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Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

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Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#121

Post by asymmetric »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #91
JoshTriplett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the one and only feature I'm missing in Signal that would let me use it and recommend it to everyone without reservations (rather than exclusively for ephemeral-only communication) is the ability to keep identity and full message history when moving to a new device. Today, on iOS, you can't move your Signal history to a new device, and on Android you can only do so by manually making an encrypted backup fil…

I converted several non-technical people to Signal, and a few were devastated to learn that getting a new phone meant that they lost their message history. They refuse to use it ever again. The other sticking point is the phone number requirement. A (female) friend shared her “Signal” contact info with a professional acquaintance who doesn’t understand boundaries. After ignoring him on Signal, that led to unwanted SM…

Agreed about true phone number requirement.

Sure supports connecting via @username only, and I’ve seen a few people switch to it for this reason alone (also the UI is a bit sleeker)

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#123

Post by anon9001 »

misrab wrote: post #122

Is it a coincidence this came up on HN at the same time Telegram is getting dissed on HN? Can't help but think it was coordinated...which is sad for HN

People don't like Telegram because it's a centralized thing and maybe not trustworthy. I'm not sure if I'd trust the Telegram founders, and their commitment to open source seems questionable to me (no server, outdated clients).

People advocate for Signal because it's arguably the least offensive of the available e2e options. Also the founder for Signal has a long history of doing good work in this area.

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#124

Post by rvense »

stilisstuk wrote: post #116
jblwps wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you're talking about the Android app, but you can actually force sending with SMS. The option to do so in a conversation/thread can be found by long-holding the send button, which then pops up a context menu to send via Signal or SMS.

This is not a long term solution :)

It's a per-conversation preference, as far as I remember. You only have to do it once.

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#125

Post by Vinnl »

stilisstuk wrote: post #60
tptacek wrote: post #2

Again, in the theme of "features every group messaging system had already, but Signal didn't, because they hadn't figured out a way to implement it without turning Signal's central servers into a database of who's talking to who about what". Signal didn't even have user profiles until recently, for the same reason. Here, they've slightly expanded the state of the art in MAC-based anonymous credentials to accomplish t…

Been using signal since textsecure I think (I even think there was another name before that). In all that time, one thing keeps me thinking about backing out: phone numbers. When a contact decides to uninstall signal, I lose contact. Signal still thinks that the recipient has a signal account, and hence won't deliver messages via SMS.

The same holds for WhatsApp, btw. I once got a new phone number that had been used by someone else before, and was still associated with their WhatsApp account. People kept sending me messages over WhatsApp without me even being aware (I don't use it myself).

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#126

Post by kelnos »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #2

Again, in the theme of "features every group messaging system had already, but Signal didn't, because they hadn't figured out a way to implement it without turning Signal's central servers into a database of who's talking to who about what". Signal didn't even have user profiles until recently, for the same reason. Here, they've slightly expanded the state of the art in MAC-based anonymous credentials to accomplish t…

Honestly, the one and only feature I'm missing in Signal that would let me use it and recommend it to everyone without reservations (rather than exclusively for ephemeral-only communication) is the ability to keep identity and full message history when moving to a new device. Today, on iOS, you can't move your Signal history to a new device, and on Android you can only do so by manually making an encrypted backup fil…

I've written a little Android app that watches the Signal backups directory and uploads new files to Google Drive when they appear. For a new phone, it can download your latest backup and put it where Signal will find it when you first run the app. I want to polish it and put it on the Play Store, but of course the last 20% is 80% of the work.

I'm also reluctant to release it publicly because I'm worried about the support burden, because, while I've made the experience as easy as possible, it's still not a great experience considering how Signal works. I expect to see a lot of angry users who don't realize (despite documentation) that they need to download the backup to their new phone before running the Signal app for the first time. And then I expect people who lose their backup encryption key to blame me that their backups are unrecoverable.

I guess at the very least I could open source it at some point, but the setup is a pain since you need to create a Google Cloud project authorized to use the GDrive APIs.

Signal really needs this built-in. It puzzles me that it hasn't happened yet, since I built this little app in under ten hours (and I hadn't touched Android development in a good 7 years and had no experience with the GDrive APIs).

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#127

Post by Vinnl »

RustyRussell wrote: post #81

What I really want from Signal is the ability to use it as an application transport. In particular, I want to authorise certain people to request my phone's location. At the moment I share it with Google so I can share it with friends or family, which sucks.

This is with Telegram (which I'm not a fan of), not Signal, but it might still be interesting to you: https://osmand.net/blog/osmand-telegram-released

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#128

Post by thaumasiotes »

parley wrote: post #32
JoshTriplett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the one and only feature I'm missing in Signal that would let me use it and recommend it to everyone without reservations (rather than exclusively for ephemeral-only communication) is the ability to keep identity and full message history when moving to a new device. Today, on iOS, you can't move your Signal history to a new device, and on Android you can only do so by manually making an encrypted backup fil…

Yes, there are a lot of us out there who use Signal and have this single missing feature as our largest pain point. My previous phone (iOS) would have been donated or sold to someone who could make better use of it, had I been able to actually get years and years of Signal conversations (with media) and memories out of it. But I can't (without prohibitive amounts of manual work), so it lies unused in a drawer waiting…

> Yes, there are a lot of us out there who use Signal and have this single missing feature as our largest pain point.

That is fair, but... I'm willing to make a backup file and handle a 30-digit passcode. I don't want to sign up using a phone number. That's crazy. :-/

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#129

Post by thaumasiotes »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #48
JoshTriplett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the one and only feature I'm missing in Signal that would let me use it and recommend it to everyone without reservations (rather than exclusively for ephemeral-only communication) is the ability to keep identity and full message history when moving to a new device. Today, on iOS, you can't move your Signal history to a new device, and on Android you can only do so by manually making an encrypted backup fil…

I think I'm an exception in this instance, but I don't understand what value there is in message history. How often do you find yourself reminiscing by going back through a messaging log? If there are photos that should be kept then there are other ways to back them up. Is there valuable context in the conversation that was had around the delivery of the photo? Are messages backed up and restorable for other messagin…

> How often do you find yourself reminiscing by going back through a messaging log?

Are you kidding? All the time!

Most commonly by first reminiscing and then searching out the appropriate part of the message log.

Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System

#130

Post by JoshTriplett »

Krasnol wrote: post #119
JoshTriplett wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the one and only feature I'm missing in Signal that would let me use it and recommend it to everyone without reservations (rather than exclusively for ephemeral-only communication) is the ability to keep identity and full message history when moving to a new device. Today, on iOS, you can't move your Signal history to a new device, and on Android you can only do so by manually making an encrypted backup fil…

I don't see the issue as dramatic as you do as I probably don't change my device so often. Writing down a 30-digit code once every 2-3 years isn't that hard. I assume people for whom this is too much do already use whatsapp and wouldn't switch over because they don't care about the reasons for why you have to write down this 30-digits code.

> Writing down a 30-digit code once every 2-3 years isn't that hard.

If you know that Signal needs a special backup procedure. If you don't, you've lost your data.

Also, that process applies to manual backups and recoveries, such as for device-to-device transfer from a working device. It doesn't work nearly as well for performing regular backups of a working device in case it abruptly becomes a non-working device.

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