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Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency

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

#621

Post by runeks »

robjan wrote: post #602
runeks wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. And therefore market cap is useless as a measure of value, which is what I'm critiquing.

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

#622

Post by stjohnswarts »

Igelau wrote: post #385
josh2600 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is just what happens when you try to hit the page from a US IP address.

Why are you blocking the US?

because the US has a long reach in the financial world even into Switzerland (these days). The IRS is on a war path against crypto currently and I think they believe 50% of it is something they can be taxing or is fraudulent. The US government doesn't like things that are hard to track.

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

#623

Post by stjohnswarts »

hjek wrote: post #431
akvadrako wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero is clearly the most practical secure coin as evidenced by it's popularity on the darknet. But I think what MobileCoin offers is speed.

And way less energy consumption, according to their website.

There is no mining which is the big issue. The big issue with their plan is that they hold 85% of the outstanding coins, which at current rates makes them billionaires. No doubt they will liquidate it in chunks to move it from digital potential to cold hard cash.

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

#624

Post by codethief »

hn8788 wrote: post #315
codethief wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. Moxie directs his non-profit to integrate MobileCoin in secret The fact that Moxie is collaborating with MobileCoin has been known for years . EDIT: See links in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26718488

But not the fact that it's going to be directly integrated into Signal. The CEO of MobileCoin is in here saying that he started it as a way to fund Signal, which from what I can tell, wasn't public knowledge until today. So he gets to monopolize a currency that was mostly worthless, knowing that it would be directly integrated into a popular application, greatly increasing its value. If that's not a scam, I don't kno…

> But not the fact that it's going to be directly integrated into Signal

To be honest, that was exactly the impression that I got back then. So to me, yesterday's announcement was no surprise at all. Whether I like it, is a different matter.

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

#625

Post by leppr »

whimsicalism wrote: post #600
perryizgr8 wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A hard fork in a decentralized cryptocurrency is democratic Yup, and I don't want public votes to decide the amount of money I have.

> public votes to decide the amount of money I have. Unfortunately, there is no alternative. The value of what you have is decided by what people are willing to pay for it in markets. If people decide that they value the forked ETH that doesn't provide the money to the people who stole from the DAO more than the version where those people have all of the money, then it is going to be more valuable. You don't escape t…

Gold or other physical scarce assets come pretty close to allowing you to escape this.

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

#626

Post by whimsicalism »

leppr wrote: post #625
whimsicalism wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> public votes to decide the amount of money I have. Unfortunately, there is no alternative. The value of what you have is decided by what people are willing to pay for it in markets. If people decide that they value the forked ETH that doesn't provide the money to the people who stole from the DAO more than the version where those people have all of the money, then it is going to be more valuable. You don't escape t…

Gold or other physical scarce assets come pretty close to allowing you to escape this.

Ah yes, the constant value of gold https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-...

As I said, there is no escaping market mechanisms, as value is market contextual. Certainly, there are assets with more or less stable value, but that is still due to the whims of what people (ie. the "public") are willing to pay.

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

#627

Post by codethief »

cookiengineer wrote: post #550
codethief wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making very strong claims here. Signal regularly goes the extra mile to protect their users from 3rd-party tracking (by Giphy[0, 1] etc.) and, as they noted on GitHub at some point, they also consciously decided against UI/UX tracking and error reporting because they did not want to give off the impression that they themselves are surveilling their users. And now you're telling us that they deliberately includ…

> AFAIK the Signal app doesn't connect to the Google servers directly, so even if it exists, the cookie doesn't get transferred anywhere. The Firebase Cloud Messaging library / Google Play Services on your phone do connect to Google but they carry unique identifiers, anyway. It does connect to google's servers for pretty much everything [1] - you can look for these constants in the codebase and you'll find lots of th…

> Granted, most of the discussions in LibreSignal's repo [2] got very heated very quickly. Can't find the twitter thread of @moxie at the time, and lots of replies in there got deleted from both sides. Maybe someone else can provide an archived version or screenshot? [3]

I remember reading all those threads (the one on GitHub and those on Twitter) back in the day and, honestly, I didn't come away impressed by the way some people treated Moxie. I've been in his shoes a few times now (trying to build a product that works – technically and economically – with team of anarchistic techies) and can empathize with the path he's taken. Not understanding his POV is no excuse for being rude, though. Now, since you posted the link, I went through that GitHub thread again and my impression has stayed the same. A few quotes:

> Wow, moxie0 just sounds sounds like a giant cunt. Anyone who uses a binary compiled release of Signal from the Google Play Store for security is a fucking idiot. (https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...)

