[HN Gopher] In Defense of Signal
___________________________________________________________________
In Defense of Signal
Author : xur17
Score : 55 points
Date : 2021-04-11 02:22 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (yorple.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (yorple.medium.com)
| nextstep wrote:
| I was disappointed when I first heard Signal was adding this (and
| not using Mondeo) but these points male sense. I almost certainly
| won't use it, and probably none of my close friends either, and
| it sounds like it can be disable entirely in the app so I don't
| really care.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| I don't see what the big deal is at all. I'm glad to see them
| innovating and extending crypto to the masses in a user-friendly
| and private way. It's more than I see most crypto teams doing.
| Vinnl wrote:
| I think the key to understanding people's dismay is not seeing
| the Signal team as yet another 'crypto team'. People aren't
| hoping for Signal to do better than other cryptocurrencies;
| they're hoping for them to do better than the other messengers,
| and are afraid that crypto will jeopardise that.
|
| I'm in more of a 'let's wait and see' mode (see: this article),
| but I understand the worry.
| qqii wrote:
| Signal's developers are not MobileCoin's developers though.
|
| All Signal's developers have done is integrate the work of
| MobileCoin into their backend (fog) and client (fog wallet).
| iudqnolq wrote:
| However, that integration took a year, which we know
| because they made their development private while they
| worked on it. I'd call that a non-insignificant impact,
| both in terms of what else they could have worked on in the
| portion of their time they spent on it, and because it
| moviated them to hide their source code.
| qqii wrote:
| I get the point but it's misleading to attribute the
| entire year to integrating payments.
|
| The server code base has historically had periods of non
| public updates and doing a quick grep of the commit log
| payments first appears in October 2020.
|
| It's been clear since 2017 that Moxie has wanted to
| integrate payments to "stay competitive", so such effort
| was always on the schedule.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Absolutely. I tried to get that across with "portion of
| the time", but I realize that wasn't clear. I meant to
| imply that if it took a year in clock time it took non-
| insignificant person-hours, which I think is reasonable.
|
| I also tried to get across that if payments caused the
| code to be private for a year, that's also a downside
| Vinnl wrote:
| They're not, but the integration could attract the wrong
| sort of attention (both from governments and potential
| users), and uses engineering effort that could also have
| spent on whatever someone's favourite missing feature/bug
| is. Plus, there's just the overall smell of scams that is
| attached to cryptocurrencies, and people don't want Signal
| to be (part of) a scam.
| fwn wrote:
| I think that most criticism comes from the choice to include
| their wallet into Signal, a private messaging app.
|
| I'm pretty certain a MobileCoin wallet app in the play store
| would've been well received by those who are interested in the
| concept of MobileCoin. Users that are interested in both Signal
| and MobileCoin could just install both apps side by side.
|
| The decision to link this coin to signal appears to me to be a
| decision to compete with other cryptocurrencies not by merit of
| being a better payment solution but by reach.
|
| Facebook and Google frequently make this decision (reach
| instead of merit) and HN regularly criticizes them for it. I
| think it is fair and honest to criticize Signal for it as well.
| CynicusRex wrote:
| The big deal is that <<any new "currency" or speculative
| digital token that doesn't have a fair distribution mechanism
| is a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme by default. Hence,
| not a currency. The earliest adopters of such flawed
| contrivances will always have an increasingly disproportionate
| amount of the total wealth as it gets adopted. Early adopters
| mine or buy large proportions of the total supply at negligible
| costs while late adopters mine or buy negligible proportions at
| large costs. It follows that holders immediately have every
| incentive to get as many people to buy after them.>>
| --https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html
| jcbrand wrote:
| With Bitcoin, you've had ten years to acquire some, in
| multiple different ways. It's about as fair as one can hope
| for while being permissionless and not requiring
| identification.
|
| In the early days Bitcoin was given away for free via
| faucets, you just had to create a wallet
|
| The existing fiat currencies suffer the same issue. It's
| called the Cantillon effect. People who are closest to newly
| created currency units (mostly financial insiders) pay lower
| interest rates and have more buying power with that money.
| They can also immediately turn around and lend the currency
| out at higher rates, pocketing the difference.
