I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal • Hacker News Board

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#211

Post by em-bee » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

jbverschoor wrote: post #30

joel35 wrote: post #21

With Signal moving away from SMS, the required messaging app stack on my phone just to be able to receive everything sent do me will have to be: - Signal -> Close friends & family I've convinced to use it. - WhatsApp -> Most of my friends. - SMS -> School notifications, 2FA, shipping updates, etc. - Facebook Messenger -> Elderly relatives - Telegram -> That one relative who wants to use this instead of Signal. Is the…

I never understood Telegram. It's insecure by default, runs in a different jurisdiction. It's not even anonymous But somehow people started using it because it was "more secure" than whatsapp.

telegram doesn't make me share my phonenumber with everyone. i would use signal, but sharing my phone number is a no go.

maybe now that signal is switching off SMS it can implement user handles that people can share instead of their number. once they do i'll give it a try

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#212

Post by zajio1am » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 2:49 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #28

modo_mario wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMS is still rather common here in Europe. Even if a ton of people use whatsapp and such SMS is often a safe option to initiate with or something trough which you get certain kinds of automated messages like appointment reminders or verification codes.

I think that differs very much per country. The last time I have received an SMS from a human in NL must have been a decade ago. In many European countries, sending SMS was quite expensive, leading to early and very wide adoption of WhatsApp.

> In many European countries, sending SMS was quite expensive, leading to early and very wide adoption of WhatsApp.

Yes, but data tariffs were also expensive, while you can send SMS with regular (no-data) tariff.

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#213

Post by SECProto » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:01 PM UTC

agilob wrote: post #125

shp0ngle wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but… WA also doesn’t have SMS support?

But I have 40 contacts on WA, and 4 on Signal? Everyone on Signal is also on WA and SMS.

I have 0 contacts on WA and 30 on signal. Only time I used WhatsApp was a decade ago when travelling in Europe.

Personally, I use signal as a replacement for Hangouts.

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#214

Post by angry_octet » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

derbOac wrote: post #159

angry_octet wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix has fundamental security problems that they seem unwilling to fix. Almost a polar opposite to Signal.

What security problems? Genuinely curious, not trying to be antagonistic.

Commentry from tptacek: https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/1575259743278563329

on this paper: https://nebuchadnezzar-megolm.github.io/

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#215

Post by claudoppl » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:18 PM UTC

cabbagesauce wrote: post #121

claudedopplr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being such a small operation, I think they're making a great decision by focusing on what matters most. "Most startups die by lack of focus". I very much believe this is their first public step towards breaking up with phone number based identity.

>Being such a small operation, I think they're making a great decision by focusing on what matters most. Currently, it looks like they are focusing on social networking features: stories, emoji stuff, better link previews. Basically everything that competition already did. The roadmap is not public, so I wouldn't take guesses as what may come next. But... ..."dropping support of X as a feature" is some kind of new tr…

You seem very frustrated personally for the lack of SMS support on Signal.

I don't agree with your take or arguments, and you seem to keep branching off pejorative comments on their organization and product instead of actually discussing the points. I think the conversation would be more productive if we focus on the same point, i.e.:

  * Focusing on what matters most is a good idea, as nobody serious about secure messaging uses SMS

    * Your argument: irony-covered "dropping features is not a good product development approach". 

      * My counter-argument: it **is** a valid approach, why support a feature that was useful in the past, but it is now dying/not aligned with your core value proposition?

    * Your other argument: their focus is on social networking, and some disdainful comment that "the competition already did it". 

      * My argument: how is catching up with well-established user behaviors across other messaging platforms a bad thing?

I remember when I didn't have a smart phone (I don't come from a privileged background, and this was 2009) and I used twitter over SMS. I really wouldn't care if they dropped support for it now, but back then, I would have churned.