> FUCK YOU OWS!!! (https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...)

> I must say, you [moxie] really are the worst anarchist I've ever encountered in my life; but I'm no authority on the matter. Writing good software doesn't give you a license to bully other projects around unless they give you a WhatsApp-level payout. How about you keep your narcissism tucked in so that secure messaging in general doesn't have to suffer from it? (https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...)

> That post [by moxie] is pure politics. It's a bunch of feel-good phrasing, cringe-worthy in its superficial slickness, that obfuscates what is really a giant policy-level middle finger from in terms of Open Whisper Systems shifting away from free software and into a centralized, All Rights Reserved commercial outfit. (https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...)

Here's what the people in the thread had to say who didn't get all personal:

> [Directed to someone else on the thread:] Whatever your take on what "the right thing" is, there is no need to get personal. And as previously said, Signal is free software - that entitles you to the source code, and no more. Noone is in the right to demand that OWS do anything else, and that includes most of what is being said in this thread. (https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...)

> I thank @moxie0 for replying when asked by @mimi89999, providing his (OWS) point of view in a polite and useful way, bringing up some truly interesting aspects of the issue. I can understand @cjeanneret's frustration, feeling just one step away from a truly free and secure messaging system, but this is no excuse for being rude. (https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...)

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

#628

Post by djanogo »

djanogo wrote: post #333

Feels like a gut punch, I feel horrible asking people to switch to signal after buying into signl marketing, all of that now seems to be a ruse for their ecoin business.

After reading a little about founder, who is described as "investor", "cryptocurrency hedge fund manager", and inventor of "protocol". I am done with signal. What a f*kin ruse.

Deleted the app. Also left a note in status so others can see the msg and delete the app also.

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

#629

Post by codethief »

cookiengineer wrote: post #550
codethief wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making very strong claims here. Signal regularly goes the extra mile to protect their users from 3rd-party tracking (by Giphy[0, 1] etc.) and, as they noted on GitHub at some point, they also consciously decided against UI/UX tracking and error reporting because they did not want to give off the impression that they themselves are surveilling their users. And now you're telling us that they deliberately includ…

> AFAIK the Signal app doesn't connect to the Google servers directly, so even if it exists, the cookie doesn't get transferred anywhere. The Firebase Cloud Messaging library / Google Play Services on your phone do connect to Google but they carry unique identifiers, anyway. It does connect to google's servers for pretty much everything [1] - you can look for these constants in the codebase and you'll find lots of th…

> It does connect to google's servers for pretty much everything [1]

Have you actually looked at that code? It's for domain fronting[0], so nothing shady, and it's only used when you're in Egypt, UAE, Oman, Qatar, or Iran. Have a look at

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/d74e9f74103...

vs

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/d74e9f74103...

and, finally,

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/d74e9f74103...

> you can look for these constants in the codebase and you'll find lots of things that would worry any netsec person, including the key backup related stuff

I just ran a recursive grep on the entire repository and the file you referred to is effectively the only place where a google.com URL shows up in the code (apart from two or three more instances which are not suspicious, either).

Maybe I'm missing something, so feel free to prove me wrong, but right now my impression is that you're spreading FUD for no good reason.

[0]: https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-on-the-front/

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

#630

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #520
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…

What about using Wickr as an alternative to Signal. What all these "tech" companies tend to do is to exploit a captured audience. They are generally not focused on doing one thing well (producing a product or providing a service), they are more focused on building a following and then doing with those users whatever they like. One of the most blatent examples of this line of thinking is Microsoft's acquisitions. They…

https://github.com/WickrInc/wickr-crypto-c

   ## Linux
   ### Linux Requirements
   - CMake 3.1 or higher
   - Clang
   - OpenSSL => 1.0.2 (Optional)
   ### Linux CMake Configuration
   The linux build can be configured using the standard CMake flow with a few options
   ```
   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake -DBUILD_OPENSSL=true \
   -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
   -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=USER_INSTALL_LOCATION ../
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