| CynicusRex wrote:
| > you've had ten years to acquire some
|
| That makes it a ten-year-old pyramid scheme. It may be born
| from noteworthy ideals, but its flaws have become more
| apparent over the years. Stephen Diehl succinctly puts why
| the bubble has lasted so long:
|
| "Writing about bitcoin for a lay audience is challenging.
| If people know enough about tech alone they might think
| there's no problem, if they know enough about finance alone
| they might think there's no problem. If people know enough
| about both then they know it's all a big scam."
| --https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1363898199010852869
|
| > The existing fiat currencies suffer the same issue.
|
| Bitcoin touting to be the future of money while having the
| same if not more problems than fiat currencies is exactly
| why it deserves all the scrutiny it can get.
| jcbrand wrote:
| > Bitcoin touting to be the future of money while having
| the same if not more problems than fiat currencies is
| exactly why it deserves all the scrutiny it can get.
|
| I'm totally on board that Bitcoin should be scrutinized
| and examined critically.
|
| Concerning the Cantillon effect, in the fiat system, the
| beneficiaries are the already rich and well connected
| insiders.
|
| Recent central bank monetary interventions are major
| drivers of inequality by pushing up the asset prices of
| the rich while the poor suffer joblessness and inflation.
|
| With Bitcoin, new units are created in fierce and open
| competition, and not handed out to insiders.
| CynicusRex wrote:
| >in the fiat system, the beneficiaries are the already
| rich and well connected insiders.
|
| Same with crypto"currencies", hence why they're a pyramid
| scheme.
|
| >Recent central bank monetary interventions are major
| drivers of inequality by pushing up the asset prices of
| the rich while the poor suffer joblessness and inflation.
|
| Again, crypto"currencies" do the exact same thing;
| increasing inequality by creating another elite who hoard
| their wealth.
|
| >With Bitcoin, new units are created in fierce and open
| competition, and not handed out to insiders.
|
| New units are mined by the already filthy rich because
| mining on regular PCs has become obsolete.
| tromp wrote:
| > It's about as fair as one can hope for
|
| Emitting half of all bitcoin in just the first 4 years is
| hardly fair. One would hope for a more Gold like
| distribution, such as a pure linear emission. This still
| has a finite soft total supply [1].
|
| [1] https://john-tromp.medium.com/a-case-for-using-soft-
| total-su...
| jcbrand wrote:
| The supply of gold on earth is finite.
|
| An infinitely growing cryptocurrency presupposes
| perpetual economic growth, which requires ever increasing
| population and resource extraction.
|
| Maybe that's realistic if we start colonizing Mars and
| mining asteroids, but it's not possible on earth alone.
|
| If limited supply turns out to be an issue, competing
| currencies can be used to augment supply, it's basically
| already the case.
| skybrian wrote:
| Company stock rewards founders and early supporters in a
| similar way for making the stock more valuable. These
| incentives aren't usually considered a bad thing in
| themselves? Though they certainly can be in pump-and-dump
| situations. Buyer beware.
|
| Other than stablecoins, it's unclear how it would be avoided?
| xfer wrote:
| That is fine if you consider cryptocurrency as an
| investment. But if the goal is to be used as a
| currency(which is what this integration is about), then it
| is not acceptable.
| baby wrote:
| It's going to be a pour currency due to the volatility
| unfortunately, it's more like a stock that'll act as a
| poor-man currency.
| skybrian wrote:
| Volatility is a problem but they claimed that users might
| mitigate this by not holding for very long with ordinary
| transactions.
|
| I'm somewhat skeptical. But given that speculation drives
| much of the interest in cryptocurrencies, they might
| succeed anyway.
| CynicusRex wrote:
| > That is fine if you consider cryptocurrency as an
| investment.
|
| Investment is a misnomer because it doesn't produce or
| fix anything in the real world, nor pay dividends. If you
| invest in a company that 3D prints modular homes you'll
| get a piece of the profits through dividends.
| Crypto"currencies" do nothing of the sort. You have to
| sell to a greater fool to profit. Meanwhile, the
| originators have trivially created digital tokens from
| thin air, backed by a mere white paper or faulty proof of
| concept, and consequently profit wildly by mere shilling.
| Yes, similar pyramid schemes occur in the stock market as
| well, which I criticize just as much.
|
| If it's an actual currency then it's not an investment
| but a conversion.