(edited for formatting)

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#216

Post by angry_octet » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:18 PM UTC

monetus wrote: post #205

angry_octet wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been fundamentally dishonest in their messaging. The truth is that they don't want to support SMS any more, and they don't care about usability or barriers to entry this causes. If they'd just said that I wouldn't be so annoyed with them.

> Getting someone to sort of clock the difference in a protocol layer security property, that’s an education task that is pretty steep This is the signal president's stated reasoning on why they couldn't have a blue-message (secure) / green-message (insecure) dynamic, akin to iMessage. I think she is being disingenuous, and that the development effort of MMS is the driving motivation, but I am cynical.

I think the people who maintained their SMS codebase left and they don't know how to maintain it properly, and it isn't cool, so they let it wither and now they want to amputate it. Which is fine really, though it highlights that you can't depend on them. I was starting to feel that already with their cryptocoin experimentation. It's a pity Signal is un-forkable.

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#217

Post by Markoff » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

grey_earthling wrote: post #96

agilob wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The only large group of people who still primarily use SMS to communicate person-to-person is Android users in the USA. BS. I visited city I grew up recently, met with a few (9+) people (25-32 years old) and only one of them had WA, most haven't heard about Signal, everyone simply uses SMS. It's simply multiplatform, works with their gradmas and no one wants to install __another__ app to send messages to people. No…

If you're going to bother migrating and presumably taking people with you, why migrate to another company's proprietary service, rather than an open protocol? Or (bluntly): why not Matrix (and/or XMPP)? What makes WA so much better that you're willing to go all-in with this company?

network effect, as much as I like Matrix idea there is no chance it can compete with WhatsApp

now give me Matrix client with basic SMS support (I don't need even MMS) and I'm installing it immediately to replace my dedicated SMS app

I did same love with family as poster, from Signal with family, WhatsApp and SMS just to WhatsApp/SMS combo though already years ago after PIN nagging

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#218

Post by jlund-molfese » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

rjzzleep wrote: post #48

jlund-molfese wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do generally pay extra for international calls, though text messaging is often free (assuming you’re talking about international states. US states, of course, are all treated as the same country). Almost all phone plans have unlimited (domestic) texting and calling and differentiate themselves with data, reliability and ”free” perks like subsidized Netflix. You really have to go out of your way to find a plan with…

It's actually mostly some parts in central Europe where texting is expensive. For most parts of the world texting is quite important. I don't understand why people on this board keep forgetting that central Europe and the US is the minority of the world population. Everyone keeps bringing up WhatsApp. But it seems that everyone has all but forgotten that WhatsApp became so popular not because they only focused on the…

> I don't understand why people on this board keep forgetting that central Europe and the US is the minority of the world population.

Did you mean to reply to a different comment? Mine was a reply to the GP, to answer the very narrow questions he asked about the US.

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#219

Post by trekz » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

TrueDuality wrote: post #179

jeroenhd wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't looked into the RCS protocol myself but what is preventing others from building their own RCS clients? As I understand the protocol, it's IP based rather than modem based, so external apps should work, right?

As far as I understand it right now its a lack of exposed APIs in Android to access the message stores. I suspect this is something that will be standardized and exposed in a future API revision, but as it stands right now using the official APIs I don't think you're able to make your own...

hmm so how is Google to get Apple's iPhones to support RCS if Google hasnt completely opened their API?

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#220

Post by trekz » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 4:48 PM UTC

arianvanp wrote: post #7

captainmuon wrote: post #3

Tangential, but to 1.: Isn't RCS just built upon TCP/IP and SIP? Why can't you just implement it in user space? Or does it need to send some magic packets through the modem? It is really hard to find details on the protocol.

Another problem is that Google's RCS implementation has a Signal-protocol prekeys-exchange server in the loop that is not accessible for the public. So even if you'd implement RCS you could not send messages to android devices as you can't fetch the prekeys through anything but the Messages app.

So sounds like Google pretty much owns the RCS protocol? I know it's meant to be an open standard, but sounds like there's no point in any third party app implementing if it can't send messages to people with Google Messages.