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

Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 665 posts

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#471

Post by cookiengineer »

bilal4hmed wrote: post #103

With Signal not releasing their server code and now this, I regret using and asking a good chunk of my base to move to Signal.

I regret finding out Signal uses recaptcha in its welcome screen, and sets the Google PREF cookie permanently in the App's Cache.

Traceable by Google every time you open the App... and using Google's Backup service to store the private keys unencrypted. Well, so much for E2EE.

This combined with what went on with LibreSignal and legal threats from moxie made me realize it's just a company selling privacy claims without proof.

(if you don't think this is true, use AppWarden or decompile the APK. Play Services, Firebase and Recaptcha are still integrated years after LibreSignal was forked.)

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#472

Post by hanniabu »

josh2600 wrote: post #441
hiq wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I still have to read the docs more thoroughly, but given that these HN threads die out quickly, I'd rather ask now that I have the chance, so forgive me if some of these are answered in the docs: 1. how does MobileCoin make money? 2. how many coins do you / does MobileCoin own? 3. related to that, are there mechanisms in place to prove that this is not a pump and dump? Or simply, how do I know it's not one and it…

1) MobileCoin will build a payments ecosystem around the protocol. 2) I have to check with the lawyers on whether we can disclose exact amounts, but our intention is to own a small minority of coins over the long term. We want the supply to circulate. 3) I don’t know how to prove this other than to tell you that MobileCoin is here to stay. You’ll know us by our deeds. 4) the threat model is 100% of nodes being compro…

What a bunch of non answers...

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#473

Post by hanniabu »

josh2600 wrote: post #111
Forbo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried going to https://buymobilecoin.com/ as referenced in https://www.mobilecoin.com/terms-of-sale.html but get a Cloudflare "Error 1020" page. What's up with that?

This occurs when you try to access it from a US-IP.

Much privacy, such decentralized

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#474

Post by AlexCoventry »

josh2600 wrote: post #2

Hi! I'm the CEO of MobileCoin. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask here. We've been working on this project for four years and it has been a labor of love. There's a lot of new technology here. We exist in a highly regulated space so it's possible some questions will require reaching out to lawyers to make sure we answer them in a way that's compliant so please don't feel offended if a response takes…

> The best set of docs for how the whole thing fits together is our book "The Mechanics of MobileCoin"[0].

There's a missing reference on p. 61 (physical page 68)

> ...Chapter ?? discusses how enclaves fit into the broader picture of consensuating transactions and growing the MobileCoin blockchain.

I assume it means chapter 10.

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#475

Post by TriNetra »

meowfly wrote: post #195

The comment from the article echos my own sentiments: > Speaking solely as a person who is really into encrypted messaging, it terrifies me that they're going to take this really clean story of an encrypted messenger and mix it up with the nightmare of laws and regulations and vulnerability that is cryptocurrency. Moreover, there are three other points I'd add: 1. I don't like "do everything" apps like WeChat or Line…

I don't know how will it play out for Signal in countries which have banned or are planning to ban crypto as a currency. RBI had issued policy to banks to stop providing banking services to people/organizations holding/trading in crypto. Though the blanket ban was invalidated by the supreme court after two years, but using it as currency is against Indian Law and the government is working on a new law to further restrict it (read legalizing RBI policy to a great extent as I understood) .

In such cases, Signal could easily be banned in such countries outright.

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#476

Post by jameshilliard »

petre wrote: post #457
jameshilliard wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the history sync issue is a huge problem, signal doesn't even support Android BackupAgent based client side encrypted backups or device to device transfers at all which should not be difficult to add, see: https://community.signalusers.org/t/support-native-android-b... Signal should in theory also be able to just sync/backup everything to the desktop client, this would largely solve the inability to transfer be…

They're orthogonal to good security. Missing data is always better than encrypted data. I wish it had a global keep messages for X time feature like iNessage instead of tge per yser configurable dissappearing messages.

Implementing these sort of backup options should not result in a meaningful reduction in security as they don't effectively change the security model, encrypted client side backups are equivalent to the existing signal specific encrypted backups on android, device to device transfers are the equivalent of coping the existing signal specific encrypted backups to a new phone and restoring them. The desktop client receives copies of signal messages normally as well so it effectively keeps backups already(they just often end up incomplete and can't be restored properly).

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#477

Post by reader_mode »

godelski wrote: post #432
reader_mode wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a friendly, easy to use chat app with stickers & voice messages (also strong encryption). Except it's not, strong encryption and privacy emphasis goes against easy to use. I recently got my family to switch to Telegram (because I like the interface) - my sister works in an environment where she has to have a separate work phone without a camera and everything synced up out of the box, history, etc. Brother lost his…

> Except it's not... my sister ... I don't see how these relate. Signal isn't explicitly aimed at high security targets, although it works for them (seeing the Snowden endorsement). Signal is about bringing encryption to the masses. Making E2EE the default choice for everyone. Is is much more about mass surveillance. Your sister has a different threat model, one where they are also concerned about the physical device…

I'm just giving real world scenarios where people might have two phones, plenty of people have them for different reasons, it's useful to sync between them - I should have worded that differently.

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#478

Post by SwimSwimHungry »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #405
nullc wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, it's totally centralized. The 'cryptocurrency' marketing just exists as a regulatory dodge. So far this scheme has worked out fine for the original creators of Ripple-- who've extracted hundreds of million selling their massive premine to an ignorant public, then abandoned the original and did it again. What we're seeing from signal now is just a third generation of the same scheme, preempting the ripple f…

At least it's better than Bitcoin, since in this case it's well known who the whales are. If one wishes to subject their wealth to the whims of a massively centralized cartel of "rationally self interested" HOLDers, maybe it's better to deal with the devil(s) one knows.

Or better yet, don't use cryptocurrency at all. Then you can avoid all ethical dilemmas surrounding them.

Problem solved.

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#479

Post by reader_mode »

mmahemoff wrote: post #438
reader_mode wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a friendly, easy to use chat app with stickers & voice messages (also strong encryption). Except it's not, strong encryption and privacy emphasis goes against easy to use. I recently got my family to switch to Telegram (because I like the interface) - my sister works in an environment where she has to have a separate work phone without a camera and everything synced up out of the box, history, etc. Brother lost his…

I recently switched WhatsApp from Android to iOS and I was flabbergasted there was no official mechanism to retain message history. As annoying as it is, it goes to show most people don't actually value it highly. Facebook would have no trouble funding a basic iCloud-GDrive bridge if there was enough demand for it.

I don't see the incentive for them to work on it - by the time you need it you're already deep into using the app so it's an inconvenience.

You can get away with this when you're the established player, but when you're the new guy every annoyance is a reason to revert to the previous app.

Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

#480

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

leppr wrote: post #383
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Someone steals money, sends them to you, your are having lots of trouble proving you are not an accomplice. If you are a government official, you can be framed as receiving a bribe. In russia government can send your organisation money from abroad via an agent and then shut you down as a 'foreign agent'.

MobileCoin transactions and balances are private and untraceable. This problem doesn't exist here.

Think again. A criminal sends you a known amount of money, then you are seized and phone is searched, and you receive the exact amount of money a criminal had sent you.
Post reply on HN