| chillchurch wrote:
| A good number of cryptocurrencies do provide real world
| value, just because it is not a physical good doesn't
| mean the value doesn't exist.
|
| And many of the cryptocoins are Proof of Stake, or
| planning to switch to PoS (such as Ethereum). This,
| besides requiring far less energy than the Proof of Work
| mining for block validation, allows someone who purchased
| the coin to gain more coin. By staking coin to assist in
| the validation of blocks, stakers are rewarded a
| percentage of the transaction fees as payment. They do
| not need to buy equipment to mine and effectively earn
| interest on staked coin.
|
| Even if you bought in at the point a coin stabilizes and
| no longer appreciates, you could still increase your
| wealth without needing the price of the coin to increase.
| CynicusRex wrote:
| "+ Perhaps immutable smart contracts that spread wealth in
| proportion to the number of people, accounting for basic
| needs and disproportionate wealth disparities? But even
| then I'd suppose blockchain wouldn't be the most efficient
| way to do it."
| --https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html
| bjohnson225 wrote:
| User friendly? Can't be bought in the US, and for the remainder
| it will only cause headaches for anyone who just wants to be
| paid but have now received some unusable nonsense instead.
| kijin wrote:
| The feature is opt-in. You will not receive any unusable
| nonsense unless you choose to be paid in such. For American
| users, nothing has changed.
| bjohnson225 wrote:
| Yes, but I can't imagine more than a negligible percentage
| of the Signal user base opting in because it's anything but
| user friendly as a solution.
| chaps wrote:
| "Won't governments ban Signal now? So far, we haven't seen
| any indication this will happen. It has been possible to install
| open-source Monero wallets in the App Store and Play Store nearly
| anywhere in the world for many years now (excluding authoritarian
| countries -- but they've already banned Signal anyway). For the
| most part, non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets are easily
| accessible."
|
| Really...? Edit: "excluding authoritarian countries" doesn't help
| your case in the way you think it does.. "Some
| jurisdictions have gone even further and imposed restrictions on
| investments in cryptocurrencies, the extent of which varies from
| one jurisdiction to another. Some (Algeria, Bolivia, Morocco,
| Nepal, Pakistan, and Vietnam) ban any and all activities
| involving cryptocurrencies." [1]
|
| Signal being banned in Iran. [2]
|
| Signal being banned in China. [3]
|
| They also mention that this isn't a money grab because Signal
| needs funding. Signal has a 105 million dollar "loan" with zero
| interest with a repayment requirement in 2068.
|
| This opinion piece is a joke.
|
| [1] https://www.loc.gov/law/help/cryptocurrency/world-survey.php
|
| [2] https://signal.org/blog/help-iran-reconnect/
|
| [3] https://www.protocol.com/is-signal-blocked-in-china
| Tepix wrote:
| The article also mentions that Signal can block the crypto
| payments in some countries to prevent being blocked.
| chaps wrote:
| Then why not make another damn app?! This is insane.
| qqii wrote:
| You have to begin wjth the premise that Moxie would like to
| add payment integration to Signal, in which cake making
| another app doesn't fulfill the goal.
|
| You could also argue against the premise that a secure chat
| app needs payment integration, but that's one to bring up
| on twitter against Moxie.
| ac29 wrote:
| There really is no technical way to 100% prevent specific
| countries from using a given piece of software via the
| internet. Plenty of crypto platforms have claimed to ban US
| users (often with laughably weak techniques like IP block
| bans), only to be questioned by US authorities who basically
| say "OK, prove it (with KYC/AML)".
| brnt wrote:
| You reply is some quotes, establishing that in two countries
| Signal was already blocked, and an exclamation. I fail to see
| how you reached your conclusion.
| chaps wrote:
| Do you really not see how the blanket banning of
| cryptocurrency and the blanket banning of signal itself isn't
| a tad bit of an indication that signal will get more blanket
| bans when combining the two? They're fundamentally saying
| that no inductive evidence exists despite clear inductive
| evidence existing. Seriously, what more do you want?
| brnt wrote:
| Blanket banning of crypto is, as you wrote, limited to the
| usual suspects.
|
| In the EU it's treated like any other asset, my tax office
| here has been asking me to declare any, alongside (foreign)
| cash, banks, etc for years now.
|
| So no, more blanket banning does not seems likely to me.
