Et Tu, Signal? • Hacker News Board

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#221

Post by dijit » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

tonyjstark wrote: post #159

okamiueru wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

As other the other answers state: It's them rolling their own cryptography. Also, not having E2EE in group chats. Their UX is really good and I agree with you, going from that alone I would always suggest Telegram too. There are other considerations too, like that fact that I often got notifications that someone joined Telegram but that person was a friend of a friend and not in my personal contact list. One of my fr…

If that person is your contacts, you get a notification.

If you're in someone else's contacts, they'll get a notification when you sign up too.

Contact information gets uploaded (Name, Email, Phone Number) so that they can generate "rich" push notifications, as the server issuing the push has to produce the message (no code can run client side).

More info here, though could be outdated (2013): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6915194

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#222

Post by clevergadget » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

cyberpunk wrote: post #214

Did anyone ever consider that this is actually on purpose to deter people from using Signal by it's authors? Lets imagine, theoretically, some three letter agency in the US has forced signal to backdoor their platform somehow, and so signal stops posting source code to the clients, and everyone just keeps on using it for a year even though the authors thought that maybe this would be a big red "DANGER" signal to the…

Theories like this are interesting because if you have a hundred of them one is probably true. It's definitely plausible even if it seems on the face unlikely. It's interesting enough that this is what I'm going to take from the story anyway so thx for putting on the hat

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#223

Post by asddubs » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #202

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.

i don't shun regulatory oversight, i shun regulatory overreach

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#224

Post by vetinari » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

eximius wrote: post #181

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…

There are no known attacks against Telegram. The problem is entirely that its cryptography was sketchy and just plain weird to begin with. It wasn't wrong , per se, but raised some eyebrows. And then some of the questionable choices were silently fixed removing the ability to MITM, etc, but with no real notice. It's not FUD.

Interestingly, if you say that Signal's funding is sketchy and it raised some eyebrows, that would be FUD (see sibling comment). But saying the same about Telegram encryption is for some reason perfectly fine and definitely not FUD.

Shouldn't we have the same standard for all claims?

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#225

Post by ddevault » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

Macha wrote: post #73

Every time Matrix is brought up here, the federation and open spec is criticised as being too slow moving compared to Signal's BDFL approach. Well, this is what happens when the interests of the BDFL and community diverge. If New Vector decided to fuck up Element on the other hand, you could just move to a new client and not deal with marketing a network move to your social network.

Matrix being slow has a lot more to do with their crappy implementation than it has to do with the nature of a federated network.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#226

Post by pmlnr » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #201

pmlnr wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lea…

> Which is 100% better than the rest of the payment apps because they are closed, for profit, and sell your data

Riiight. A shitcoin scam is 100% better, than a banking system that has been polished to what it is by learning the hard way for the past 300 years. Got it.

EDIT

> I don't understand how UK selection is bad.

Because nobody needs this in the UK at all.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#227

Post by izacus » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

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.

Will that feature work if you drop your phone and it breaks? Or will you lose all your conversations and photos then?

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#228

Post by orbifold » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

dividedbyzero wrote: post #94

tw04 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try transferring from an iOS phone to Android. Try transferring messages to a new desktop (you can't). It's 2021, I don't want to be platform locked and none of the other popular messaging apps have that issue.

Last I checked (about a year ago I think) Whatsapp backups were platform-locked as well.

You can get a dump of all your messages with someone pretty easily.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#229

Post by simias » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

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.

That's great to know, I didn't know they had improved on that front. Last time I tried to do it you had to manually copy a file from a micro-SD card (and it was only supported on Android) and then you had to copy a crypto key. In the end I couldn't get it to work and gave up.

Unfortunately day-to-day my issue is more with syncing the desktop to the phone client's history and as far as I know it still won't let me do that.

An other super convenient feature of Whatsapp and Telegram is that they offer a pure web interface with basic functionality which is super convenient if you're in a pinch and don't want to/can't install the standalone desktop application.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#230

Post by jron » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

madars wrote: post #169

thomasjudge wrote: post #74

The source is GPL3, right? Could someone fork it without the cryptocurrency code?

Signal explicitly disallows third party clients https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...

A workable fork would most likely require standing up new servers that would be isolated from the existing Signal user base. I think we'll see a handful of forks very shortly and it will be interesting to see how the new maintainers navigate the current landscape.