https://ploum.net/2023-03-09-losing-signal.html
Blog Livres Software A Propos
Losing Signal
by Ploum on 2023-03-09
Warning to my friends : Until further notice, consider I'm not
receiving your Signal messages.
Update on March 13th: I've managed to get back on signal by
installing a beta version. The bug was acknoweledged by the
developers and fixed promptly. Which is nice! My reflections on
using centralized services still apply. I should consider this as
a free warning who should prompt me to get back on XMPP or to
investigate Matrix. But I'm really happy to know that, for the
time being, Signal is still caring about non-Google users.
Signal, the messaging system, published a blog post on how we were
all different and they were trying to adapt to those differences.
Signal was for everyone, told the title. Ironically, that very same
day, I've lost access to my signal account. We are all different,
they said. Except myself.
* Signal is for everyone (except me)
What is this difference? I'm not sure but it seems that not having a
standard Android phone with Google Play services play a huge part.
How I lost access
I'm using an Hisense A5 Android phone. This is one of the very rare
phones on the market with an eink screen. While this is not
recommended for most users, I like my eink phone: I only need to
charge it weekly, it's not distracting, I don't want to use it most
of the time. I feel that coloured screens are very aggressive and
stressful.
The Hisense A5 comes with proprietary crapware in Chinese and without
Google Play Services. That's fine for me. I don't want Google
services anyway and I'm happy with installing what I need from Aurora
store and F-Droid. For the last three years, it worked for me (with
some quirks, of course). Signal worked fine except for notifications
that were sometimes delayed. I considered that as a feature: my phone
is in do not disturb all the time, I don't want to be interrupted.
On March 7th, I made a backup of my Signal messages and removed the
application temporarily as I wanted to quickly try some open source
alternatives (signal-foss and molly). Those didn't work, so
I reinstalled Signal and asked to restore the backup.
Signal asked for my phone number, warned me that I had no Google Play
Services then re-asked for my number then re-warned me. Then asked me
to prove that I was a human by solving a captcha.
I hate captcha. I consider the premises of captcha completely broken,
stupid and an insult to all the people with disabilities. But those
were the worst I had ever seen. I was asked to look on microscopic
blurry pictures, obviously generated by AI, and to select only "fast
cars" or "cows in their natural habitat" or "t-shirt for dogs" or
"people playing soccer".
Now, I've a question for you. Is a car looking like an old Saab fast
enough? While a cow on the beach is probably not in its natural
habitat, what about a cow between two trees? What if the t-shirts are
not "for" dogs but with dogs on them. And what if the drawing on the
t-shirt is a mix between a dog and a cat? What if there's a player
holding a golf club but hitting a soccer ball? Even with a colour
screen, I'm not sure I could answer those. So imagine on an eink one...
Signal is for everyone but you need to answer those idiocy first. It
should be noted that I have a very good eyesight. I cannot imagine
those with even minor disabilities.
Of course I did try to solve the captcha. But, after each try, I was
sent back to the "enter your phone number" step, followed by "no
Google services warning" then... "too many attempts for this number,
please wait for four hours before retrying".
I have no idea if my answers were bad or if there's a bug where the
captcha assumes Google Play Services. I've tried with the APK
official version and the Google Play Store version (through Aurora),
they all fail similarly. In three days, I've managed twice to pass
the captcha and receive an SMS with a confirmation code. But, both
times, the code was rejected, which is incomprehensible. Also, I
learned that I could only read the code from the notification because
opening the SMS app reinitialised Signal to the "enter your number"
step, before the captcha.
Centralisation is about rejection of differences
What is interesting with corporatish marketing blog posts is how they
usually say the exact opposite of what they mean. Signal blog post
about differences is exactly that. They acknowledge the fact that
there's no way a single centralised authority could account for all
the differences in the world. Then proceed to say they will do.
There's only one way for a centralised service to become universal:
impose your vision as a new universal standard. Create a new norm and
threat every divergence as a dangerous dissidence. That's what
Facebook and Google did, on purpose. Pretending to embrace
differences is only a way to reject the differences you don't
explicitly agree.
Interestingly, Signal is only realising now that they have no choice
but do the same. At first, Signal was only a niche. A centralised
niche is not a real problem because, by definition, your users share
a common background. You adapt to them. But as soon as you outgrew
your initial niche, you are forced to become the villain you fought
earlier.
Moxie Marlinspike, Signal's founder, is a brilliant cryptographer.
Because he was a cryptographer, he did what he found interesting. He
completely rejected any idea of federation/decentralisation because
it was not interesting for him. Because he thought he could solve the
problems of world with cryptography only ("when you have a hammer...").
