Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Command Line Interface for Signal

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 75 posts

Re: Command Line Interface for Signal

#11

Post by finnn »

Macha wrote: post #7
finnn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a licensing restriction, it's a terms of use for their network service. It's also not enforced. Their clients are open source, signal-cli uses a fork of the Android app's client library.

> It's also not enforced https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco... When did this stance change? Is there a current statement from moxie to that effect?

I said it's not enforced.

I cannot speak for moxie or Signal. I can speak for my own experiences, as the maintainer of a fork of signal-cli, and I have never seen any evidence that Signal's servers block signal-cli or my fork. I don't know about signal-cli but my fork clearly identifies itself in the user agent (and another field called the "signal agent") to the server. If they wanted to block me they could.

edit: signal-cli also sets a user agent clearly identifies itself: https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/05abb3f9f6294677d2d...

Re: Command Line Interface for Signal

#13

Post by finnn »

gnull wrote: post #9
Macha wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also not enforced https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco... When did this stance change? Is there a current statement from moxie to that effect?

I guess what finnn meant is that nobody can actually stop you from ignoring moxie's statement.

signal-cli uses a clearly identifiable user agent [0] that could easily be blocked if Signal wanted to. signal-cli could escalate by trying to evade that kind of a block, but as it stands signal-cli has been operating without trouble for several years.

I meant they may ask some clients not to use their servers, but they don't have any enforcement mechanism in place beyond asking them to stop on github.

[0] https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/05abb3f9f6294677d2d...

Re: Command Line Interface for Signal

#14

Post by Fnoord »

finnn wrote: post #13
gnull wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess what finnn meant is that nobody can actually stop you from ignoring moxie's statement.

signal-cli uses a clearly identifiable user agent [0] that could easily be blocked if Signal wanted to. signal-cli could escalate by trying to evade that kind of a block, but as it stands signal-cli has been operating without trouble for several years. I meant they may ask some clients not to use their servers, but they don't have any enforcement mechanism in place beyond asking them to stop on github. [0] https://gi…

If it'd be enforced, we'd see a cat and mouse game of forks spoofing their user agent, and who knows what else.

Re: Command Line Interface for Signal

#15

Post by gnull »

finnn wrote: post #13
gnull wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess what finnn meant is that nobody can actually stop you from ignoring moxie's statement.

signal-cli uses a clearly identifiable user agent [0] that could easily be blocked if Signal wanted to. signal-cli could escalate by trying to evade that kind of a block, but as it stands signal-cli has been operating without trouble for several years. I meant they may ask some clients not to use their servers, but they don't have any enforcement mechanism in place beyond asking them to stop on github. [0] https://gi…

They can apply measures to the users. They are not doing it right now, but they could suddenly start. By the discussion on some reddit threads [1], this moxie guy looks sketchy to say the least.

But I support the devs who work on alternative clients. The official Electron app is just bad, especially on Wayland. Hope signal-cli will keep working.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/mp2j0j/starting_a_na...

Re: Command Line Interface for Signal

#16

Post by jchw »

finnn wrote: post #11
Macha wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also not enforced https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco... When did this stance change? Is there a current statement from moxie to that effect?

I said it's not enforced. I cannot speak for moxie or Signal. I can speak for my own experiences, as the maintainer of a fork of signal-cli, and I have never seen any evidence that Signal's servers block signal-cli or my fork. I don't know about signal-cli but my fork clearly identifies itself in the user agent (and another field called the "signal agent") to the server. If they wanted to block me they could. edit: s…

Not equally enforced is the phrase you probably want, since the linked thread contains evidence of multiple instances of enforcement...

Re: Command Line Interface for Signal

#17

Post by finnn »

gnull wrote: post #15
finnn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

signal-cli uses a clearly identifiable user agent [0] that could easily be blocked if Signal wanted to. signal-cli could escalate by trying to evade that kind of a block, but as it stands signal-cli has been operating without trouble for several years. I meant they may ask some clients not to use their servers, but they don't have any enforcement mechanism in place beyond asking them to stop on github. [0] https://gi…

They can apply measures to the users. They are not doing it right now, but they could suddenly start. By the discussion on some reddit threads [1], this moxie guy looks sketchy to say the least. But I support the devs who work on alternative clients. The official Electron app is just bad, especially on Wayland. Hope signal-cli will keep working. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/mp2j0j/starting_a_na...

Sorry what am I looking for in this 200 comment reddit thread? I don't see any comments from moxie himself, just a lot of other people claiming to know what moxie wants. Are there reports of specific issues with 3rd party clients or comments from a Signal employee or something?

Re: Command Line Interface for Signal

#18

Post by gnull »

finnn wrote: post #17
gnull wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can apply measures to the users. They are not doing it right now, but they could suddenly start. By the discussion on some reddit threads [1], this moxie guy looks sketchy to say the least. But I support the devs who work on alternative clients. The official Electron app is just bad, especially on Wayland. Hope signal-cli will keep working. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/mp2j0j/starting_a_na...

Sorry what am I looking for in this 200 comment reddit thread? I don't see any comments from moxie himself, just a lot of other people claiming to know what moxie wants. Are there reports of specific issues with 3rd party clients or comments from a Signal employee or something?

You are looking for links to what moxie said and people's experiences of interacting with him.

The links to LibreSignal (already mentioned here) and Wire stories summarize most of what I was pointing at: https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco... https://medium.com/@wireapp/axolotl-and-proteus-788519b186a7

Re: Command Line Interface for Signal

#19

Post by yepthatsreality »

freedomben wrote: post #12

This makes me really miss Keybase.io. Anyone around from Keybase? Will it just bit rot away or will it get some attention/love in the future?

It will probably bit rot away, or be rebooted when Zoom wants to make a PR move. In my opinion, the Keybase founders always intended to sell it off and never intended to keep their promises of OSS-ing the tech. It was a cool idea, but I never saw any vision for the idea or really what benefits it brought the tech community.

Re: Command Line Interface for Signal

#20

Post by finnn »

gnull wrote: post #18
finnn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry what am I looking for in this 200 comment reddit thread? I don't see any comments from moxie himself, just a lot of other people claiming to know what moxie wants. Are there reports of specific issues with 3rd party clients or comments from a Signal employee or something?

You are looking for links to what moxie said and people's experiences of interacting with him. The links to LibreSignal (already mentioned here) and Wire stories summarize most of what I was pointing at: https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco... https://medium.com/@wireapp/axolotl-and-proteus-788519b186a7

I'm looking for people's experience interacting with the Signal server, not moxie. We're talking about if the server enforces any kind of client restrictions.

I haven't looked super deep, but to the best of my knowledge that's not something that happens really. I looked through that reddit thread (thanks for that BTW, whisperfish seems interesting) and skimmed over that enormous GitHub thread, but I couldn't find much in the way of people actually experiencing issues interacting with the Signal server. Again, would appreciate it if you could link me to such a thing. As I mentioned elsewhere, I maintain an unofficial signal client and I try to be aware of these sort of things.

Post reply on HN