Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

signal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 965 posts

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#521

Post by hezralig »

nvy wrote: post #193
rogerkirkness wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on App Store downloads on both platforms, they are well over 200M at this point.

A lot of people, myself included, have it installed but never use it after they dropped SMS support. Only a tiny fraction of my contacts use Signal, and most of those are also on Whatsapp, Telegram, Discord, and others. Signal offers essentially nothing to me.

My lawyer stopped using signal due to the sms support being dropped. It became too much of a hassle and wasn't worth it.

Many of my family also dropped Signal.

It is now really only used by the hyper-privacy conscious.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#522

Post by sowbug »

rglullis wrote: post #467
Caligatio wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're moving the goal post from "self-sovereignty" to supports federation with an infinite number of servers. Nothing is stopping you from compiling your own Signal server and modifying a Signal client to use your server. Given that Signal is free as a service, supporting federation only increases their expenses.

Without federation, Signal is still working with the advantage of network effects. So an open source server is not enough of a way out. Element can do it for their Matrix servers. Process.one can do it for ejabberd. Prosody as well. Why can't Signal?

Back to your original point: please don't support an organization that doesn't share important values of yours! That is absolutely your choice!

You've named several products that share your values. Perhaps those would be a better fit if you were to donate.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#523

Post by vizzah »

$6 million per year on outgoing SMS? Do not send SMS to users, make users send SMS to you instead to confirm their numbers! I have this solution for years and it works >90% of the time. The rest 10% is calling a verification number which drops calls with busy signal (no fees for the caller) but sees who is calling and is able to verify their number.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#524

Post by hgomersall »

akprasad wrote: post #255

I just donated $10 to Signal. Here's how to do so on iPhone in less than a minute: 1. Open Signal and click on your user icon in the upper left. 2. Go to "Settings" --> "Donate to Signal". 3. Click "Donate", select your donation options, and pay with Apple Pay.

There doesn't seem to be a way to pay annually, which I'd prefer to a monthly payment. £5/month is just a little high, but I'd merrily pay half that or £30/year.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#525

Post by marvinborner »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #364
rasso wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except real privacy?

Not even that, because it is linked to phone numbers.

Username registration is currently being tested: https://community.signalusers.org/t/public-username-testing-...

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#526

Post by niuzeta »

mplanchard wrote: post #307
akprasad wrote: post #255

I just donated $10 to Signal. Here's how to do so on iPhone in less than a minute: 1. Open Signal and click on your user icon in the upper left. 2. Go to "Settings" --> "Donate to Signal". 3. Click "Donate", select your donation options, and pay with Apple Pay.

I’ve got a recurring donation of $5/mo I set up ages ago

Me too! Set it up once and forget. I love their work and Unlike any other charity/nonprofit that I've donated to, they never bother me any further.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#527

Post by autoexec »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #508
autoexec wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, that's how it used to be. They still have pages on their website bragging about times when they didn't have anything to turn over because they didn't keep any of it. A while ago that all changed. They started collecting and forever storing in the cloud the exact data those requests were asking for. Lists of everyone you've been contacting, along with your profile data (name, phone number, photo). https:…

The technical info in that community form is a few notches too technical, I work in a different knowledge base. If someone broke down what the timeline was, what new info is being stored that wasn't before, how that is known, and how Signal has responded, etc, then that would be useful. I'll admit it doesn't seem great. Phone number I understand, but name and contacts are more concerning.

There's a good article on the topic here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkyzek/signal-new-pin-featur...

Note that the "solution" of disabling pins mentioned at the end of the article was later shown to not prevent the collection and storage of user data. It was just giving users a false sense of security. To this day there is no way to opt out of the data collection.

There's a lot more information about it in various places, but Signal went out of their way to be as confusing as possible in their communications so it caused a lot of people to get the wrong idea (see for example https://old.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/htmzrr/psa_disablin...)

The forums were in an uproar for months asking Signal to not start collecting data or at least give people a means to opt out. Here's a good thread with links to a bunch of the conversations people were having at the time: https://community.signalusers.org/t/mandatory-pin-is-signal-...

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#528

Post by pzo »

0xjmp wrote: post #514
conductr wrote: post #509

I'm seeing all the comments about the $6m Twilio expense, but nothing commenting on how their cost per employee is $380,000 totaling $19m. I think they could optimize this easier if the will was there. I know HN is very SV/tech centric, and that number makes sense there given the run up of VC money, etc. but I'm willing to bet they could source talent from cheaper places and slash this in half; if they wanted to. Jus…

This idea that an equivalent level of talent to SV is readily available in Indiana or Costa Rica for cheaper pay is deeply flawed.

OP didn't mentioned to slash salaries just by half not by 75%. Most IT people in western countries in Europe are not making even 200k per year. Even in London is hard to get 120k unless you maybe working as a contractor.

A lot of those SV talents are not american but migrated from europe or elsewhere - there are still talented people in EU who just simply don't want to move to USA these days even if salaries are at least 2x. You wouldn't have a problem finding real talent in eastern europe for 150k.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#529

Post by qwerpy »

akprasad wrote: post #255

I just donated $10 to Signal. Here's how to do so on iPhone in less than a minute: 1. Open Signal and click on your user icon in the upper left. 2. Go to "Settings" --> "Donate to Signal". 3. Click "Donate", select your donation options, and pay with Apple Pay.

I had an old Apple Store & iTunes gift card laying around so I redeemed it and attempted to use it to donate via Apple Pay, but get "Apple Account - Not enabled for in app payments". Google isn't very helpful about exactly why. Am I missing some KYC somewhere or are payments of this type prohibited from "Apple Account" balances?

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#530

Post by drapado »

conductr wrote: post #509

I'm seeing all the comments about the $6m Twilio expense, but nothing commenting on how their cost per employee is $380,000 totaling $19m. I think they could optimize this easier if the will was there. I know HN is very SV/tech centric, and that number makes sense there given the run up of VC money, etc. but I'm willing to bet they could source talent from cheaper places and slash this in half; if they wanted to. Jus…

Are you the same kind of people that think that NGO workers should work for free or for a small wage that is not representative of the market wage for their positions?
Post reply on HN