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Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

community.signalusers.org

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Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

#111

Post by fsflover »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #109
ezst wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is there for power and control, not for its users, otherwise they would welcome the usage of third party clients, and generally, encourage decentralisation measures like self hosting, federation and account portability. Yep, they have nice engineering blog posts, they are also US-incorporated, extensively centralised in AWS and subject to the cloud act, which together negates, or largely diminishes claims abou…

"Federation freezes the technology" https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/

The answer from Matrix is here: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/01/02/on-privacy-versus-freedom...

Related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21936929

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35141223

Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

#112

Post by jmusall »

sysguest wrote: post #70

any link to presentations/papers on this? I'm interested on learning ZKPs -- they seem so much like "fairy-tale come true" because I don't know much

Here's a site with a few (three) introductory articles on ZKPs: https://zkintro.com

One in particular on pratical implementation of ZKPs was popular on HN back in 2024: https://zkintro.com/articles/programming-zkps-from-zero-to-h... (discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41398092)

Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

#113

Post by stavros »

ggm wrote: post #28
opengrass wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already do that without being a trusted device.

For the longest time, you couldn't. It wasn't until this release I realised that had changed. If it changed before, it wasn't well communicated to me as an Android signal user. I was on beeper and then molly precisely because there was so little traction on changing this. You could install signal fine, but you couldn't QR code or secret phrase mesh it with your android handset. Oddly, iPad meshed fine with iPhone or…

I think this is pretty recent, I'd never heard of it before. I even got a new phone a month ago and didn't notice this being an option.

Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

#114

Post by latentsea »

bawolff wrote: post #15
user3939382 wrote: post #13

I don't trust Signal. The device OSes and hardware are opaque, chatty, not private or trustworthy, the network backbone is completely owned by dragnet surveillance, Dual_EC_DRBG flavored shenanigans, so how could an app running on top of this suddenly be trustworthy? Especially one that's super high profile which signals inside a dragnet "someone is working especially hard to make this secret".

Viewing any security thing as a binary is the wrong way to look at it. Figure out your adversaries, how much power they have and what they are willing to spend. Make your decisions from there. I personally think signal is sufficient for the threats the average person is concerned about, but that is a decision each individual has to make for themselves.

>Figure out your adversaries, how much power they have and what they are willing to spend.

All of it.

Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

#115

Post by Aldipower »

ggm wrote: post #14

For those who missed it, unrelated to this specific ZKP thing the release cycle also now permits Android tablets without a SIM to be first-class adjunct devices without using wierd tricks or alternate clients. It may permit them to be the initiation/sign-on device, which would invoke the ZKP, but the point for me as an existing phone number denominated user, the point is I can be on my tablet with true signal now. No…

This is the news for me!

Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

#116

Post by Aldipower »

shim__ wrote: post #100
HWR_14 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you being hyperbolic, or do you really consider Google the worst with regards to privacy.

Google is a bad as a phone number since it also has strong ties to your real identity

Yes. Google is even worse imho.

Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

#117

Post by fsflover »

Cider9986 wrote: post #38
nosioptar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really liked silence. I stopped using it when f-droid said the source code was no longer available. Fossify messages is the best replacement I've found. (I dont bother with encrypted messenging apps. I prefer to assume that anything I do on my phone is doubleplus unprivate. If I want privacy, I head over to my computer.)

GrapheneOS is more well-roundedly private than any desktop OS. Competition is Qubes but that has usability issues and does not have good hardware security.

Qubes can be used together with Heads and a hardware key to verify the boot integrity. Works for me. This is more than good enough for most users, unless you think that your device can be captured while being on by a state adversary I guess. Also it doesn't remove control from the user unlike with GrapheneOS.

Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

#118

Post by thaumasiotes »

sans_souse wrote: post #110
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #48

I know for a fact If you use "signal" matrix or whatever "security" app, you will get branded a terrorist in India, your life will be upended and you will face a long list of problems. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/ats-probes-use-of-... https://www.aninews.in/news/national/general-news/accused-da... https://www.deccanherald.com/india/secure-messaging-apps-lik... https://india-employmentnews.com/tech-categ…

> And yes, using a VPN will get you knocked up as well. Well, damn.

For reference:

In Britain, and presumably India: "get you knocked up" = "get your door knocked on".

In the US: "get you knocked up" = "get you pregnant".

Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

#119

Post by thecrash »

dakolli wrote: post #90
Cider9986 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Claims without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Signal is not robust for metadata protection. Neither do they advertise anonymity. They take steps to protect metadata but it's nothing compared to SimpleX. If it's "the feds", then how? There's reproducible builds on all platforms except iOS so we know the source code is what's running on our devices. Can you point to the code where the E2EE is compromised?…

Nobody is arguing the e2ee isn't valid, its useful as a metadata collection platform, which is all they care about. Former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden famously stated: “We kill people based on metadata." and then he tried to hold back a smile and said "but not with this metadata". It's usefulness as a metadata collection platform becomes much less useful if people don't trust it, so of course it's secure. If…

I'll see your conspiracy theory and raise you one: What if the feds fund tech privacy projects specifically so that people like you won't trust them, and instead embrace privacy nihilism?

This is a known strategy of the Kremlin, by the way. They fund opposition groups which protest them, and then leak the fact of that funding so that people who are genuinely upset at the Kremlin get confused about who is captured opposition and who is legitimate.

It can be a signal in some cases, but funding sources are not a reliable way to make a conclusion about a group's motivations.

Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs

#120

Post by latexr »

monocasa wrote: post #83
Grombobulous wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple should make their products edible as well.

'Apple' was a metaphor to Newton. 'Open'AI was meant as a promise; one that they've since broke both to some of their founders as well to the general populace. Reminding people of that broken promise doesn't seem that wild.

> 'Apple' was a metaphor to Newton

“Apple” was a non-intimidating name that would appear early in the phone book. It had nothing to do with Newton, that logo came after the name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc.

> According to Wozniak, Jobs proposed the name “Apple Computer” when he had just come back from Robert Friedland's All-One Farm in Oregon. Jobs told Walter Isaacson that he was "on one of my fruitarian diets," when he conceived of the name and thought "it sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating ... plus, it would get us ahead of Atari in the phone book."

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