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Default disappearing messages

signal.org

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31–40 of 187 posts

Re: Default disappearing messages

#31

Post by vineyardmike »

vertis wrote: post #6
colesantiago wrote: post #2

Although a welcome addition to Signal, personally would like to see the 'phone number sign up' 'disappear' from the app and instead add email signup. Thats all.

This is one of the biggest things that stops me from using Signal. I don't have a phone number really any more (I'm a digital nomad, and pick up regional sims) I'm not really interested in the disappearing message either if I wanted that I could just use Slack Free edition :troll:. In all seriousness though, my messages are part of my memory. They're shared experience with my partner and a record of decisions. I unde…

If you don't mind me asking, how do you handle 2FA and companies that require a phone number(eg. my bank)?

Do you have to constantly cycle through numbers, do you have a VOIP number?

Re: Default disappearing messages

#32

Post by actuator »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #7

I've been in a few slack communities that were on the freemium plan. On that plan, older messages become in-accessible if you don't pay. They don't get deleted of course: you will get them back if you switch to a paid plan. But in practice that seems to be rarely interesting. Chat is all about what happened recently and not about what happened weeks/months ago. Ephemeral messages are a good default.

> Chat is all about what happened recently and not about what happened weeks/months ago.

While I agree in principle that email should be used for things that are not ephemeral, chat is used for a lot of things where history becomes important like

- A command a coworker pinged you which has some special flags for a build

- A doc that was shared with you

Re: Default disappearing messages

#33

Post by chucky »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #22

I dunno, I think being able to hoard your own data shouldn't be demonized or valorized? Fine with whatever the default is, but I feel like the subtext here is that Signal thinks people's phones are going to be increasingly compromised so this will be a more necessary, and the "remember the passing acoustic conversation" is just a way to put a less depressing spin on that.

The default, if I'm reading the article correctly, is to not disappear messages. What's new is the ability to disappear messages by default for all conversations, instead of having to remember to set it for each conversation.

For some people (e.g. journalists) this is exactly what they need, because forgetting to set disappearing before sending a message could be problematic, and I'm glad they added this feature for that use case.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#35

Post by compsciphd »

as the app is open source, isn't it easy for someone to just create a fork that causes the messages to not disappear on the receiver end without the sender having any idea?

I'd think a better idea would simply be to accept this as reality, and have a config entry or utility that lets you batch delete messages marked "ephemeral" (or better in this context, "unimportant").

Re: Default disappearing messages

#36

Post by uuddlrlr »

afiori wrote: post #24
brnt wrote: post #4

I've had the timer on for about a year now, it's pretty nice not to have all that history accumulate. On my device or others'. One week was a bit short though, I'm glad they added 4 weeks recently.

Is there a "star message" option to save messages? It would be a very Marie Kondo approach to message history

Snapchat has this, it is cozy.

It's a simple swipe on the message, and either party can unsave it. Of course my ex-girlfriend just saved everything.

Snapchat's UX is (was?) really incredible for privacy, and did a great job of mimicking the IRL experience, they just didn't bother with E2EE unfortunately.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#37

Post by lmm »

afiori wrote: post #18
vertis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the biggest things that stops me from using Signal. I don't have a phone number really any more (I'm a digital nomad, and pick up regional sims) I'm not really interested in the disappearing message either if I wanted that I could just use Slack Free edition :troll:. In all seriousness though, my messages are part of my memory. They're shared experience with my partner and a record of decisions. I unde…

> In all seriousness though, my messages are part of my memory. They're shared experience with my partner and a record of decisions. Thanks for saying this, I moved to Telegram[1] before I had a chance to learn about/suffer from Whatsapp take on backups, but it would have been devastating to lose years of messages with people over a bricked phone. [1] I know Telegram has a bad rep due to their home cooked crypto and…

> [1] I know Telegram has a bad rep due to their home cooked crypto and maybe other stuff, but I like the app, I vaguely trust the author, and it works fine for me.

Is that because you assume the NSA aren't reading all your messages or you don't mind if they are? Because the whole problem with dodgy crypto is that it still seems to "work fine for me" even when it isn't.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#38

Post by uuddlrlr »

beermonster wrote: post #19
boondaburrah wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I've noticed is that Signal doesn't seem to care about privacy at all. They care a lot about security though, which is a different thing, and tell you that's privacy.

See Best WhatsApp alternatives that respect your privacy[1]. Signal has: Pros Free Very good encryption Almost no metadata kept Protocol independently audited Seamless to use on Android Disappearing messages E2EE text, voice, and video group chat Cons Requires a valid phone number to register Hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) [1] https://protonmail.com/blog/whatsapp-alternatives/

Google Play Services or microg is also required.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#39

Post by Ericson2314 »

chucky wrote: post #33
Ericson2314 wrote: post #22

I dunno, I think being able to hoard your own data shouldn't be demonized or valorized? Fine with whatever the default is, but I feel like the subtext here is that Signal thinks people's phones are going to be increasingly compromised so this will be a more necessary, and the "remember the passing acoustic conversation" is just a way to put a less depressing spin on that.

The default, if I'm reading the article correctly, is to not disappear messages. What's new is the ability to disappear messages by default for all conversations, instead of having to remember to set it for each conversation. For some people (e.g. journalists) this is exactly what they need, because forgetting to set disappearing before sending a message could be problematic, and I'm glad they added this feature for…

That's even better, and certainly I agree that's a very valid use-case. Whatever the new feature is, I'm fine with it --- it's the presentation of it that saddens me.

Re: Default disappearing messages

#40

Post by somebodythere »

compsciphd wrote: post #35

as the app is open source, isn't it easy for someone to just create a fork that causes the messages to not disappear on the receiver end without the sender having any idea? I'd think a better idea would simply be to accept this as reality, and have a config entry or utility that lets you batch delete messages marked "ephemeral" (or better in this context, "unimportant").

You could do that. The point of the feature isn't to prevent that.

The feature has two functions. The first is to decrease the severity of the consequences if a conversation partner's device falls into the wrong hands, say a government who wants to use chat messages as evidence, a corporate competitor who stole the phone, or just a friend who is rifling through your unlocked phone.

The other purpose is to make it easier to participate in a social contract where your chat history won't be kept around forever for all participants to dig up in the future. Yes, someone could modify the client code, or take screenshots, or do any number of things to preserve data. You still have to take care about what you send. But most people won't, because it is additional effort and generally people want to adhere to social contracts.

Security is never all or nothing. It is always about taking as many reasonable steps as you can to limit your risks.

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