Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it really is not. Matrix or XMPP.
Any reasons why not? It ticks all the boxes for me: https://threema.ch/en/
No self hosting, so not federated/decentralized.
Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
601–610 of 665 posts
Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
#602Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the same with any stock, currency or crypto though. If you want to sell the whole market cap then it's worthless.
No, it’s not the same with stocks. With stocks, as a majority holder, you can make the minority an offer that everyone is forced to accept if a majority of the minority accepts it. This is why market cap is relevant to the stock market, but not e.g. the forex or commodity market.
What I was saying was if everyone wants to sell and nobody wants to buy, the value is zero. This is true of all markets. The market cap is always determined by the last matched order, not the total that you can sell the whole market for.
Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't aware that Signal relies on SGX. If I want to use Signal without being exposed to risk of SGX compromise, is it still possible?
For contact discovery, AFAIK no[0]. For everything else: Yes, by setting a randomized long Signal PIN since SGX is effectively used to add entropy to Signal PINs[1]. You can also disable Signal PINs – in this case Signal will simply set a randomized long PIN for you. [0]: https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/ [1]: https://signal.org/blog/secure-value-recovery/
Thanks!
Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably because all conversations (1-to-1 and group chats) are E2EE.
> Probably because all conversations (1-to-1 and group chats) are E2EE. They are in WhatsApp, too. At least Facebook still claims that after the Snowden leaks :) And: Did you verify this? Did you check the source code at signal's android/ios client repo? Did you also verify that no untrusted third party receives your backed up private keys? Why do you trust Google more than Facebook? [1] [1] https://github.com/signal…
> Why do you trust Google more than Facebook? [1]
How is using Google for domain fronting for the purpose of censorship circumvention "trusting Google"? They don't get to see the message content (just like Facebook doesn't see the content for WhatsApp).
> Did you also verify that no untrusted third party receives your backed up private keys?
Private keys are not backed up in either service, as far as I know.
> Did you check the source code at signal's android/ios client repo?
Given the lack of reproducible builds on iOS/the app store, any source code audit is pointless if the app vendor is included in your threat model.
Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
#605Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people don't want private electronic payments. In stable countries like the UK - where this is being launched - it's basically only useful for buying drugs and tax evasion.
One can argue than most people don't care about private messaging as well... I find it a bit scary that my bank has all my purchasing data : they basically know everything about me that way, what if they decide to sell this data ?
Use cash for every day payments - your bank will know nothing.
Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stock represents actual ownership of a scarce resource (a company). Is there a limit to how many shares a company can issue? No, a board can technically issue shares unto infinity. There is no guarantee of scarcity, no guarantee they will not raise more money. That company would have value whether or not it was explicitly sold as a stock. The value doesn’t come from the stock. So when a company has no profit but a hi…
The scarcity is technically real, but practically pointless. Every Bitcoin represents 100,000,000 tradable assets. If there are 30,000,000 Bitcoin in circulation that means there are 100,000,000x30,000,000 individual assets available to hold and trade. Do the math, and then realize that we’ll arrive at the heat death of the universe before Bitcoin is ever actually scarce.
Scarcity is about the rate of supply meeting demand. In most commodities, as demand increases, suppliers will move to increase supply to meet that demand. Even with gold (of which the earth has some unknown finite supply), the rate of which it is mined and extracted will increase as market price increases.
Bitcoin has a fixed supply, Bitcoin's daily rate of creation cannot be increased or decreased unless everyone agrees to it.
Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
One can argue than most people don't care about private messaging as well... I find it a bit scary that my bank has all my purchasing data : they basically know everything about me that way, what if they decide to sell this data ?
Use cash for every day payments - your bank will know nothing.
I can't remember the last time I could use paper cash. Beyond your daily groceries, everything is usually exclusively paid for digitally.
Surveillance on daily spends is not valuable. What's valuable is things connected to your identity, specifically associations with other individuals and companies.
Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
#608The 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…
Do you associate fiat money with "scam" as well?
I can accept a definition of scam that includes fiat. Though it definitely doesn't track the same way with cryptocurrency.
I associate nootropics with scams but I definitely don't think all nootropics are scams. If someone said, here buy this pill that will make you smarter I'd be incredulous.
My point was cryptocurrency has a deserved bad reputation (for the reasons I mentioned).
I love the lofty ideals but the reality is the altcoin world especially is a minefield of scams. That reputation will hurt a messaging app that has done a pretty good job of building good will.
Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
The founding organization owns 85% of the total market cap of a coin? That should be raising red flags for everyone involved. There is no valid reason for the vast majority of what is supposedly a currency to be owned by the company that created it. Imagine if PayPal launched but required everyone to transact in fractional shares of PayPal to get anything done. Oh and by the way, those shares are majority owned by th…
Can you spell out why is that fundamentally bad? I'm asking in good faith not to be oppositional, apologies if its a stupid question. But if you were buying shares in a company it would not matter if most the shares were held by the company (as long as there is enough liquidity to sell your shares in future). Why is it different with the currency? I get that its making the founders rich so perhaps they have greedy in…
A cryptocurrency is generally more easily spendable in an open market. The sell potential that a founder has with 75% of the supply is massive.
If I created a coin today and sold 1% of the supply to you alone, on what basis would you want to store any value in that currency? Given constant buy demand, The currency's market value is defined by what I do. This is why organic price discovery for a currency is important.
Re: Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
#610Long-time Signal user here, with a number of technical and non-technical friends, colleagues and acquaintances who also use it. I don't know who was asking for this. And I think it really dilutes Signal's message. I believe that everyone has a fundamental right to secure, private communication. Some people may hold the same belief for the right to transfer funds. I don't agree and I suspect many others feel the same.…
This is rather terrible news. On the other hand; there's no technical reason someone (like, say the EFF) couldn't fork the client and server - and establish a new signal network - maybe drop the need for phone number registration as well?