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A Statement on Recent Events Between Signal and the Anti-Censorship Community

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Re: A Statement on Recent Events Between Signal and the Anti-Censorship Community

#131

Post by shadowgovt »

ralfn wrote: post #21
nexthash wrote: post #8

It seems that a couple of security researchers from this community felt that Signal's implementation of a TLS-in-TLS proxy to allow its use in censored Iran didn't live up to their standards (it can be detected by censors and blocked). However, after Signal rejected this issue, they turned toxic and were prevented from posting anymore [1]. The above post is their reaction, which feels more like them lashing out rathe…

It's more important how we all feel about each other and our drama than the fact there isn't a currently easily available obvious way to have private secure conversations. Your "they are not being constructive enough" is actually very unconstructive, because it drags the conversation into more drama. The tone is not more important than the facts. It never is. Im not suggesting you have some alternative motive to defl…

> The tone is not more important than the facts. It never is.

This is an error software engineers sometimes make.

When working with human beings, tone matters. Tone always matters. "Nature cannot be fooled," but presenting facts with the wrong tone can lead to them being discarded, harming the project and/or people involved. You get better outcomes recognizing that people make better decisions when they aren't emotionally tilted.

The successful projects operated by people who don't know how to interact with other people are significant outliers (and in some cases, their creators and maintainers have recanted their past approach as counter-productive, ref. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/linus-torvalds-apolo...).

Re: A Statement on Recent Events Between Signal and the Anti-Censorship Community

#132

Post by sneak »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #43

What interests me more, is Signal's principal stance about censorship. If non-tech people ever come to Signal in numbers, the moderation problem will inevitably arise. Would they censor things that we currently have public consensus about? Like CP, terrorism etc.

Signal is end-to-end encrypted. They have no way of discerning CP from non-CP as it transits their service.

Re: A Statement on Recent Events Between Signal and the Anti-Censorship Community

#133

Post by Dumbdo »

modzu wrote: post #122
jrochkind1 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You were blocked because you know that we don't use GH for discussion, but came here anyway and started opening fake PRs so that you could post and harass other people on GH. > …If you want to discuss anything about circumvention or any other aspects of Signal in a way that is respectful to the rest of the community, please join in on the forums. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-TLS-Proxy/pull/15#issuec... That…

he was banned on the forums too

Do you have a source for that?

Re: A Statement on Recent Events Between Signal and the Anti-Censorship Community

#134

Post by carapace »

gclawes wrote: post #71
UncleMeat wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tone can often be more important than facts. At one point in my career I had a somewhat public facing role. I made a tough decision that aggravated a user, who decided to send me several death threats. Suddenly that tough decision wasn’t so tough anymore. Any possible resolution was gone. These situations involve people. We aren’t fact machines.

> Tone can often be more important than facts. Exactly: https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27181

That is really useful:

> Russell Conjugation (or “emotive conjugation”) is a presently obscure construction from linguistics, psychology and rhetoric which demonstrates how our rational minds are shielded from understanding the junior role factual information generally plays relative to empathy in our formation of opinions.

> Years later, the data-driven pollster Frank Luntz stumbled on much the same concept unaware of Russell’s earlier construction. By holding focus-groups with new real time technology that let participants share emotional responses to changes in authoritative language, Luntz was lead to make a stunning discovery that pushed Russell’s construction out of the realm of linguistics and into the realm of applied psychology. What he found was extraordinary: many if not most people form their opinions based solely on whatever Russell conjugation is presented to them and not on the underlying facts.

Re: A Statement on Recent Events Between Signal and the Anti-Censorship Community

#135

Post by baryphonic »

> Our community have been silent for too long. We are the underdogs, doing the real work, and yet unappreciated by many people. Our opinions are underrepresented. That's what makes me believe that we must speak out this time, that we should release a joint statement, to condemn Signal's dismissive and irresponsible attitude to the anti-censorship community, and to call for our unity as a community and their immediate action on the matter.

What an entitled, self-serving, narcissistic framing. Even if their technical claims are 100% correct, they have almost no credibility issuing propaganda like this. Yikes.

Re: A Statement on Recent Events Between Signal and the Anti-Censorship Community

#136

Post by GekkePrutser »

Yeah moxie is the #1 reason I don't promote signal to my friends as an alternative to WhatsApp. His attitude to third party clients I find very bad too. They could have added a lot of usability too the signal ecosystem

If I move to something else it had to be fully open, not just the source of the app but the network too. Movie is just creating another walled garden. A lot less microphones hanging in the trees than WhatsApp but still a walled garden.

Re: A Statement on Recent Events Between Signal and the Anti-Censorship Community

#137

Post by shadowgovt »

nexthash wrote: post #35
edent wrote: post #31

Moxie - and the Signal team - seems to have a real issue taking feedback from outside experts. See the way he has been completely dismissive of the IME vulnerability highlighted by Naomi Wu and others. I remember back when it was TextSecure - I tried to raise some usability and security issues. First I was ignored, then dismissed, then - a few years later - they implemented some of the changes. I still use Signal. Bu…

Maybe, but I think that the way these researchers reacted when their criticism wasn't heard doesn't benefit anybody. By ratcheting up the tension and participating in an internet catfight against the Signal team, a net loss occurs for the anti-censorship community. If the Signal team does indeed have a real problem with taking feedback and criticism, a better approach might've been to gather support and enter into lo…

At this point, a clear demonstration of how Signal's current design fails to keep users safe forwarded to the New York Times, WaPo, and Fox News would be a lot more valuable than shitposting via the Github PR system.

Re: A Statement on Recent Events Between Signal and the Anti-Censorship Community

#138

Post by superkuh »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #68

"Who we are [...] V2Fly maintains V2Ray, a proxy and routing tool that helps people behind China's GFW and Iran's Internet firewall stay connected to the internet."

Yes, that's some of them. I was more impressed that some of the shadowsocks team signed the statement. That's great software I use every day. And it's software other people use in life threatening circumstances.

Re: A Statement on Recent Events Between Signal and the Anti-Censorship Community

#139

Post by dmix »

baryphonic wrote: post #135

> Our community have been silent for too long. We are the underdogs, doing the real work, and yet unappreciated by many people. Our opinions are underrepresented. That's what makes me believe that we must speak out this time, that we should release a joint statement, to condemn Signal's dismissive and irresponsible attitude to the anti-censorship community, and to call for our unity as a community and their immediate…

That seems to be the new thing today. Everyone trying to frame themselves as an oppressed victim of some higher power.

If they think wasted hours programming solutions not getting adopted by OSS makes them some special oppressed group then they must be new to this whole thing. That’s such such a common scenario in OSS and hacker culture in general it’s comical. There used to be a special pride in doing the thankless work, especially in infosec.

Or maybe I’m just getting old and the new social media/political culture status quo has brewed up some entitled people where victimhood is the common currency.

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