wake me up when signal can be used with no significant loss of feature or extra-hoops like signal-cli+SMS on non-google/non-apple devices like my linux desktops / linux phones.
Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
141–150 of 206 posts
Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
#142Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
> '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…
Either way, it wasn't intended to be a promise to the public to be held to the same way as OpenAI's name was.
Yes, agreed. Sorry, I lost track of the important bit there.
Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Federation freezes the technology" https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
That's a defeatist take that's been vastly debunked, someone linked the Matrix version and here is the XMPP one: https://gultsch.de/posts/objection/ In short, yes, building a standard takes some effort, but that serves your users and to future-proof your solution. Moxie's post boils down to "1- I know better than my users and I don't need input to protocol-design, 2- I'm not willing to put in the effort to standardiz…
Matrix is a vastly different protocol with vastly different privacy implications. Things like leaking reaction metadata outside of the encrypted envelope (though there finally is an MSC to fix that) should make that obvious. Matrix is cool tech and I use it every day, but comparing Matrix to Signal doesn't make much sense. You can't do what Signal does with Matrix or XMPP, simply because the lack of federation affords privacy and security advantages that federated protocols cannot support.
As for Moxie's post: all three points feel completely valid for a service they're offering for free. Moxie does know better than most users (most users don't know the first thing about software, programming, protocol design, or UX design) and it's a companies choices that drive users to their platform in the first place. Users who don't like it can choose from the dozens of other chat apps instead.
As for the second point, Matrix's ever-moving target of a protocol makes selecting a client or server that covers all of your needs a massive pain. Currently, Matrix's primary server software, Synapse (which is also at the base of the matrix.org server many people default to when joining the network), is violating the Matrix protocol, making it impossible to invite users to chat if they are on compliant Matrix servers. On the XMPP side, there are two different methods of achieving E2EE communication, with seemingly no standard mechanism to support the use case "I want to log in to my chat on my laptop and be able to decrypt the messages in the group chat". I can't blame Signal for not wanting to deal with issues like that. One piece of server software, one set of client versions, with fixes ready to deploy when they're called for: Signal's current design saves a lot of time and effort.
As for the third point, that's part of the reason I use Signal in the first place. I like federated networks as much as the next nerd and I like open standards even more, but the decisiveness behind the company, even when I disagree with their decisions sometimes, is what makes it clear what you can and cannot expect.
On the XMPP defence: yes, I believe what they are saying, XMPP could in theory be a good product, just like Matrix could be, and like Signal is. However, currently, it isn't. XMPP is currently losing in terms of public marketshare to Matrix, which I also wouldn't exactly call a great success.
Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
#145Earlier 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/
I've attended the eponymous CCC talk and I've never seen any other talk there where the Q&A section has just immediately turned into nearly everyone almost dunking on the presented ideas. It's a rather poor take (or at least "controversial" if you will).
Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
#146Earlier 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…
Does the perfect messaging tool exist (100% e2ee encrypted and decentralized and open)?
Depending on your needs, XMPP or Matrix are probably your best bet. Both have different clients of varying usability and quality on different platforms, so you have to pick your poison. If E2EE is important, you also need to determine how encrypted you want your messages to be (as both XMPP and Matrix carry quite a bit of identifying metadata in its unencrypted headers).
For most people and use cases, either will probably do, but if you're a human rights activist or journalist in an oppressive country, I'd stick to Signal.
Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
#147Does the protocol preserve its privacy benefit when payment, recovery, and anti-abuse metadata are considered together?
Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
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".
In Britain it means get you pregnant too. Source : I'm British
Well, you're a better source than I am (for Britain). Is the "knock on the door" sense still available or has it been entirely displaced?
Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
#149For 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…
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Re: Registration without a phone number on Signal will use zero-knowledge proofs
#150Is Signal still a trusted company in the industry? They are based in the USA.