Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Et Tu, Signal?

stephendiehl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 459 posts

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#141

Post by hnarn »

XorNot wrote: post #10
enriquto wrote: post #2

Shit. Just as I convinced all my family and friends to move out from whatsapp and I uninstalled the stupid green app. What do we get to do now?

This isn't a privacy breach at this point though. It's just questionable. The security model of Signal doesn't require us to trust the servers (in theory - in practice, well, you've got the app chain and non-reproducible builds and distribution).

I don't mean to sound pessimistic but "Security in theory" isn't really secure, is it?

I still have way more trust for Signal than I have for say Messenger or Telegram, but I've been burned too many times to take these things at face value.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#142

Post by dijit »

okamiueru wrote: post #117
tonyjstark wrote: post #62

This article mirrors my feelings toward this announcement well. I spent a significant amount of time trying out different messaging apps and convincing my friends and family to move over from Telegram and WhatsApp. I used my reputation and their trust in my expertise. The whole blockchain industry is just too mixed with scams that I feel comfortable to have my non-tech relatives dealing with it. It's enough that I ha…

What would you say are the cons of Telegram? I've been highly impressed with the UX for quite some time, but have refrained from pushing it (and the likes) onto friends. My family and friends seems to have slowly drifted towards signal, and I haven't bothered affecting that, but if I would go from a pure UX, I'd suggest telegram. So, I'm genuinely curious to know others' thoughts on it. I have only limited knowledge,…

Telegrams stupidity was marketing itself as secure. If it never had, then all arguments and sour intent towards it would be hugely misplaced.

As it stands, it’s not E2E by default and it’s E2E scheme is homegrown- which is usually not recommended (though IMO was not a dealbreaker), the big issue there was that there were flaws in the original design of the encryption scheme which makes it harder to look passed the fact it’s homegrown.

Telegram can intercept most messages on the platform, however, ultimately I trust them more than Facebook; so I’m less concerned.

Additionally, since Facebook controls _both_ ends of whatsapp _and_ does not support third party programs, then even though WhatsApp is E2E there’s little preventing Facebook from pushing an update to your phone which backs up all your chats to their cloud.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#143

Post by acdha »

twobitshifter wrote: post #69
mikece wrote: post #61

I'm a little surprised that nobody is mentioning that any kind of blockchain payment system creates a permanent, public ledger. One US Attorney called Bitcoin's blockchain "prosecution futures" as it's only a matter of time before the sender/receiver addresses for transactions are correlated with unique individuals. This permanent, public record of a transaction between a Signal account and another user or a service…

That’s true for a lot of crypto but not for something like monero which has an anonymous blockchain.

That’s the hope but remember that it’s irrevocable: you’re gambling that they got the implementation perfect, the network is operated securely without practical side channels or timing analysis, no unrecognized attacks will become practical, and that your clients will not have any bugs or backdoors — for the rest of your life!

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#144

Post by lottin »

twobitshifter wrote: post #69
mikece wrote: post #61

I'm a little surprised that nobody is mentioning that any kind of blockchain payment system creates a permanent, public ledger. One US Attorney called Bitcoin's blockchain "prosecution futures" as it's only a matter of time before the sender/receiver addresses for transactions are correlated with unique individuals. This permanent, public record of a transaction between a Signal account and another user or a service…

That’s true for a lot of crypto but not for something like monero which has an anonymous blockchain.

Blockchains and privacy are antithetical. The whole purpose of a blockchain is to keep track of transactions so that everyone knows how many coins everyone else has in order to prevent double-spending. You can try to achieve anonymity through obscurity but this will never work in principle or in practice.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#145

Post by roadbeats »

jsmith12673 wrote: post #132
roadbeats wrote: post #107

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.

Signal is a not-for-profit organization.

Edited my comment for clarity

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#146

Post by kreetx »

robotbikes wrote: post #29
dt3ft wrote: post #16

Oh well. No such thing as free lunch after all. Yet again, a user-funded nonprofit would be the way to go, but users want free stuff. Minority would donate, but good luck having a steady cash flow and being able to pay for the infrastructure and your wages.

Moxie seems to think that they need to do this to keep up with the Joneses, as they try to build some kind of decentralized alternative to WeChat. I guess we should have seen this coming when he got involved with MobileCoin. I'm not a psychic and it might turn out okay but it still seems like a bad idea to me.

No, he wants to do this, has wanted to do this for a long time.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#148

Post by eptcyka »

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.

Yeah, but consider the use case where you lose your phone in an accident or someone steals it. You can recover your sim card, you know your recovery password. But you'll be SoL and you won't be able to recover the history of all of your group and individual chats. This sucks.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#149

Post by darkwater »

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…

> By comparison, Element is much more like a chat program than a phone messenger. It's good for "I want to connect with that person from GitHub"

Element is what messaging should have been from the START: a federated service just like email, where you register an account with your provider of choice, just like email, and start adding/chatting other people after getting to know their address, just like email. So, instead of asking that cute girl her phone number or her email address, you would ask her her element address.

Whatsapp spoiled this approach years ago, so now we are basically screwed because everyone is used to the central approach and it's almost impossible to move away from it. But TODAY's implementation of Element and their shiny clients 12 years ago, would have been a great success just like WhatsApp was (whishful thinking at its finest, I know).

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#150

Post by kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj »

lottin wrote: post #144
twobitshifter wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true for a lot of crypto but not for something like monero which has an anonymous blockchain.

Blockchains and privacy are antithetical. The whole purpose of a blockchain is to keep track of transactions so that everyone knows how many coins everyone else has in order to prevent double-spending. You can try to achieve anonymity through obscurity but this will never work in principle or in practice.

Sure, this applies for bitcoin, because bitcoin is legacy technology and has no features or utility. Monero does not work like bitcoin

https://steemit.com/monero/@sgp/7yjqso-a-monero-introduction...

Post reply on HN