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We can do better than Signal

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Re: We can do better than Signal

#221

Post by Ericson2314 »

Vinnl wrote: post #157
Ericson2314 wrote: post #13

As I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25795575 - WhatsApp: Oh wait, SMS etc. is completely insecure - Signal: Oh wait, WhatsApp is structurally unable to be a force for privacy - Matrix: Oh wait, even benevolent centralization is an unnecessary risk It's not that worse is better, but the general public's imagination can only grow so fast. We need to coax people along. As such, I do think all 3 serve a pu…

This is the worst thing about Matrix fans gloating over the outage: do you really think the outage helps Matrix become widespread? No, it will make people think twice before potentially taking that next step. And rightly so, because the same problem can happen in Matrix as well. A sudden surge in popularity can make matrix.org go down, and federation or not, that's not going to be a good look. But alas, growing pains…

I'm not trying to move people off signal. I of course wish the outage hadn't happened, but I'm not to avoid finding a silver lining when I can.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#222

Post by dublinben »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #89

I never understood what problem E2E encryption actually solves if you don't have full control over the client. All it would take Signal or WhatsApp to extract all your private messages is a single update of the client, which is trivial to do and currently very hard to validate as e.g. Apple does not even (to my knowledge) provide checksums to end users. The problem of messaging as it is today is that we missed the op…

>what problem E2E encryption actually solves

Pervasive, passive surveillance. If your threat model includes individually targeted exploits, then you'll need to look for other solutions.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#223

Post by omnimus »

fartcannon wrote: post #206
Arathorn wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as project lead for Matrix (and Element), I'm trying to understand the mixed feedback we've had this week, and somehow channel all the negativity into improving things. While some folks are clearly using it successfully and seem to like it, another bunch of people say "it was a huge pain in the butt to get E2EE working, and if it two software engineers struggled this much..." etc. When did this E2EE failure…

It's against the rules to call it out on HN, but given how incredible Matrix is, I will happily risk being banned to share that I believe there is an astroturfing campaign currently being undertaken to promote Signal and that you should take the complaints with a grain of salt. Matrix and other competition are being cast with FUD in an attempt to sway fence sitters. Thank you for Matrix and Element. My non-technical…

Funnily enough it seems like opposite and people are trying to put down Singal. Seriously we are all on the same side. It's not competition.

I've been running matrix instance for probably 6 years from times even before Vector.

The constant popups happening and mysterious verification fails gotten pretty annoying. So much that my non-technical friends started to complain. It has gotten objectively worse in past year.

I happily use both Signal as SMS replacement and Matrix for community/slack. Signal can't do chatrooms / more people well and it will probably never will. Matrix on the other hand is much worse at ux of the encryption process and overall user friendliness for casual users. It's not long ago when matrix didn't have 1on1 chats and would just make new room with 2people named after them.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#224

Post by vaduz »

humanrebar wrote: post #140
codeulike wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple Groups and painless multimedia was what gave WhatsApp the edge in the early days

Liked "Simple Groups and painless multimedia was what gave WhatsApp the edge in the early days" ------- ^ That's and ultra low res photo sharing what you get when you group SMS/MMS with folks in the Apple ecosystem. You don't get it in WhatsApp, etc.

And general costs. Whilst SMS might be free (or effectively free, plans including thousands of messages per month are not unknown) for vast swathes of people, but MMS is most definitely not.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#225

Post by ve55 »

solstice wrote: post #17
ve55 wrote: post #5

Being limited to a phone app and requiring phone numbers is severely limiting as well. Matrix is probably the current best-positioned e2e chat app that should be able to encompass more use cases, but it's difficult to convince users to use anything encrypted when alternatives have more network effects and usability. Network effects always seem to be particularly egregious gatekeepers for social apps, often keeping us…

Severely limiting? Please... Signal Desktop can be improved but I use it daily and it works for me™. Also, in many other countries, many people don't even have a PC (outside of work) but they'll definitely have a smartphone. So prioritizing app development is smart imo.

Not everyone wants their phone number to be their primary identifier

Re: We can do better than Signal

#226

Post by approxim8ion »

pantalaimon wrote: post #208

Why is XMPP not mentioned as an alternative? it's decentralized, fully open source and supports end to end encryption.

And easier to set up a server than Matrix. I suppose it's just not fashionable enough because it's rather old.

I used Conversations and Movim while Signal was down, and was greatly impressed with them.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#227

Post by fartcannon »

omnimus wrote: post #223
fartcannon wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's against the rules to call it out on HN, but given how incredible Matrix is, I will happily risk being banned to share that I believe there is an astroturfing campaign currently being undertaken to promote Signal and that you should take the complaints with a grain of salt. Matrix and other competition are being cast with FUD in an attempt to sway fence sitters. Thank you for Matrix and Element. My non-technical…

Funnily enough it seems like opposite and people are trying to put down Singal. Seriously we are all on the same side. It's not competition. I've been running matrix instance for probably 6 years from times even before Vector. The constant popups happening and mysterious verification fails gotten pretty annoying. So much that my non-technical friends started to complain. It has gotten objectively worse in past year.…

Signal is a single point of failure, cell-phone number dependent chat app. It should be put down along with WhatsApp.

If you don't own the server, you are not in control of your information.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#228

Post by randyrand »

Nextgrid wrote: post #37

One of the root causes for centralization is that we lost the ability to make our devices talk directly to each other. Before the Internet, people could contact each other directly by just making phone calls, and the phone network was neutral, so any phone or any network could call any other (even internationally) provided they pay the fee. Same with SMS and MMS. With the early Internet, every computer had an IP addr…

Well put. this is a core issue.

Apple also require all push notifications go through their servers btw. Afair

Re: We can do better than Signal

#229

Post by Evidlo »

sanqui wrote: post #219
Evidlo wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a screen recording of me trying to log in to app.element.io [0]. 0:10 - Stuck on "Verify this login" despite cancelling 1:00 - Same as above. The security phrase I have saved seems to be invalid. 1:38 - Can't drag or expand the left panel. Went away when I made the window wider after I stopped recording. 1:52 - After clicking "Verify" again, the session immediately verifies? I didn't enter any passphrase or do…

I'm not able to load your video, Firefox says unable to connect.

Fixed.

Re: We can do better than Signal

#230

Post by einpoklum »

marcinzm wrote: post #8

I'm confused about this piece. If there's true E2E encryption (verified by open source client code and review of released binaries) then why does it matter if the server code is backdoored or not? The whole point of E2E is that you don't need to care about the server being able to ever see the text of your messages because it never can.

> If there's true E2E encryption ... why does it matter if the server code is backdoored or not?

Meta-data: Log of who called whom, when and for how long. Also, user account details.

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