Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System
1–10 of 153 posts
Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System
#2Again, in the theme of "features every group messaging system had already, but Signal didn't, because they hadn't figured out a way to implement it without turning Signal's central servers into a database of who's talking to who about what". Signal didn't even have user profiles until recently, for the same reason. Here, they've slightly expanded the state of the art in MAC-based anonymous credentials to accomplish their goal.
One interesting aspect of this is that Signal gets to do this, because they have immense goodwill with the cryptographic research and engineering communities; though it's no guarantee of soundness, they have the advantage of having the feature designed, implemented, and ultimately reviewed by cryptography engineers that aren't generally/economically available to other messaging projects.
This is either a reason you love Signal (raises hand) or can't stand Signal. My take is, if you're in the latter group, that's fine; I use Slack, too.
Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System
#3Again, in the theme of "features every group messaging system had already, but Signal didn't, because they hadn't figured out a way to implement it without turning Signal's central servers into a database of who's talking to who about what". Signal didn't even have user profiles until recently, for the same reason. Here, they've slightly expanded the state of the art in MAC-based anonymous credentials to accomplish t…
> This is either a reason you love Signal (raises hand) or can't stand Signal.
Eh? Why either or? (and why are there people who can't stand it?)
Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System
#4Again, in the theme of "features every group messaging system had already, but Signal didn't, because they hadn't figured out a way to implement it without turning Signal's central servers into a database of who's talking to who about what". Signal didn't even have user profiles until recently, for the same reason. Here, they've slightly expanded the state of the art in MAC-based anonymous credentials to accomplish t…
> This is either a reason you love Signal (raises hand) or can't stand Signal. Eh? Why either or? (and why are there people who can't stand it?)
I wouldn't say I can't stand it (indeed, I am using it), but I've had problems with it. Disappearing messages and the like: being contacted via another medium by a person, asking why I hadn't responded, with no record of there ever being a message on my end.
It's OK in my books: a symptom of there being no server to step in and enforce a universal truth. You just have to understand what you're getting in exchange for the occasional inconveniences.
Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System
#5Again, in the theme of "features every group messaging system had already, but Signal didn't, because they hadn't figured out a way to implement it without turning Signal's central servers into a database of who's talking to who about what". Signal didn't even have user profiles until recently, for the same reason. Here, they've slightly expanded the state of the art in MAC-based anonymous credentials to accomplish t…
> This is either a reason you love Signal (raises hand) or can't stand Signal. Eh? Why either or? (and why are there people who can't stand it?)
I love Signal, and upsell it whenever I can. Signal has its ideosyncratic parts, some of which are being worked on, others not so much. Some of the more visible ones are IMO:
Signal forces users to use phone numbers; some people don't like this because they want to use multiple ephemeral usernames so they can be 'Joe' to friends, 'kleptoclown' to their github group, 'dungeonmaster42' to their DND group, 'joesolutioner' to anyone who browses their personal website or business card, etc. that way they are not having to give out the phone number to strangers which represents Sim-jacking and spam risks.
If you create a signal group and invite folks to it, you cannot remove members from the group (this is being worked on now) without them clicking the 'leave' button or creating an entire new group sans whoever needs to go, which causes loss of group history.
Signal cannot have multiple mobile clients, only one mobile client and a single desktop version. WhatsApp Riot etc. all support clients in as many spots as you can login from.
Again -> these are focused nitpicks, but in most cases Signal is much better for upholding the promise of 'you send someone a message and you have a reasonable sense that ONLY THEY will be able to read it' compared to the likes of Line/WhatsApp/FB messenger etc.
Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is either a reason you love Signal (raises hand) or can't stand Signal. Eh? Why either or? (and why are there people who can't stand it?)
I love Signal, and upsell it whenever I can. Signal has its ideosyncratic parts, some of which are being worked on, others not so much. Some of the more visible ones are IMO: Signal forces users to use phone numbers; some people don't like this because they want to use multiple ephemeral usernames so they can be 'Joe' to friends, 'kleptoclown' to their github group, 'dungeonmaster42' to their DND group, 'joesolutione…
It's really an engine for revealing people's true preferences for messaging, which, for many people, tend to be that they want all the ergonomics of Slack a lot more than they want cryptographically sound secure messaging.
What's hopeful in all this is that Signal is, slowly, catching up. Slack can roll out new features just by assigning a couple developers to it, and Signal has to coordinate new cryptographic research --- not just new cryptographic research, but research that produces something deployable at scale within the resources of a project like Signal! --- so Slack (and Wire and Keybase) are at a permanent advantage here.
But over time, Signal gets more and more usable without having to consider tradeoffs.
Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love Signal, and upsell it whenever I can. Signal has its ideosyncratic parts, some of which are being worked on, others not so much. Some of the more visible ones are IMO: Signal forces users to use phone numbers; some people don't like this because they want to use multiple ephemeral usernames so they can be 'Joe' to friends, 'kleptoclown' to their github group, 'dungeonmaster42' to their DND group, 'joesolutione…
It's really an engine for revealing people's true preferences for messaging, which, for many people, tend to be that they want all the ergonomics of Slack a lot more than they want cryptographically sound secure messaging. What's hopeful in all this is that Signal is, slowly, catching up. Slack can roll out new features just by assigning a couple developers to it, and Signal has to coordinate new cryptographic resear…
> that they want all the ergonomics of Slack a lot more than they want cryptographically sound secure messaging.
So you consider accounts not tied to a phone number "Slack ergonomics"? Before WhatsApp that was the default.
Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really an engine for revealing people's true preferences for messaging, which, for many people, tend to be that they want all the ergonomics of Slack a lot more than they want cryptographically sound secure messaging. What's hopeful in all this is that Signal is, slowly, catching up. Slack can roll out new features just by assigning a couple developers to it, and Signal has to coordinate new cryptographic resear…
> that they want all the ergonomics of Slack a lot more than they want cryptographically sound secure messaging. So you consider accounts not tied to a phone number "Slack ergonomics"? Before WhatsApp that was the default.
I said it was a reason to hate Signal, not the only reason.
Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System
#9The point of this seems to be hiding the identity of users when they fetch or modify group attributes - but why? The user’s identity is otherwise known to the server: they know that account X was accessed by IP address Y, and that IP address Y fetched metadata for group Z, therefore account X is in group Z. They can also figure out group membership by tracking clusters of messages that are sent simultaneously. What am I missing?
Re: Technology Preview: Signal Private Group System
#10I really want Signal to succeed. Or rather, I want anything that has decent cryto and is not FAANG to succeed.
The problem is not which messaging app I want to use, it's which messaging app my friends are using.
That said, if I had to choose, I think Matrix has a slight edge in my books because it's a protocol rather than a silo. Even though Signal is private and open source, they are hostile towards people running their own Signal builds on company servers, and unwilling to federate with other servers.
Essentially, you run the official Signal app on the official Signal servers, or GTFO.