[HN Gopher] Signal AMA on Reddit
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Signal AMA on Reddit
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 143 points
Date : 2021-01-08 19:50 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reddit.com)
| soupson wrote:
| All, Signal is a 501c3 nonprofit. Your company probably matches
| donations. If they don't, they are eligible to be added to your
| company's portal. I encourage you to throw some of your wealth
| their way and take the extra step to get matching. This is
| important.
| almost_usual wrote:
| Great, closer to not having to explain to friends and family that
| I'm not a tinfoil hat person.
| rriepe wrote:
| Yeah that's not how it works. Welcome to the outgroup.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| I switched to Signal way before. And then Elon Musk recommended
| Signal to all and sundry on Twitter.
|
| And then that got retweeted by Jack Dorsey. Now..I am a little
| worried. Do I want anything that has Jack's paw prints on it.
| Since he and Zuckerberg turned up like creepy ideological twins
| at the senate hearings, I can't tell them apart.
|
| The first question on the Reddit AMA resonates. WhatsApp was
| great before FB bought that out. Who is to say it won't repeat
| with Signal and someone else?
| jbj wrote:
| One of the points of Signal is that the app is owned by a non
| profit and not a company. I highly do pressume that it means
| that it can't be sold to the highest bidder.
| input_sh wrote:
| Their answer on the subject: https://www.reddit.com/r/technol
| ogy/comments/kt91qk/signal_p...
| kubanczyk wrote:
| > WhatsApp was great before FB bought that out. Who is to say
| it won't repeat with Signal and someone else?
|
| We need a protocol with competing federated servers. It's old
| news: Matrix, XMPP, IRC, e-mail.
| [deleted]
| metaxis78 wrote:
| Signal is well documented and the client is open source.
| They've done an excellent job making e2e chat accessible to
| everyone. But, that's always an inherent risk.
|
| I believe signal to be one of the best options right now.
| However, I'm also running a matrix server and working to
| convert my friends to that.
|
| These challenges are never going to stop, but federated
| messaging is a big step forward.
| r00fus wrote:
| Did WhatsApp release their protocol openly with an open source
| reference client/server? Or did I miss that part?
|
| Having an exit plan makes me less concerned about a centralized
| service - if FB/TWT/etc buy Signal many parties are strongly
| incentivized to fork the code and provide migration paths.
| skinkestek wrote:
| WhatsApp had some real issues and then it seemed they cleaned
| it up.
|
| It seems every mainstream researcher now agree that the
| message delivery part of WhatsApps is now trustworthy.
|
| That said the metadata and incentives story is about as bad
| as it can get[1] and in the backup department your chats can
| be uploaded wholesale to iCloud and/or Google Cloud if one of
| your contacts from the same conversations enable cloud
| backup.
|
| [1]: Owned by Facebook and they shut off the revenue stream
| so the only way they can make money from it is by squeezing
| it of the metadata they get or introduce ads.
| fsflover wrote:
| I hope someone asks all those questions from the other HN
| discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25686179.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| After installing the phone version, I just tried the Desktop
| version on Debian. It doesn't work: fails to connect because none
| of the machines I have (even the Windows one!) is able to trust
| the digital certificate from https://textsecure-
| service.whispersystems.org/v1/config . I mean, I could try to add
| the certificate to the exception list, but when it comes to stuff
| like Signal I feel I shouldn't be doing any of this at all. And
| their website has no mention about adding certificates to my
| chain.
|
| I wanna try to move away from Whatsapp too, but when your
| "Secure" app fails to work because no one trusts your digital
| certificate, I inevitably start questioning your claims of both
| quality and security... Everybody will stick to the old product
| if the new one isn't polished....
| akvadrako wrote:
| What are you doing? That is a self-signed certificate, so your
| computer shouldn't trust it. Yet the Desktop apps work fine.
|
| Maybe your version of Signal is too old?