He now must face that his decision has led to a situation where the
world-freeing tool he built is publishing facebookish blog post about
"differences" while locking out users who do not comply with his
norm.
Like Larry Page and Serguei Brin before him, Moxie Marlinspike built
the oppression tool he was initially trying to fight (we have to
credit Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg for being creepy
psycho craving for power and money since the beginning. At least,
they didn't betray anything and kept following their own ideals).
That's the reason why email is still the only universal Internet
communication tool. Why, despites its hurdles, federation is a thing.
Because there is no way to understand let alone accept all
variations. There's a world of difference between Gmail interface and
Neomutt. Yet, one allows you to communicate with someone using the
other. Centralisation is, by its very definition, finding the
minority and telling them "you don't count". "Follow the norms we
impose or disappear!"
It is really about Google's services after all...
One problem I have with my Hisense A5 is that my banking application
doesn't work on it, expecting Google Play Services.
To solve that issue, I keep in a drawer an old Android phone without
sim card, with a cracked screen, a faulty charging port and a bad
battery. When the bills-to-pay stack grows too much, I plug that
phone in the charger, fiddle with it until the phone start, launch
the banking app, pay the bills, put that phone back in the drawer.
After fiddling for two days with Signal on my eink phone, I decided
to try on that old phone. I installed Signal, asked to connect to my
account. There was no captcha, no hassle. I immediately received the
SMS with the code (on the Hisense eink phone) and could connect to my
Signal account (losing all my history as I didn't transfer the
backup).
At least, that will allow me to answer my contact that they should
not contact me on Signal anymore. UPDATE: signal account was
unexpectedly disconnected, telling me signal was used on another
phone.
Signal automatically trusted a phone without sim card because it was
somewhat connected to Google. But cannot trust a phone where it has
been installed for the last three years and which is connected to the
related phone number. Signal vision of the world can thus be
summarised as: "We fight for your privacy as long as you agree to be
spied on by Google."
Centralisation is about losing hope
One thing I've learned about centralised Internet services is that
you can abandon all hopes of being helped.
There's no way Signal support could help me or answer me. The problem
is deep into their belief, into the model of the world they maintain.
They want to promote differences as long as those differences are
split between Apple and Google. They probably have no power to make
an exception for an account. They could only tell me that "my phone
is not supported". To solve my problem, they should probably
reconsider how the whole application is built.
Technically, this specific problem is new. Three years ago, I had no
problem installing Signal on my phone and no captcha to solve. But
once you sign up for a centralised service, you are tied for all the
future problems. That's the deal. I was similarly locked out from my
Whatsapp account because I didn't accept a new contract then forgot
to open the app for several months (I was disconnected at the time ).
* Le suicide de mon compte Whatsapp
That's what I like so much about federated protocols (email,
fediverse). I can choose a provider where I know I will have someone
in front of me in case I have a problem. Either because I'm a
customer paying the expensive tiers for quick support (Protonmail) or
because I trust the philosophy and donate appropriately (my Mastodon
server is hosted by La Quadrature du Net, I trust that team). I also
know that I can easily migrate to another provider as soon as I want
(considering mailbox.org instead of protonmail).
As a chat tool, Signal is better than many other. But it's
centralised. And, sooner or later, a centralised service faces you
with a choice: either you comply with a rule you don't agree, either
you lose everything.
With every centralised service, the question is not if it will ever
happen. The question is "when".
Either you conform to the norm, either you are too different to have
your existence acknowledges.
That's also why I've always fought for the right to differences, why
I've always been utterly frightened by "normalisation". Because I
know nobody is immune. Think about it: I'm a white male,
cis-gendered, married with children, with a good education, a good
situation and no trauma, no disability. I'm mostly playing life with
the "easy" setting.
I'm sure lots of reaction to this post will be about how I made
mistakes by "trying signal-foss" or by "using a completely weird and
non-standard phone".
That's exactly the point I'm trying to prove.
I've suddenly been excluded from all the conversations with my
friends because I very slightly but unacceptably deviated from the
norm.
Because, three years ago, I thought having a black and white screen
on my own phone was more comfortable for my eyes.
As a writer and an engineer, I like to explore how technology impacts
society. You can subscribe by email or by rss. I value privacy and
never share your adress.
If you read French, you can support me by buying/sharing/reading my
books and subscribing to my newsletter in French or RSS. I also
develop Free Software.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Permalinks:
https://ploum.net/2023-03-09-losing-signal.html
gemini://ploum.net/2023-03-09-losing-signal.gmi