Signal Is Back • Hacker News Board

Re: Signal Is Back

#121

Post by faitswulff » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #75

johnchristopher wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet at the end of the day we don't hear about a mass exodus to matrix. We don't even know if the main @matrix.org server would have held and if federation would have keep working. Not worth the cost? How much did whatsapp cost to Facebook? How much did whatsapp cost before that? Matrix is also running on free and so far we have hosted server offerings but no single individual account offer.

> we don't hear about mass exodus to matrix. This is argumentum ad populum . > main @matrix.org server There is no "main" server. matrix.org is the biggest one, but it is circunstancial. Matrix and Element do not want be the biggest instances or keep things under their control. I can bet that people working on Matrix would be thrilled with the idea of helping people create more instances, and even it would be benefic…

Isn’t every startup, every service, every open source library an argumentum ad populum? Especially network goods like messaging services.

I don’t doubt there’s a lot of value in federated decentralized services, but there’s also a lot of value in confusion/configuration-free usability.

Thanks to comments endorsing matrix here, I will be installing it to try, but what Signal gets right is that it pretty much Just Works, and that’s the point GP is making. Frictionless UX coupled with cryptographic excellence make it compelling for lay people, and if it’s between Signal or nothing for the majority of nontechnical folk, then they’re better off using Signal.

Re: Signal Is Back

#122

Post by z77dj3kl » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

xrisk wrote: post #70

imposterr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not mistaken, signal is specifically hosted on AWS to so that governments can't just blacklist their IPs without blacklisting all of AWS. So moving to bare metal isn't really an option.

Why would they blacklist IPs? The bans I've seen (in India) are based on sniffing SNI. Using AWS doesn't help at all in that case.

They actually get around SNI blocks (or did, I'm not sure if anymore) with a technique called "domain fronting". If I recall correctly, AWS wasn't so happy about it when it was bought to their attention and they were asked to stop. There was even some discussion on HN about it. Not exactly sure what the current state is.

Re: Signal Is Back

#123

Post by rglullis » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #121

rglullis wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we don't hear about mass exodus to matrix. This is argumentum ad populum . > main @matrix.org server There is no "main" server. matrix.org is the biggest one, but it is circunstancial. Matrix and Element do not want be the biggest instances or keep things under their control. I can bet that people working on Matrix would be thrilled with the idea of helping people create more instances, and even it would be benefic…

Isn’t every startup, every service, every open source library an argumentum ad populum ? Especially network goods like messaging services. I don’t doubt there’s a lot of value in federated decentralized services, but there’s also a lot of value in confusion/configuration-free usability. Thanks to comments endorsing matrix here, I will be installing it to try, but what Signal gets right is that it pretty much Just Wor…

> there’s also a lot of value in confusion/configuration-free usability

> it’s between Signal or nothing for the majority of nontechnical folk.

This is a false dichotomy. Nothing about federated services that make it intrinsically less usable.

> pretty much Just Works

Until it stopped working. And it failed spectacularly. For everyone.

I might have to repeat this until I go hoarse, but switching from one centralized service to another is not progress. It doesn't make us free. You are still at the mercy of an selected few to take things in the direction they want, everyone is still dependent on their success and the more people adopt it the more difficult it becomes to escape it case the leaders subvert their power to go against the will of the people.

Re: Signal Is Back

#124

Post by as_ » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

juliand wrote: post #100

emn13 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Whatsapp's client is terrible - it not only requires a phone during signup, it requires an active connection to your phone, so if your battery is every running low - good luck with that. Additionally, it allows just 1 desktop client to be active at a time, which is just a hassle. Finally, in practice the connection to a well-charged phone is still subject to the vagaries of a phone app - it's very common for th…

As a power user I find what you said to be strong points of WhatsApp Web. For instance, I want it to alert me as soon as there's a web connection and that's only possible with the current connection model and for security measures I think it's safer to have only one instance at a time. The connection reliability is a hassle but usually when you're in the desktop you also have a good wifi connection and even though th…

> As a power user...

