101–110 of 342 posts
The reason these efforts struggle with unfathomly limited resources while surveillance capitalism doesnt know what to do with their adtech trillions is that governments have sold their citizens short.
The fate of Signal is tied to the fate of democracy.
> It also required its users to think like engineers, which included participating in exceptionally nerdy activities like attending real-life “key-signing parties” to verify your identity to other users. In fairness to PGP, Signal uses exactly the same method as PGP does for verifying identities. You need to check a ridiculously long number which represents your correspondent's identity. It's a 40 digit hex "key fing…
> It also required its users to think like engineers, which included participating in exceptionally nerdy activities like attending real-life “key-signing parties” to verify your identity to other users. In fairness to PGP, Signal uses exactly the same method as PGP does for verifying identities. You need to check a ridiculously long number which represents your correspondent's identity. It's a 40 digit hex "key fing…
Most people do not use "insecure" in this way. I would venture to say that your usage of "insecure" here is actually incorrect.
Approximately nobody ever does this verification[1], so this distinction is critically important: Signal works out of the box, whereas PGP does not.
Fun fact: it was renamed from fingerprint to safety number after studies showed non-technical users (reasonably) associate the idea of fingerprints with criminal investigations.
[1]: sneak's law: users will not securely manage {=generate, back up, transmit, or, importantly, in this case, authenticate} key material
Or Signal could be the most well orchestrated honey pot. The server code is already partially closed source. What I don't understand is how a small organization like that cannot be convinced or compelled by a very powerful government intelligence agency. I will stick with decentralized protocols I can host myself.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a case to be made that encryption/private communication has gone through the same sort of progress as personal weaponry has, only on a much shorter time frame and to a much greater extent. In weaponry, it's taken ~200 years to go from bespoke muskets with a firing rate of a couple rounds per minute to semi-automatic and automatic weapons capable of firing multiple rounds per second. In just the last 20-30 yea…
I’d disagree with you on that last point. Some of us think the 2A is about private ownership of tanks.
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…
Nobody has a right to snoop on other people's communication. Not even people wearing robs and wigs.
"Walking the line between anarchism and pragmatism" isn't good business. Change my mind.
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…
No. It is not my moral obligation to obey the orders of other human beings. Ever.
If you want this to be a moral issue you must first prove that there is a moral basis for compliance and I've yet to hear one. Pointing a gun to my face and telling me what to do doesn't sound moral to me. You can ask. Nicely.
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…
They've established their name and reputation, now they need to build on top of that. Like Mozilla and their VPN product, Signal can do a similar thing, keeping the Signal free.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Worse, they store your phone number (along with your name, your photo, and most damning of all, a list of all of your signal contacts) permanently in the cloud. This is exactly the information they used to brag about not being able to turn over to the authorities because they didn't collect it in the first place. Their website still has pages that brag about that with no indication that it's no longer the truth. I've…
Signal is very much a first generation private messaging application (in the sense that it was the first generation actually adopted). I think we're starting to see true gen 2 protocols rise to fix some of the issues it has like matrix, berty, briar, etc.
Matrix - Introduction: September 2014
I know a lot happened in August of 2014, but I doubt it qualifies as a generation.