| chaps wrote:
| The point of my post was to point out that their
| statement that there was no indication was wrong. Not
| sure what your mention of the EU has to do with anything.
|
| In any case, we'll see. My money's on it being a complete
| shit show two months from now.
| vorticalbox wrote:
| In defence of signal. I didn't even notice they added it until I
| read this article.
| Kina wrote:
| AFAIK, this is only activated for UK users.
| justincormack wrote:
| I can't see it in the UK iOS app.
| xwx wrote:
| It's only available in the beta builds at the moment.
| vorticalbox wrote:
| I'm in the UK and it's in the settings with a (beta) label.
|
| I had zero idea it was released
| jonseager wrote:
| This is a tough one, I feel like Moxie has broadly acted in a way
| that should illicit a reaction that assumes good intent from most
| people. And if nothing else, they're not forcing upon users who
| don't explicitly want to use it - choice _is_ okay, even if you
| don't agree with the choices of others...
|
| It was an interesting move to adopt a coin like MobileCoin, but
| honestly it seems well reasoned, and at least as valid as most of
| the suitable alternatives from a technical standpoint.
|
| My only hope is that the added overheard of interacting more with
| the financial world doesn't detract to much time from keeping the
| core messaging functions great - time will tell but I suspect
| they'll work it out.
| dTal wrote:
| >I feel like Moxie has broadly acted in a way that should
| illicit a reaction that assumes good intent from most people.
|
| I don't. Drew Devault articulates some reasons why[0], but it's
| an opinion I held before he wrote that. It was a pattern I
| first noticed reading Moxie's justifications for removing
| encrypted SMS[1].
|
| [0] https://drewdevault.com/2018/08/08/Signal.html [1]
| https://signal.org/blog/goodbye-encrypted-sms/
|
| p.s. "illicit" means illegal. You mean "elicit".
| Vinnl wrote:
| One other thing to add: the announcement article also explicitly
| lists MobileCoin as the _first_ type of crypto they 've added. I
| have no idea if there are others that satisfy the requirements of
| speed and untraceability, but I guess that's relevant to those
| asking 'why not x'.
|
| Which is to add to the article's conclusion: it might be too
| early to judge.
| ggm wrote:
| BDFL vs public governance body. Ask yourselves which you want,
| and why. I truly believe, what we're seeing is consequences of
| governance. If you care about why decisions are made, you need a
| very particular kind of BDFL.
|
| (Happy signal user btw, no axe to grind. I am commenting how I
| see the meta quality of what went on with this decision.)
| kowlo wrote:
| What are the alternatives to Signal?
|
| edit: I'd like to have something self-hosted!
| webmobdev wrote:
| GNU Jami - https://jami.net/
| logikblok wrote:
| Have you explored https://element.io/?
| Daho0n wrote:
| Encrypted snail mail?
| baby wrote:
| Whatsapp, which implements the signal protocol as well.
| croes wrote:
| Where can I look into WhatsApp's client and server code?
| shp0ngle wrote:
| yeah because Keybase embrace of Stellar worked out so well for
| them.
|
| Almost as much as Kik and Kin (or whatever was that), as well as
| Telegram and TON.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I got 700EUR worth of free Stellar from them. Not complaining
| :D
|
| Moved my Stellar out, exchanged to BTC and stopped using
| Keybase.
| baby wrote:
| Do you mean it didn't work for keybase? What do you mean by
| that?
| Tistron wrote:
| Didn't telegram just create some kind of broadcast rooms that you
| can pay to attend? Or clubhouse, or both? Maybe we'll see those
| kinds of features in signal too? Not saying I want that, I'm not
| a user of either of those apps, but it does seem like something
| some people want. I mean to point that out as a potential reason
| for this to be be in signal and not a separate app.
|
| It's weird to see that it written about as crypto in a messenger
| app is novel though, as my keybase app let's me chat to friends
| and send lumens to them if I want to. That feature was also
| criticised a lot if I remember correctly, though it never
| bothered me.
| qqii wrote:
| I'm glad someone has written this article as the converse on HN
| has been overly negative. This is an article I would have
| probably written so I'd like to add:
|
| > Third, private transaction retrieval requires downloading
| blocks to your phone and manually filtering them. If you've ever
| used the Monero CakeWallet, you'll know it can sometimes take
| quite a while before everything is synced and you actually see
| your full balance. MobileCoin solves this by using fog, which
| allows for instant and private transaction retrieval without
| putting a heavy computational load on your phone.
