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Signal Introduces Stories

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Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#241

Post by screamingninja »

Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL wrote: post #233

I was so annoyed when I saw this. Luckily you can deactivate it. I've done so, moving on with my life. Can't believe how much I hate modern design pet-peeves and features... mozilla VPN app recently switched to having a menu bar at the bottom for 'home' (default view), 'messages' (update notifications and crap) and 'settings'... because this is how to do it now... of course it has fancy rounded corners... sigh... For…

> Are they supposed to 'keep' people esp non-techies from using RCS 'by default' and make them use SMS? The app that cares so deeply about encrypted communication?

While I agree with most of what you said, it appears you are implying that RCS provides a security guarantee somehow that Signal is impeding. RCS is badly fragmented, mostly not E2E (except Google private E2E extension), and does not have Apple's buy in. Signal does clearly indicate that SMS chats are not secure.

Signal originated as ChatSecure- the encrypted SMS app.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#242

Post by neumann »

Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL wrote: post #233

I was so annoyed when I saw this. Luckily you can deactivate it. I've done so, moving on with my life. Can't believe how much I hate modern design pet-peeves and features... mozilla VPN app recently switched to having a menu bar at the bottom for 'home' (default view), 'messages' (update notifications and crap) and 'settings'... because this is how to do it now... of course it has fancy rounded corners... sigh... For…

Historically, Signal (then known as Text Secure) was encrypting vanilla SMS between users! If you got rid of the app and somebody texted you through it you would get an encrypted chat! Then they moved away from sms, partly to allow for more anonymity (i think) from metadata and a better experience. So the sms capabilities are more historical than a design choice to do both.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#243

Post by freeplay »

My initial reaction was "oh no. Signal finally broke down and has begun adding the annoying social features."

After thinking about it, I actually don't mind it.

I am in a big (~15 people) group chat with my family. Often times someone will spam the chat with vacation pics or something they cooked for dinner. I don't particularly dislike that, but it seems like posting those pictures to their story would be a much better way to share. The audience would remain the same and it would still be private. The viewing process would just be much better.

The main problem is, and always has been, getting a bunch of iPhone users in the US to use any messaging app besides iMessage. Let alone having them post to a story within that app.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#244

Post by screamingninja »

screamingninja wrote: post #241
Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL wrote: post #233

I was so annoyed when I saw this. Luckily you can deactivate it. I've done so, moving on with my life. Can't believe how much I hate modern design pet-peeves and features... mozilla VPN app recently switched to having a menu bar at the bottom for 'home' (default view), 'messages' (update notifications and crap) and 'settings'... because this is how to do it now... of course it has fancy rounded corners... sigh... For…

> Are they supposed to 'keep' people esp non-techies from using RCS 'by default' and make them use SMS? The app that cares so deeply about encrypted communication? While I agree with most of what you said, it appears you are implying that RCS provides a security guarantee somehow that Signal is impeding. RCS is badly fragmented, mostly not E2E (except Google private E2E extension), and does not have Apple's buy in. S…

Correction- it was called TextSecure

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#245

Post by kasey_junk »

izacus wrote: post #217
tptacek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything about Signal will make more sense if you forget every opinion you've had or read on a message board, and accept that the project's mission is simply to transition as many people off insecure systems as they can. For example: message board nerds are apoplectic about Signal's phone number requirement, but the systems ordinary people were already overwhelmingly used phone numbers already. As communications tr…

If that's true, why do they refuse to implement backups so normal people don't lose data when their phone breaks or the app bugs out?

Because they haven’t figured out how to do that securely?

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#246

Post by g_sch »

jacooper wrote: post #185

The problem with signal is its a ghost land. Many people signed up after the new WhatsApp T&S debacle, but Facebook played it like a boss by delaying the change and draining the news cycle and they won. Almost no body uses signal, I have chat group of my friends on signal, and I'm really thinking of moving it to WhatsApp, so they actually see the messages instead of it being 20 messages from me and 1 from the others.…

Speak for yourself. At least 80% of my messages run over Signal these days. And I communicate with a wide variety of people, not just techies.

I think a major contributor to this was that Signal got normalized early as the venue for a large group chat started by some friends who moved to my neighborhood years ago. Over time this chat became a sort of neighborhood forum where people advertised open rooms, traded goods and services, and exchanged news and gossip. And because it was on Signal, everyone installed Signal.

I know I'm in somewhat of a strange bubble, but I just want to underscore that this kind of world is possible. The adoption fight hasn't been lost yet, especially since some cracks are starting to show in the incumbents' moats these days.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#247

Post by lutoma »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #21
dewey wrote: post #12

I like it! Making it more "mainstream" is the way to go even if purists might say that it's feature bloat for their secure messenger. It's similar to how it's good if more people use Tor for all kinds of activities as it doesn't immediately label you as suspicious just because you use Tor or Signal.

Making people juggle a different app for SMS is the opposite of being mainstream friendly.

SMS is very rarely used anymore outside of the US and a few select other countries, and for most people Signal and similar messengers serve as a replacement for text messages, not a supplement. It's probably just not a worthwhile market/feature to keep anymore.

Come to think of it, I'm having a very hard time coming up with any sensible use case for using Signal over text message. Presumably both sides still need Signal for the encryption to work, so what's the point? Might as well use the internet to send the message. The only scenario I can see it being useful is when you have GSM, but no internet connectivity, and that's rare these days.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#248

Post by lutoma »

patall wrote: post #182
sofixa wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because SMS is obsolete and nobody outside of the US(why?!??!) still uses it for anything else other than the occasional confirmation/MFA code.

To give a counter example, here in Sweden, SMS&MMS are used quite a lot. Including bidding for housing. And it's not due to a lack of alternatives.

Okay, but then Sweden is another exception to the norm, not the other way around.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#249

Post by jakecopp »

anonporridge wrote: post #140
autoexec wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lots of reasons recently to develop deep distrust for Signal leadership, and start calling into question whether the app is still legitimately private. How about when Signal started storing people's contacts, their name, their photo, and their phone number in the cloud ignoring cries from their users that Signal should provide a way to opt out and bringing up security concerns, then refusing to update their privacy…

> If you want private/secure consider looking elsewhere. Already on it. Just such a shame that after years of trying to convince friends and family to use signal, I now have to convince them to use something else. Oh well, that might just be the natural circle of life.

> Just such a shame that after years of trying to convince friends and family to use signal, I now have to convince them to use something else.

This is the beauty of Matrix - you can change your client, or even your server and keep all your contacts!

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#250

Post by waynesonfire »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #234
kibwen wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still of the opinion that encrypted private group chats are an impossible UX problem (1:1 chat is fine). But if I were to trust anyone to find a way to do it properly, it would be Signal.

What makes it impossible? Naively I would think that if you have a secure 1:1 communication protocol, then you can send N*(1:1) secure messages to a group of N people. To solve the "fake group message" problem where an adversarial member of the group sends different messages to different members of the group, or delays the message to some members, the protocol could simply allow for a 2nd level "vouch" message to be…

havn't thought about it too much, but seems like merkle tree may be able to tackle this problem.
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