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Et Tu, Signal?

stephendiehl.com

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Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#201

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

pmlnr wrote: post #195
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #173

All the dumping on signal is sad. Here we have an nonprofit app that has succesfully broken into a major consumer market, and because of their ambitions to break up another cartel, and this is bad ? Lets take a stab at understanding the authors complaints. Author states users are smart and "we make the majority of users". Going beyond the entitlement of that statement, author can feel betrayed, but for signal to succ…

It's rolled out in the UK with one if the best banking systems in the world. Plus like hell Signal is anonym, it still relies on an sms capable phone number, which is hard to get in many countries.

Ok.

I don't understand how UK selection is bad. You need to build to an addressable market and build in that.

Someone made an assesment that the UK made sense. Presumably that someone could be wrong. But they are going to try. Which is 100% better than the rest of the payment apps because they are closed, for profit, and sell your data

Re sms. Agree. But you do agree that prioritization is subjective? What signal leadership thinks it needs to maximize privacy and security may differ from your perspective, correct?

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#202

Post by cratermoon »

It's funny, to me, to see a culture that values personal freedom and shuns regulatory oversight get bent out of shape when their platforms take those values to their logical conclusion. It's even funnier when they realize there's no Free Market solution.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#203

Post by alexvoda »

Ardon wrote: post #54
CA0DA wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Matrix/Element is the platform less likely to pull something like this Agree, I've been using Matrix/Element, and it's a bit slower/buggy but seems like it'll be around for longer.

The best part about Matrix/Element, is that it could be Matrix/Anything. If Element is buggy, switch to another client.

And unlike Telegram where the client is open source, with Matrix you can also switch the server. Or bring your own server.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#204

Post by miloignis »

acdha wrote: post #170
stryan wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix is an open, federated protocol so something like this can't happen. Worst that could happen is bad stuff happens to Element (the flagship client) at which point people can either fork it or simply use another client.

This assumes that there’s enough volunteer capacity to maintain it and that federation remains open despite business incentives to close it or the maintenance costs (i.e. spam). That could be true but the track record hasn’t been good and it definitely won’t happen without a concerted effort to support it.

I think there is a big enough community to maintain it, should that ever happen. There are multiple totally community-made clients that work well, and there's at least one community-made server that's getting close-ish to federation, even if no-one forked Element/Synapse/Dendrite.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#205

Post by asddubs »

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,…

I think the most common complaint is that group chats are not encrypted, and regular chats are also unencrypted by default.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#206

Post by derefr »

gruez wrote: post #93
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.

It's anonymous with some caveats. The transaction graph is still there, it's just that there are decoy inputs/outputs which provides plausible deniability. However, over repeated transactions the plausible deniability weakens. ie. having an output to a darknet market in one of your transaction is easily explainable by bad luck, but it's present in several transactions it becomes suspicious enough that the police can…

This might be true of the particular decoy approach used with Monero, but I don’t think it’s true in general; e.g. with mixer/tumbler services. If every transaction that everyone does has some outputs to darknet markets (because they’re popular and high-volume), and some outputs to legitimate businesses (because they’re also popular and high-volume) then that really is reasonable doubt that any particular individual did anything bad.

It’s like how you can’t charge someone with possession of cocaine because there’s cocaine on the US dollar bills in their pocket: there’s actually trace amounts of cocaine on every US dollar bill.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#208

Post by jeltz »

as1mov wrote: post #140

But I thought moving from the walled garden owned by Facebook to another walled garden owned by a Non Profit Organisation whose main maintainer controls the entirety of the platform and discourages any forks/federation would solve all our problems. Surely they would never dare to push shady shit in their application since they are the good guys™. I am shocked.

Agreed, I never really saw the point of moving to Signal since they always felt shady to me. Why go through the effort to convince your friends to move from one shady chat client to another?

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#209

Post by PH01 »

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…

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

What does this statement actually mean? To my mind both cryptocurrency and cypherpunk culture have set some fairly low bars for ethical and moral conduct.

There appears to be a bit of a pattern of idolisation in crypto and cypher areas. A developer who fits the media mould of the 1995 Hackers film is spotlighted as saving the world. The spotlight brings attention and drives a project forward. Eventually the spotlight reveals these people have the same motivations as most people. Onlookers are disappointed.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#210

Post by vetinari »

approxim8ion wrote: post #183
skrowl wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a big advantage, and a very important one. But definitely, that and the superior crypto is what keeps me on the app. Telegram is in a whole different level when it comes to usability and refinement. >Signals crypto is used by Facebook and was sponsored by the US Govt Funny that you're talking about FUD.

It is not FUD.

OWS was financed by Open Technology Fund, to the tune of almost $3M, during the years 2013-2016. See here: https://www.opentech.fund/results/supported-projects/open-wh...

What is Open Technology Fund? It is a program of Radio Free Asia, which run by US Agency for Global Media, funded by US Congress.

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