And

> Someone you share your laptop with can just open the Telegram app ...

Are in plain conflict :)

Re: Signal Is Back

#125

Post by rglullis » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

matkoniecz wrote: post #115

rglullis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia's costs do not grow linearly with the amount of people accessing it. Signal has to run servers and store the data for every user it has. Also, if the wikimedia foundation closed tomorrow, Wikipedia's content would live on mirrors and IPFS gateways. It would still be useful - perhaps even more efficient than it is. Signal's outage yesterday that this logic does not apply for them. If they run out of money or…

> Wikipedia's costs do not grow linearly with the amount of people accessing it. Signal has to run servers and store the data for every user it has. Wikipedia also needs to run servers. Slope may be less steep and there is part for hosting of content but mandatory costs are also growing linearly with the amount of people accessing it. (WMF problems and how money is spend is a bit related issue, but it is not mandator…

If network/storage were really a key factor in the costs of running wikipedia, they should be pushing it hard to get a decentralized version of it. So far political (Turkey shutting down their access in the country) and not technical/operational/capital issues have pushed them in this direction.

Re: Signal Is Back

#126

Post by faitswulff » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #123

faitswulff wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t every startup, every service, every open source library an argumentum ad populum ? Especially network goods like messaging services. I don’t doubt there’s a lot of value in federated decentralized services, but there’s also a lot of value in confusion/configuration-free usability. Thanks to comments endorsing matrix here, I will be installing it to try, but what Signal gets right is that it pretty much Just Wor…

> there’s also a lot of value in confusion/configuration-free usability > it’s between Signal or nothing for the majority of nontechnical folk. This is a false dichotomy. Nothing about federated services that make it intrinsically less usable. > pretty much Just Works Until it stopped working. And it failed spectacularly. For everyone . I might have to repeat this until I go hoarse, but switching from one centralized…

> Nothing about federated services that make it intrinsically less usable.

I didn't say that. I would say that Signal is more usable than Element, though. While I was commenting, I installed Element and the UX is just not as smooth as Signal - even the quick start instructions aren't as simple: "go to matrix site, click through to Element, read instructions to return to site to configure, install app, register username/pwd, forget about configuration step because it's apparently not necessary after all (?)" vs "go to signal.org, install app, verify phone number." It's not terrible for technically capable folk, but the friction is why it's not as popular as Signal.

And while argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy, practically speaking it is a boon to be popular in most things.

Judging by your last paragraph, it comes down to a matter of values - is decentralization important to you? Then hands down, Signal will lose. But for a large number of people who don't care about decentralization, they will do what's popular and easy. OWS, I presume, wants to make sure the easiest, most popular solution is also secure.

Re: Signal Is Back

#127

Post by hanniabu » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

decrypt wrote: post #33

zerof1l wrote: post #25

Can somebody explain their financial model? How are they paying for the servers and stuff. The claim "No ads. No trackers." and that they are "free for everyone".

They are powered by donations [1] Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, who left Facebook post WhatsApp acquisition, infused 50M USD too. [2] I hear he lent another 50M with 0% interest, repayable by 2068. [3] [1] https://signal.org/donate [2] https://www.wired.com/story/signal-foundation-whatsapp-brian... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Foundation

What happens if they don't repay by 2068?

Re: Signal Is Back

#128

Post by oarsinsync » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

juliand wrote: post #100

emn13 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Whatsapp's client is terrible - it not only requires a phone during signup, it requires an active connection to your phone, so if your battery is every running low - good luck with that. Additionally, it allows just 1 desktop client to be active at a time, which is just a hassle. Finally, in practice the connection to a well-charged phone is still subject to the vagaries of a phone app - it's very common for th…

As a power user I find what you said to be strong points of WhatsApp Web. For instance, I want it to alert me as soon as there's a web connection and that's only possible with the current connection model and for security measures I think it's safer to have only one instance at a time. The connection reliability is a hassle but usually when you're in the desktop you also have a good wifi connection and even though th…

> As a power user ... Someone you share your laptop with can just ...

