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Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

wired.com

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Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#51

Post by greyface- »

XorNot wrote: post #46

Signal would be a lot more pragmatic if they would develop a funding model based on selling something for actual money, rather then subsisting off donations. Sell "Signal for Business" accounts or something so I can stop having my bank or local government depend on SMS to communicate with me. I know a number of doctors who'd really love to be able to use Signal to talk to their patients (and would tell them to instal…

And that bill will be substantial. According to Signal Foundation's 2021 IRS Form 990, their annual Twilio+Azure+AWS+GCP cloud spend was $15,196,853.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824...

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#52

Post by autoexec »

asynchronous wrote: post #28
j_crick wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, any discussion of anonymity and Signal can start and end with phone numbers. They could maybe offer an option to use just a username and some kind of authentication? But somehow they don’t :(

So many are missing the point here- Signal is *private*, not anonymous. They are two different things.

We'd hope it's that, but the data collection isn't a good sign that it's private either.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#53

Post by soulofmischief »

gorgoiler wrote: post #37
soulofmischief wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one, not my mother, not my government, not my dog, has the implicit right to monitor a conversation between myself and another party No one has the right to dictate the manner in which I communicate with another individual, contending that it doesn't cause network problems (such as the FCC and radio band restrictions. And to the point, I believe the ban of cryptographic communication on public radio channels to be…

I agree with you and the word “implicit” is crucial here. If the state is suspicious of you then they can come over, break in, tie you up, search all your stuff, and take anything they like home with them. It sounds infuriating but it’s what we need in order for the state to catch villains and the crucial part is they can only do it with a warrant . If a judge ordered you to unlock your phone and hand over all your m…

The crucial underpinning of this ideology is that We The People have given explicit permission to a specific group of individuals to have this power in exchange for freedoms we could not otherwise attain; rarely can something in life be so pure, a balance usually must be struck when considering such a complex system. In the US, we employed a three-party checks and balances system to try to solve this problem in a more distributed manner.

Obviously there might be unsolved issues around a) preventing such a system from decaying over time and b) providing some sort of mechanism for people born into a governing society they do not agree with to travel to another society without unachievable economic hurdles. This of course too has limits.

I do differ with you in that I do not believe another entity has the right to compel anyone to do anything. The judge can take my phone, but if it's locked, I cannot be compelled to produce a password. This is established by the fifth amendment, but would probably be better formalized today in a new constitution.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#54

Post by komali2 »

mc32 wrote: post #17
komali2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time I hear this is when people refer to it. I've yet to find examples of it myself, bearing in mind that companies choosing what can and can't be said on their platforms doesn't constitute censorship (unless we're willing to admit that platforms have a monopoly on public communication).

When you have Federal embeds counselling companies on content, that's essentially censorship. I don't know what else you'd call it. That's banana republic level technique and tactics. This is something a Francisco Franco might have done. No, no, we don't have censors, we're just making sure only the truth of the moment is published. And of course, blackhole all the contradictions.

> only the truth of the moment is published

What other truths are you struggling to publish? What contradictions do you have that you're unable to display anywhere?

> Federal embeds counselling companies on content

What's this? I haven't heard about it.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#55

Post by wolverine876 »

mc32 wrote: post #6
wolverine876 wrote: post #2

> The motivations that led to end-to-end encryption going mainstream lie far out on the political fringe. The original impetus for Marlinspike’s entry into cryptography, around 2007, was to challenge existing power structures, particularly the injustice of how (as he put it) “Internet insecurity is used by people I don’t like against people I do: the government against the people.” But sticking to anarchism would imp…

Not to be Debbie downer but there’s been a cultural shift in the liberal establishment over the years away from protecting speech, even hateful speech to actively espousing and advocating for censorship. It’s clear that principles can shift over time and Wired is toeing the line.

How does that relate to the article? It seems like a completely different subject to me, but maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

> there’s been a cultural shift in the liberal establishment over the years away from protecting speech, even hateful speech to actively espousing and advocating for censorship

The shift is to protecting the rights of people oppressed by hate speech, in the balance between its speakers and victims. It's based on the idea that the politically vulnerable have their rights - including their free speech - abridged by hate speech. It says hate speech censors the politically vulnerable, so at some points, we must censor one or the other.

It's tricky, but portraying it as 'anti-free-speech' is like portraying 'pro-life' advocates as 'anti-personal-rights'. If we're honest then it's not that simple, whatever one's perspective.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#56

Post by zen_1 »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #21
greyface- wrote: post #4

No mention of criticism for requiring use of phone numbers as identifiers. Falsely claims phone numbers are not linked to usernames.

That has always bugged me about Signal. It seems like such an obvious hole--one that other services like Telegram and Wickr don't suffer from. I think Signal implies that you always know and are comfortable with the person on the other side of the message, but that is not always the case.

Telegram also requires phone number signups

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#58

Post by wolverine876 »

greyface- wrote: post #4

No mention of criticism for requiring use of phone numbers as identifiers. Falsely claims phone numbers are not linked to usernames.

Perhaps it doesn't have to be mentioned in every article, even though people feel it needs to be mentioned in every HN discussion.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#59

Post by wolverine876 »

gorgoiler wrote: post #47

”Signal [pioneered] end-to-end encryption, a feature that WhatsApp turned around and copied from Signal.” It wasn’t copied from Signal — at the protocol level, it is Signal: https://signal.org/blog/whatsapp/

It's part of Signal.

Re: Signal walks the line between anarchism and pragmatism

#60

Post by gorgoiler »

wolverine876 wrote: post #59
gorgoiler wrote: post #47

”Signal [pioneered] end-to-end encryption, a feature that WhatsApp turned around and copied from Signal.” It wasn’t copied from Signal — at the protocol level, it is Signal: https://signal.org/blog/whatsapp/

It's part of Signal.

Thanks, I’ve edited my comment to be clearer.
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