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Wire – Modern Communications Network

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Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#381

Post by kansface »

blueskin_ wrote: post #13
NullReference wrote: post #4

"What we need is another messaging app" said nobody, ever. It looks pretty, but this is yet another app in the long list of "Skype killers" or "Voice/video/text" messaging. It seems like it's the default goto for anyone that can't think of something more interesting these days.

Agreed. What we need is a protocol people can make clients for. With end to end encryption and PFS, of course.

Protocols usually come from successful clients, not the other way around, but you are free to try. When you do, you can be assured that:

"Yet another messaging protocol is what we need said nobody ever" will be the top comment.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#382

Post by kansface »

joeyspn wrote: post #141

No, the Skype killer has another name: WebRTC. And Wire seems like yet another closed-source GUI making use of the WebRTC stack. I honestly prefer FOSS solutions: Tox, oTalk, Jitsi, etc... oTalk looks really promising

WebRTC is a monster to implement (and a moving standard at that). It will be quite some time before enough OSS software exists to really replace skype. Besides, it is really hard to displace social networks with new ones, particularly when the new banner is "freedom".

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#383

Post by dcre »

melq wrote: post #373
dcre wrote: post #372

Weird that no one here is talking about voice quality, which was what stood out to me as most interesting about the product. I've wondered for a while why, if we can handle something as high-bandwidth as video chat, we can't do higher-fidelity audio chat over data. But I just tried it and it sounded more or less the same as a normal cell voice call. Also the UI is pretty but slow-feeling on Android. I have a feeling…

Could the quality of the phone's microphone be the reason for the low-fi voice audio?

It's possible, but I doubt it. The person on the other end was using a Nexus 6. I don't know first-hand how its microphone is, but I know my (high-end Android) phone can record voice memos with much higher sound quality than I typically hear from a phone call.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#384

Post by fredsters_s »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #156

Am I such an outlier if I use Skype for business, not for leisure? I have clients on three continents and every single one used Skype to communicate about the project. Skype was generally running on every machine as a "watercooler chat"/IRC replacement. Just open groups, give them names and pin them to the sidebar. Done. So I really expected this to be more secure, more portable and LESS designer-driven. Who is even…

this is clearly not b2b

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#385

Post by gurkendoktor »

hellbanner wrote: post #259
darklajid wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Single data point: I open Skype for one occasion: Monday night, gaming with friends that - for the lack of a better term - "don't know better" (I'd prefer TeamSpeak or Mumble for Gaming - or any other voice chat that doesn't require a G+ account really). Skype is slow. Ugly. And worst of all: It shoves ads in my face on multiple levels (popups, banners etc). So far I keep it for this weekly use case, but I hope that…

Your Skype shows ads? I've never seen ads on Skype.

I have never seen a single ad on Skype (Windows, Mac, iOS) when I use my old account, where I have regularly bought SkypeOut credits.

When I created a second account for work with a new client, suddenly ads popped up everywhere.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#386

Post by vog »

ClashTheBunny wrote: post #206
vog wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, their main site doesn't work without JavaScript. Come on ... having to execute custom code in the browser just to display a "Download" button? I hope they applied more (security-related) common sense in their apps than in their website.

Processing foreign data is just as dangerous as processing foreign code. Don't lull yourself into complacency just because you have NoScript when your JPEG library is probably less sandboxed and audited than your JavaScript virtual machine. The whole idea of the Von Neumann architecture is that code is data and data is code. It is advantageous when you trust everyone, but now that you can trust noöne? What to do?

I'm not complaining about the security implications of running JS code.

I'm complaining about security implications by introducing unnecessary complexity.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#387

Post by RaleyField »

bad_user wrote: post #354
FreezerburnV wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that, theoretically, proprietary can be secure. A code base can be made secure by highly experienced engineers who are paid to make the code secure. You might never be able to see the code, but it could still be secure. The problem is that you can never actual verify how secure the proprietary solution is. So whether or not it is secure, you don't trust it. (there are even some interesting arguments to…

While you can argue that some piece of open source software can be more insecure than a proprietary alternative, auditing a piece of software requires access to the source code and that is mandatory. And with open source everybody can audit with no restrictions. Yes, OpenSSH is a piece of shit, but how do you think it was discovered, from 2 independent parties no less. Then there's another effect that I like - after…

OpenSSH or OpenSSL? I thought OpenSSH was pretty solid, forgetting the fact that configuring it isn't as straightforeward as one would hope.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#388

Post by geoah »

bad_user wrote: post #57
notthetup wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're based on WebRTC then I believe end-to-end encryption is baked into the standard. Whether they use the standard completely is another question.

Where does it say that they are based on WebRTC?

Source code. :P

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#389

Post by coldtea »

lxgr wrote: post #219
coldtea wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What massive security holes?

For example, they store the message database on the shared mass storage partition (a.k.a. SD card), where it can be read by all installed applications.

That shouldn't happen in a properly sandboxed OS.

Re: Wire – Modern Communications Network

#390

Post by corobo »

Omniusaspirer wrote: post #67
beaner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really all I want as well. There's tons of pretty messaging apps. Style isn't enough to sway me anymore - I want privacy. How hard is it to make a messaging app that makes encryption its #1 priority?

I've been following Tox with some interest. It's fairly new but fully open source, decentralized, end-to-end encryption, no account needed (people added via their unique bytestring). https://tox.im/

I wish this one would market itself as a really good chat application first and privacy second. Privacy etc is of course important but it all feels far too tinfoil hat for myself and too technical I'd imagine for anyone else I know to bother with
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