As a fellow power user, other people who use my laptop have their own account[0], use a guest account[1], or can be trusted to use my account[2].

I know some of these things might be something you'd not prefer but I choose the hassle instead.

[0] partner & family

[1] friends

[2] partner

Re: Signal Is Back

#129

Post by zamadatix » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #85

rimliu wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also happen to be the ones people actually use.

You use email. You use the internet. You use phone networks.

And what % of users are actually advertising their domain, running BGP, and operating their PBX? Now what % of users go through Gmail, Lumen, or AT&T and what happens when one of those go down? Which of these don't have centralized administration/regulation bodies? Which of these will a user say they haven't had hours of downtime with in the last year?

Even in the case you have a very well federated system with users very dispersed and the federation had 100% uptime and no bugs... how does it affect uptime for users? A central server going down 1% of the time for all users is the same as 1,000,000 decentralized servers being down 1% of the time for their 1/1,000,000 users. Nobody cares others can use the service during an outage they care they can use the service.

Federation capability at the protocol (even if it's not used in a truly federated way) provides a lot of great features, uptime for users isn't really one though. The most relevant is probably when Signal shuts down intentionally (tomorrow or 1,000 years from now, doesn't matter) you can't just migrate to a different Signal server without all of your contacts moving to the same one. This is akin to taking your /24 with you to your new ISP, porting your phone number to a new phone provider, or taking your custom domain email from Gmail to a different host and the ability to do that on those federated systems is probably why they remain in use today.

Re: Signal Is Back

#130

Post by mxuribe » Sun, Jan 17, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

usr1106 wrote: post #47

mxuribe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because matrix (the open source protocol) is federated, you have options: matrix server (for self-hosting), SDKs, bots, libraries, etc. = https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now matrix clients = https://matrix.org/clients/ matrix bridges (to interoperate between matrix and other services like irc, slack, telegram, etc.) = https://matrix.org/bridges/ if you don't want to manage on your own, and simply want to…

Matrix is not ready for the general public. I am a user who can (mostly) deal with the horrible user experience of pgp. With matrix I immediately run into trouble that some of my chats could not decrypted the second day any more. The documentation is confusing, the spec has been changed less than a year ago IIRC and different clients a at different stages of implementation. Nothing that a random user could handle.

I'm sorry that your matrix-related experience was less than ideal. I have heard of smaller numbers of people encountering issues (no denying that), but yet a greater number are still active...so i don;t know what to say...and it certainly isn't my job to try and convince or convert to towards it if you're not really interested.

> ...documentation is confusing, the spec has been changed less than a year ago IIRC and different clients a at different stages of implementation.

An opinion on confusion around documentation is too subjective for me to comment on, and i'm not sure if you're referring to user doc or developer doc or sys admin doc. Regardless, many folks seem to be building plenty of clients, bots, bridges, services, etc. using the documentation. So i'd at least say the dev. docs seem to be sufficient for many devs. While i do wish there were many more examples used in the dev docs, i have found them to be quite helpful and informative...but again, this is subjective. As to the spec being changed, actually i believe there is quite some acceleration around this, and i feel that is good in these early days...I feel like we might want a dynamic spec at least to get things as best as possible...and then years later, slow things down to avoid breakage - but maybe that's just me. Finally as far as the numerous clients, i think this is a good thing too. Let there be plenty of creative attempts at "getting this right", i say! Diversity is a good thing, and for apps/clients too! ...and much like the presence of numerous email clients, many users might just have different preferences, so its great that the underlying protocol (and associated specs) allow (if not encourage) that. Yes, eventually, after dust settles we might all congregate aroiund a small number of clients that are the "best"...but until then, it is still early days! I for one am enjoying my journey in the matrix world! (Caveat: I am not at all affiliated with any matrix project nor corporate entity, nor client dev. team, etc...I'm really just some random fan boy of matrix.)