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Wire – Modern Communications Network

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Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#91

Post by egeozcan »

willlma wrote: post #48
onion2k wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone thinks we don't need another one until they see one that does something they like but hadn't realised would be useful. WhatsApp with its free messages, Twitter with its enforced terseness, Snapchat with its take on ephemerality - they were all adopted by millions of users who, before seeing the app, would probably have declared they didn't need a new messaging app. Yet they installed it, tried it, and contin…

I agree. But what's the feature here? I lament the audio quality of cell phone calls, but audio quality depends on bandwidth, and this requires an internet connection, which is going to be spotty depending on location and when transitioning from data to wifi. Every feature here seems a marginal improvement on what already exists (audio quality, UI, sync, security, battery use). No new concepts. Don't get me wrong, I'…

My understanding is that it has inline content like Whatsapp and desktop support & sync features like Skype (Skype took a lot to make the sync at least tolerable - but I guess they already know what they're doing). The supposedly high quality of the calls and inline 3rd party content support (soundcloud and youtube for now, I suppose) are the bonus features.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#92

Post by crystaln »

The most compelling feature of Skype was end-to-end encryption - that is before Microsoft centralized the service, subjected it to man-in-the-middle attacks, and partnered with the Chinese government to produce a back-doored version Tom-Skype.

The app page says "Wire interactions are secure and we comply with European privacy laws and regulations." That's just not enough.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#94

Post by XorNot »

darklajid wrote: post #85
tazjin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have: * Telegram, with all my contacts (including several rather large group chats) * SMS, for telling new contacts to get Telegram I don't mourn XMPP, it wasn't very nice and especially not very mobile friendly.

Not very mobile friendly .. in what way? The limitations I know of are 'fixed' with decent/recent clients (Stream Management comes to mind). Care to elaborate?

Poor offline messaging support. As a consequence practically, poor battery life management.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#95

Post by blowski »

blueskin_ wrote: post #63
sspiff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Right now, I have installed on my phone: * Standard text messaging app, for almost everyone. * Google Hangouts, which is a pain to remove and always logs in behind my back. I don't want to chat on my phone, it's just a nuisance. (I wish people would stop talking to me through Hangouts, honestly) * Viber, with a single contact. * LINE, with a single contact. I don't have WhatsApp or Snapchat or whatever, but…

I have on my phone: Standard text messaging ConnectBot (to an irssi session for IRC) The answer is just to say no when people ask you install $appoftheday to contact them. No hangouts, no skype, no whatsapp, no facebook polluting my phone with their intrusiveness and always-on-in-background tendencies. One person occasionally asks me to install Whatsapp, but each time I say no. Hangouts is a pain to remove if it came…

Which is fine as long as you're happy to be "that guy". If I need to install RandomNewChatApp to talk to a client that's paying me $$$, I'm going to install it. Similarly, if a close friend or relative uses a new service, stubbornly saying "no, that's too awkward for me" is not the kind of person I want to be.

But I would prefer if I could just add them as an account to an app that I already have. And ideally an open-source, usable, attractive app.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#96

Post by jhasse »

kristofferR wrote: post #86
jhasse wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All messages are encrypted by default, but not client-client (in order to make cloud sync work): https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-secre...

It is possible to create synced messages without depending on a server decrypting the messages. Here's how Tox is going to implement that: https://github.com/Quoturnix/ProjectTox-Core/wiki/Multiple-d...

True, but Tox requires a password for that. Telegram tries to be an alternative to WhatsApp so forcing people to sign up with an account isn't an option.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#98

Post by julianpye »

What Skype has and what any of the newcomer will struggle to get is my extended family. My mum and dad, lots of uncles and aunts, some of which over 80 year old all use Skype every day.

It is a big challenge to move any of these people to new technology, even if it would offer a real advantage for them, which no real newcomer does at the moment.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#99

Post by deanclatworthy »

> Wire interactions are secure and we comply with European privacy laws and regulations.

Which basically means as soon as a warrant is sent from pretty much any European government they'll hand over all your conversations. The support article doesn't give any detail whatsoever on how they encrypt your conversations: https://support.wire.com/hc/en-us/articles/203122500-Are-mes...

It's a shame companies can't be held accountable for advertising their services as secure, for false advertising.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#100

Post by rakoo »

emsy wrote: post #62
rakoo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what XMPP is already doing.

I usually dislike introducing yet another standard, but Tox has some features that XMPP won't provide. VoIP support out of the box, without the need for an extension that may not be supported by the client. Also, afaik it's truly decentralized, without the need for a server for the actual communication.

> VoIP support out of the box

True, but do you think it's easier to deploy an extension that already exists and just lacks implementations, or to create a whole new protocol from scratch ?

If you look at other successful protocols, you'll also see that some features we rely on were bolted-on as extensions to protocols that were defined before, such as DNS, IMAP, HTTP... Not that it's an excuse to do the same, but it's expected.

> it's truly decentralized, without the need for a server for the actual communication

I don't think that's not something you actually want.

- How do you send a message to someone who's offline ? You don't, you have to wait for you and your contact to be online at the same time.

- How do you traverse NATs ? You have to craft all that messy code, and it's not even guaranteed that it works... you're going to need a "known anchor" for everyone to connect, just like what we see with WebRTC. If you're aiming for a one single protocol, there's no way around that. By the way XMPP can do signaling over XMPP and actual communications over direct, P2P links (such as SOCKS5: http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0260.html)

The sad state today is that many clients still haven't implemented Jingle, but at least there's something to start from.

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