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| I just launched the Dekstop app from their Debian apt
| repository. It says "Something went wrong! Failed to connect
| to server." and then the Debug Log contains stuff such as:
|
| FetchError: request to https://textsecure-
| service.whispersystems.org/v1/config failed, reason: unable
| to verify the first certificate
| vengefulduck wrote:
| It's probably outdated, I know Debian is pretty
| conservative when it comes to package updates, have you
| tried getting it from signal directly?
| teekert wrote:
| Distro repos are notorious for containing super out of date
| stuff (especially when it comes to these kinds of apps).
| It's why we now have flatpack, AppImage and Snaps. Always
| check the version numbers when using repo stuff.
| m_b wrote:
| The Signal Desktop app you are trying to install must be
| somehow outdated, the desktop apps I use are working perfectly
| (both GNU/Linux and macOS) and I never encountered this issue.
| Maybe try to get some help from the community?
| https://community.signalusers.org/
| searchableguy wrote:
| Could you check the version of signal desktop app?
|
| I installed signal desktop app just now. It's 1.139.4 - Do you
| have the same?
| TheChaplain wrote:
| ElementApp/Matrix might be a better option?
| driminicus wrote:
| The matrix signal bridge is pretty great too!
| kitkat_new wrote:
| Matrix definitely would fit more into the world of Linux:
| independence, decentralization & Community
| meowster wrote:
| Better link (with the old.* in the URL):
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/kt91qk/signal_p...
| luxpir wrote:
| _Better_ link if we 're talking privacy here:
|
| https://teddit.net/r/technology/comments/kt91qk/signal_priva...
| efwfwef wrote:
| MVP
| nostromo wrote:
| > we've structured the project as a non-profit entity, so it can
| never be bought, has no investors, and isn't "owned" by anyone
|
| Never is a long time. Non-profits can become for-profits. Non-
| profits can also spin off of their profitable components as for-
| profits -- just like the Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit
| owned by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. Non-profits can sell
| ads and sell your data.
|
| And, of course, non-profits can get money hungry just like any
| other organization. Look at how ICANN has found ways to vacuum up
| billions of dollars from the internet.
|
| They also may not technically have any investors, but they have a
| de facto investor in the form a $100m loan from WhatsApp founder
| Brian Acton who is also on the board. He could have made it a
| gift, but did not -- which implies he wants the money back at
| some point. Signal will need a lot of donations to pay that money
| back -- or they could decide to sell ads or data.
|
| All that said, I'm happy Signal is doing well, and applaud their
| efforts. I hope they succeed.
| [deleted]
| Daniel_sk wrote:
| Q: "Is there any plans to make user ID system, so that we can add
| friends without knowing the phone numbers?" A: Yes, we're working
| on it.
| ljlolel wrote:
| he mentioned this when he was on Joe Rogan
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Haven't Signal been saying that for something like three years
| now?
| hbhstx05q8tf wrote:
| It's certainly been a while. And I've never heard anything
| reassuring about _what_ they 're planning; I half expect
| if/when we get anything that it'll be just as useless to me
| as the existing system. I don't actually trust Signal to
| deliver the features I need, and the lengthy timelines
| certainly don't help.
|
| I don't think I know of any messenger at all that does what I
| want, and that's kinda sad.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| Yes, though if you're paying attention to the protocol
| changes recently, you'll see it's actually true. There's been
| the introduction of a UID for user identifiers, a brand new
| group chat protocol, etc.
|
| So the work is happening. But it's pretty major surgery, so
| it takes time.
| tethys wrote:
| Why are they making such a big secret about their user numbers?
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/kt91qk/signal_p...
| eznzt wrote:
| Judging by the amount of people on my contacts list who are on
| Signal, I have a theory.
| searchableguy wrote:
| What is it? Spill the beans.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I think OP is implying that there may be more beans in the
| can to be spilled than there are signal users.
|
| Probably signal occupies a far greater mind share than it's
| userbase actually warrants. If they say they have 10000
| DAUs, more people will write it off as worthless rather
| than he interested in trying it.
| skinkestek wrote:
| My thought as well.
|
| I have 8 contacts on Telegram, one(!) conversation.
| Meanwhile everyone from family and friends is at Telegram
| now and used to be on WhatsApp.
|
| I wish Signal all the best: it is totally impressive,
| they got their incentives aligned totally unlike WhatsApp
| and to a larger degree than Telegram I think.
|
| Personally I'm rooting for Matrix, but for now, based on
| my limited understanding Signal seems to hit the sweet
| spot where "kind of easy to use" overlaps to a large
| degree with "trustworthy".
| efwfwef wrote:
| maybe ask the question there
| rriepe wrote:
| Because they're the only app in the category that can?
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