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Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

whispersystems.org

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Re: Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

#101

Post by frabcus »

joycey wrote: post #74
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #70

Why is the iPhone app called Signal whereas the Android app is called RedPhone? (as an aside, I love the screenshots for RedPhone https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcri... )

I've contributed to the development of Signal 2.0, and you can also check out this blog post. https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal/ On Android you can use RedPhone for secure calls and TextSecure for secure text messages. These calls and text messages are compatible with calls and text messages in Signal iOS. Someday TextSecure and RedPhone on Android will be integrated into one unified product called Signal.

Great!

The TextSecure brand is unfortunately dead to me. Although I liked the idea in theory of the SMS backwards compatibilty layer, in practice it confused people and caused technical problems which stopped many of my friends using it.

With a reboot as a product with the new name Signal, I can market it again. Needs an Android version first though!

Re: Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

#102

Post by guelo »

cheald wrote: post #83
guelo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave up on TextSecure after I irrevocably lost several MMS photos that were sent to me :(

TextSecure lets you save photos out of the conversation and onto (unsecure) external storage.

The photos refused to download from the textsecure servers.

Re: Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

#103

Post by mayneack »

guelo wrote: post #102
cheald wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TextSecure lets you save photos out of the conversation and onto (unsecure) external storage.

The photos refused to download from the textsecure servers.

yeah, I've been burned a few times by photos. Luckily, never in a case where the sender couldn't try again using something else (it's only happened on non textsecure to textsecure, if both people use it, I haven't had any issues)

Re: Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

#104

Post by _jomo »

TextSecure for Android is only distributed via the Play Store. So I built it myself only to notice that Google Play Services are required for chat.

I think depending on proprietary / data gathering apps is the wrong approach for an open source privacy app. It actually makes me sad.

There was an issue about "This requires Google Play" on GitHub [0] which was closed by moxie with "TextSecure only requires GSF for data channel messaging. To use SMS/MMS, it doesn't." Great. I'm not paying 3 cents to send a few bytes of text via SMS. I'll rather just stick to WhatsApp/Telegram.

There are a lot of issues on GitHub that makes searching them a little hard, but it seems like there is ongoing development for websockets instead of (Google-) Push messages. [1][2]

0: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/issues/560

1: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/issues/1000

2: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/pull/2423

Re: Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

#105

Post by easyd »

SpaceInvader wrote: post #58

Question: how and where message is stored when my phone is off and somebody will send me a message? How it is encrypted and then decrypted on my device once turned on?

They are using a modified OTR protocol: https://whispersystems.org/blog/asynchronous-security/

Re: Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

#106

Post by zobzu »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #68
zobzu wrote: post #66

Great app - but I fail to see how that's going to replace GnuPG.

Have I missed the claim they made that it would? GnuPG is useful, but it's a totally different product.

This is related to Moxie's blog post from last week just before the release of this software - which is textsecure for iOS - see http://www.thoughtcrime.org/software.html.

Man, you guys can't remember a thing for a single week?

Re: Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

#107

Post by dguido »

stormbrew wrote: post #98
ogig wrote: post #94

I was waiting for this, even donated some time ago. Went to install it but it requires iOS8 so my perfectly functioning iPhone 4 can't run it. Is very hard to keep older iOS support? Side rant: I hate Apple is leaving my hardware off the grid. It is well cared, like new, battery is ok, no reason to think about replacing other than iOS8, and that sucks.

They addressed it in this github issue: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues/614 I'm also disappointed in this. The people I most want to use this with are also the people who have an iphone4. I don't get the impression it'd be impossible to backport it from that post, so some enterprising individual could maybe do just that...

I'm surprised they didn't mention how amazingly insecure it is to be running a phone that old. If you're running a private messenger like Signal, you might not want to install it on a device vulnerable to bootrom exploits that negate all the advantages of disk encryption.

Re: Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

#108

Post by WhitneyLand »

scott_karana wrote: post #65
lukasm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate more, please?

It's a cryptographically well-audited replacement to iMessage, Skype, and traditional telephony, all of which leave room for governmental and malicious meddling.

It's not really a replacement, more of a secure alternative. Ideally it would be possible to totally replace iMessage with Signal allowing non-secure messages from legacy contacts. However, even if the team were so inclined Apple does not provide adequate messaging APIs. For example, there is no way to intercept an SMS message, see message history, etc.

Re: Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

#109

Post by WhitneyLand »

mayneack wrote: post #45
petermonsson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, thanks. So, I got it working with some friends. The start is rough when you don't have any contacts. There is no hand holding like you'd expect from other messaging apps. Especially the first message to the first contact is a tough discovery. I managed to mistakenly call instead of texting and another friend did exactly the same. The error message when you are not registered yet is also not totally clear. One f…

yeah, i gather this can't be used to completely replaces sms? The handy part of the android textsecure is that it's my sms app for everyone whether or not they use it. I just send a message the normal way and if they're using it, a little lock icon is on the message.

Correct. As I mention above this is unfortunately not possible on iOS due to API lockdown.

Re: Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support

#110

Post by stock_toaster »

joshstrange wrote: post #60

Hmm, about 5 min in and still waiting for a SMS verification message, I assume they are just backed up right now? EDIT: After 20 min of no message I just requested another code (I had done this once or twice before) and it worked.

took me a long time to get the code too.
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