WhatsApp before Signal was formed. Why is this conflict of interest less significant by structuring as a loan? > And a donation would bring him deductions which he probably doesn’t want.. Why wouldn't he want them? Is he time-shifting them or forgoing them? > And there is a gi…

Let me try. I am not a legal person.

I think there is a limit to the amount of gift in cash or other assets you can make without triggering a federal gift tax of around 40%. For an individual there is a limit of life time gift tax exemption around 11.5 million and 23 million if the gift is made as a couple.

1. A loan is a business transaction here. There is an expectation that it will be repaid. It can also be forgiven. A donation to a non profit can be ‘rewarded’ by way of tax deductions.

So Acton will profit from a similar tech he has already sold to Facebook as WhatsApp. His wealth likely came from WhatsApp sale to Facebook. It can be argued as conflict of interest.

Loan deals are very clean. Cut and dried. Any implied contract between the parties ends when the loan is repaid and the relationship is terminated.

2. I can’t speak for Acton. Or in any legal capacity, but if it were me, tax deductions to a non profit can be rife with complications because if he ever gets involved with signal as a board member or employee, it might rise questions.

3. Signal foundation is not a charity.

4. Even a billionaire ..and especially one..would prefer to keep books less complicated for IRS. Donations are often scrutinized for money laundering or tax evasion.

5. A gift invites taxes, iirc. Like..if I gifted you above 15k(and you are not my family or part of a trust/insurance beneficiary etc), you will have to pay taxes on the realized value of the gift.

6. This might have been an ideological instinct for Acton as there seems to have been some disagreement between Acton and FB on how they intended to take WhatsApp. Maybe this isn’t about money at all. Who knows. Hence the ‘Etc’.

Also I don’t know exactly what kind of non profit Signal is...

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#472

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

Krasnol wrote: post #466
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether they were working on the Github issue or not, is irrelevant. Those Github issues (if not their own intuition already) would have already made them aware that by requiring a phone number, they were compromising user privacy. Of course they had their arguments for requiring a phone number. You think I’m knocking the app. I’m not, I think it is the best option available. I just feel that as long as the phone num…

Of course it's relevant. One is some guy posting someone in the issue tracker where 1000s of other ideas are. The other is "them working on it". https://signal.org/blog/contact-discovery/ (2014)

Exactly, they have made arguments for the usefulness of the phone number as an identifier. But to the best of my knowledge, they have never specifically acknowledged in a blog post the state’s linkage of phone numbers to individual identities in many countries today, and the risks that this poses to dissidents.

Moxie is one of the best security researchers in the business, he was definitely aware of this before anyone ever brought it up on GitHub. Was it really so hard for the Signal devs to acknowledge this downside on the blog?

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#473

Post by Marsymars »

bilal4hmed wrote: post #372
Marsymars wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although monthly donations presumably get more siphoned off in processing fees than an equivalently large donation annually.

I dont know if Paypal allows for monthly donations but they dont have any processing fees https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/charity/3675786

Good to know!

But your link now leads to a “The charity you're looking for isn't available right now” page?

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#474

Post by MrPatan »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #273
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/

I really wish the EU would put up funds for open source software, like signal, it seems to be something they could get behind for the greater good. My previous job involved creating a graphical programming language for the generation of GPU shaders, which the EU partly funded. I knew it was going nowhere, and it made me slightly sad tax payer money was being used on something I knew, despite my best efforts, would no…

I know you mean well, and I understand the feeling, but how can you say in the same breath that the EU funds useless software and that you wish they funded more software?

Why would the newly-funded software be the useful kind instead of the useless kind?

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#475

Post by topkeks »

Daniel_sk wrote: post #365

"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

Does anyone outside Signal Foundation know how's their architecture? There are a lot of references to AWS, GCP, and Azure in the source code hosted in GitHub so they probably use them all in one way or another. It would be super interesting know more details about the infrastructure.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#476

Post by Niten »

Groxx wrote: post #435
chopin24 wrote: post #265

For all of you saying we should switch to Matrix, please outline the user sign up flow in your comment. Be detailed. Your audience is your 50 something aunt who calls her iPad her Facebook.

https://app.element.io/ -> click "create account" -> create account. The default is for a matrix.org account which is totally fine for anyone who can't/won't dig deeper.

Does that create an account with end-to-end encryption? If not, it's not a replacement for Signal at all.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#477

Post by probst »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #330
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/

if you can please consider making a regular recurring payment of a few bucks every month rather than a one-shot lump sum. this is because it's easier for a company to budget and plan with recurring revenue than a one-off donation.

Recurring and steady incoming is certainly useful for any company, but I would advise against doing tiny monthly donations over a larger yearly one! Processing fees are going to take away a significant chunk of your total donation relatively speaking if your individual donations are small.

Let's do some math: In signal's case, since they use Donorbox, there is a 2.9% + 30¢ fee for credit card transactions going via Stripe (in addition to another percentage that goes to donor box). If you were to donate $24 once per year, Signal would end up with just over $23 after processing fees had been deducted. If you donated $2 per month, they would end up with $19.7 per year, an additional $3 being spent on fees!

Edit: unless they have some special lower cost stripe rate of course, in which case you can ignore my comment altogether ;)

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#478

Post by coandco »

earth2mars wrote: post #98
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/

me too. just donated. please comment below if you also donated. let's keep this thing running! Its personal interest now, because I moved bunch of groups from whatsapp and its not working now! but at the same I love these guys for what they do.

I donated as well. I've gotten a lot of good use out of Signal over the years.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#479

Post by somehnguy »

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/

Not as impactful as a realtime donation but I recently changed my Amazon Smile charity to the Signal Foundation after a few years with my previous selection. I was surprised to learn they were an available option.

I also installed a browser extension to automatically bring me to smile.amazon when buying anything on Amazon - so far it has had no weird glitchiness when not buying something and works exactly as advertised. Highly recommend looking into this option if you're forgetful like me - so far it has helped me donate 4 times that I would have otherwise forgotten.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#480

Post by probst »

godelski wrote: post #188
aendruk wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd choose an annual recurring donation if the platform offered it.

They do monthly so you could divide your yearly contribution by 12.

Except you have to be careful so the monthly amounts don't end up so small that the credit card processing fees eat up the majority of your donation! The processing done via Stripe (which is used by Donorbox) has a fixed minimum fee of 30 cents per transaction.

Edit: unless they have some special lower cost stripe rate of course, in which case you can ignore my comment altogether ;)

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