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Et Tu, Signal?

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#101

Post by verytrivial »

vitno wrote: post #53
petard wrote: post #33

I'm baffled how tech-savvy people like the author are surprised when a seemingly free product suddenly introduce ways to monetize its service. There is no free lunch or to put it in another way, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

I'm baffled how people assume this is monetization. Signal has been a nonprofit for years and has no money issues: https://signalfoundation.org . The organization has no formal ties to the alt-coin, although Moxie does. It doesn't monetize the Signal foundation. I'm very unhappy with this, but it's not a monetization scheme.

> The organization has no formal ties to the alt-coin, although Moxie does.

I've tried to rephrase this few times, because it seems too obvious to state, but isn't it a bad thing that a technical "lead" on an app is very likely going to personally benefit from some other technology being shoe-horned into that app?

It's his (and the Foundation's) baby, so he of course can, but I can't help but feel like this unholy but super convenient marriage will harm the reputation of Signal and MobileCoin. They could both sink or swim based upon the perception of the other.

Sorry if this is obvious. It feels like I'm taking crazy pills.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#102

Post by lameiam »

gruez wrote: post #18
Lev1a wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't the user just ignore this cryptocurrency BS if they (like myself) have no intention of using it?

You can, it's just that having the cryptocurrency in the first place leaves a bad taste in some people's mouths.

don't lick your phone then, seriously, if you don't like a feature, do use it. Done.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#103

Post by Y-bar »

vodkapump wrote: post #66
simias wrote: post #20

I definitely agree with the article that it felt a bit like a betrayal. I've pushed some friends and family to use it over Telegram despite significant usability issue, and now I see that instead of implementing some IMO basic features like proper message sync and easy backup when you get a new phone, they prefer to implement a... micropayment system? Based on some niche altcoin which doesn't even exist on mainstream…

> easy backup when you get a new phone I just recently got a new phone, and used the new feature to do this (uses wi-fi direct) and I have to say it seemed like it would be easy enough for non-techy users to use.

My phone needed to be factory reset, where was my backup to restore from without purchasing a second phone?

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#104

Post by skrowl »

simias wrote: post #20

I definitely agree with the article that it felt a bit like a betrayal. I've pushed some friends and family to use it over Telegram despite significant usability issue, and now I see that instead of implementing some IMO basic features like proper message sync and easy backup when you get a new phone, they prefer to implement a... micropayment system? Based on some niche altcoin which doesn't even exist on mainstream…

Telegram is just so much more usable than Signal.

The perceived advantage of Signal over Telegram is LITERALLY not having an option for a cloud-synced chat and ONLY having end to end encrypted chats. That's all.

You give up of usability to get that advantage. Explain to your mom why she has to give up Telegram to get basically the same functionality as Telegram secret chats.

Signals crypto is used by Facebook and was sponsored by the US Govt. Before you believe "OMG Telegram crypto is bad!" FUD, do 15 minutes of research.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#105

Post by dexen »

bitexploder wrote: post #67

I have met Moxie and followed his work for over a decade. He is one of the most ethical people in the information security industry. I would suggest people put down their pitch forks and think this through carefully. I can’t imagine this was done lightly or without considering Signal’s core mission in a highly ethical context. There is a lot of anti-crypto sentiment these days. Does this announcement actually change…

As a background I'm broadly pro-crypto, in particular the privacy-preserving coins.

>He is one of the most ethical people in the information security industry.

Connecting your communications history, your transaction history and your offline ID through phone number is an explicitly pro-establishment move. Something must have changed along the way about his originally cypherpunk positions.

>Does it compromise Signals security as a messenger client?

Not that we know. The problem is much more pernicious: through centralization, it makes the user less secure. In case of a privacy breach or court ordered document reveal or seizure, the scope will be much broader: communication history AND transaction history. Given that it will also list the transaction counter-parties, this opens up others to the privacy risks just as well.

The correct solution: decouple messaging from your offline identity (phone number etc.). Decouple transactions from offline identity and from communications - proper use of cryptocurrency is good for that.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#106

Post by robjan »

nlitened wrote: post #79
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proper message sync is hardly possible with end-to-end encryption everyone so excited about (without fully understanding the implications of true secrecy). If you have e2ee and then sync messages via google drive (looking at you, Viber), you are kinda missing the point.

I remember that Skype, before it was bought and ruined by Microsoft, had P2P chat history sync that worked the following way: once two of your devices were online at the same time, they synchronized chat history among the two running instances flawlessly. It was super reliable and predictable. I am sure that Signal could implement the same peer-to-peer sync scheme with full end-to-end encryption without any secrecy c…

One of the features of the Signal protocol is that each message is signed with a different key so that if one message is somehow compromised it's still impossible to retrieve the others. I think this would break with P2P sync.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#107

Post by roadbeats »

Signal (messenger, not foundation)’s plan for cryptocurrency was in news 4 years ago already. It can feel like a betrayal but can we put others responsible others for our feelings?

How can we expect a company to provide us what we want for free? Robots running on solar power will build them?

How about this: stop approaching a monetization problem as if it's a choice being evil vs. not evil.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#108

Post by ent »

vodkapump wrote: post #66
simias wrote: post #20

I definitely agree with the article that it felt a bit like a betrayal. I've pushed some friends and family to use it over Telegram despite significant usability issue, and now I see that instead of implementing some IMO basic features like proper message sync and easy backup when you get a new phone, they prefer to implement a... micropayment system? Based on some niche altcoin which doesn't even exist on mainstream…

> easy backup when you get a new phone I just recently got a new phone, and used the new feature to do this (uses wi-fi direct) and I have to say it seemed like it would be easy enough for non-techy users to use.

Not sure why this was downvoted. I switched phones yesterday and transferring signal with the direct wi-fi transfer was easier than transferring whatsapp, I do know that that used to not be the case.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#109

Post by IgorPartola »

tombert wrote: post #65
IgorPartola wrote: post #4

I was recently pulled onto Signal by a non-techie who values his privacy. I talked to him about Matrix/Element and he had no idea what that was, but was very happy with Siganl. I must admit, the app is very nice. All I had to do was give it access to my contacts and bam, I am now able to chat with all my contacts. By comparison, Element is much more like a chat program than a phone messenger. It's good for "I want to…

I think you hit the nail on the head with "Element is much more like a chat program than a phone messenger". Me and a friend experimented chatting with Element (Riot at the time), and while it certainly "worked", the process of getting everything working was not something I would expect a non-programmer to be able to figure out. We had to finagle different keys across different computers and phones and it was fairly…

> I feel like Element works better as a competitor to Slack or IRC than as a competitor to Signal or Whatsapp.

To me it's a competitor to Keybase. "I want to send my co-worker/client an API key that I don't want exposed to the public" is about the only use for Keybase I've had. I have like 5 contacts on there for this reason. Slack/IRC is much more usable for getting shit done, but not being E2E I wouldn't send anything sensitive over them. Element is currently a "this is a mildly nicer experience over PGP + Email/Slack.

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