|
| MyMonero and OpenMonero is this kind of light wallet and has
| similar privacy guarentees. Fog is still vulnerable to timing
| based attacks.
|
| > Even if you assume that Intel SGX is completely broken in every
| way possible, MobileCoin provides at least the same amount of
| privacy as Monero. The purpose of SGX is to provide defense-in-
| depth by potentially mitigating heuristic analysis that
| CryptoNote protocols are vulnerable to.
|
| Federation fundimentally offers less privacy guarentees and
| relies on trusting the nodes and fog servers. Malicious actors
| can perform all kinds of timing attacks.
|
| > If anyone has read through Josh Goldbard's comments on Hacker
| News, you will undoubtedly understand the frustration here. In
| multiple instances, he simply avoids answering a question
| altogether in his replies. I don't believe he is trying to hide
| any foul play here.
|
| This is quite an optemistic take, even other cryptocurrencies are
| more transparent about their initial token sale price, companies
| and amount purchased, distribution schedule, etc.
|
| The article also doesn't touch on MobileCoin's lack of credit for
| Monero[0] and the founding engineer's now deleted post about the
| Monero codebase[1].
|
| [0]:
| https://nitter.dark.fail/fluffypony/status/13795592735046410...
|
| [1]:
| https://nitter.dark.fail/fluffypony/status/13796045413903441...
| hardwaresofton wrote:
| I'm more interested in the tin foil hat theory (that I saw
| mentioned on HN) that this might be signal telling you it's been
| compromised.
|
| The crypto stuff isn't great, but just... dont' touch it if you
| don't like it. It's unfortunate that it's there, but this is the
| trade-off for everyone _not_ running their own Matrix
| homeservers. IMO Signal is still the best choice out there by
| far.
| qqii wrote:
| I hate that theory for a number of reasons.
|
| It avoids so much evidence of Signals past controversial
| changes, Moxie's past interviews about MobileCoin and his
| current tweets or the amount of work done to create MobileCoin.
| Even a quick look into it creates many holes that can only be
| filled with speculation.
| hardwaresofton wrote:
| Yeah I really have no idea what's going on but I can say for
| sure that I didn't think of the possibility of it being a
| canary of some sort until I read that, so it was eye opening
| to me. I was (and still am) definitely under-informed on
| Moxie's past interviews about the coin and the other stuff --
| I just looked around and it was discussed on HN in 2017[0]
| (!!).
|
| I honestly mostly steer clear of Moxie and the other stuff
| related to Signal -- I personally was really annoyed with the
| phone number thing, but I can make peace with the fact that
| Signal is concerned with privacy, mass appeal, and _then_
| maybe some anonymity. I am getting a ton of value for
| absolutely free.
|
| In the end, the code is open source, and that is the
| difference that puts it above the other choices with mass
| appeal. For me it was basically Signal or Telegram -- there
| are some other F/OSS options, but they just don't have the
| mass appeal for me to use with friends.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15935583
| iudqnolq wrote:
| > that this might be signal telling you it's been compromised.
|
| > IMO Signal is still the best choice out there by far.
|
| I'm a little confused. How do you decide to excuse MobileCoin
| as a cry for help and then decide to ignore it?
| hardwaresofton wrote:
| Just in case, what I meant by "compromised" was "by a 3 or so
| letter agency" -- not sure if you meant I thought morally
| compromised. Signal's morals don't really concern me, because
| their client is open source, I don't have to care what they
| believe -- their decision to go with phone numbers irked me
| for example but having it be F/OSS and well encrypted (as far
| as I know) was worth sacrificing the privacy (and of course
| if they ever get the short code system off the ground I'd
| make a new account immediately).
|
| To the spirit of your question though, the reason I take
| somewhat opposite stances is because I expect the first thing
| is just a tin foil hat theory, and the crypto thing is
| neither here nor there (I know I don't plan to buy any, but
| even so maybe it's good for some people). Signal being banned
| by a lot of oppressive regimes is some pretty good supporting
| evidence towards it _not_ being compromised.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| I thought you were saying you thought signal had been
| three-letter compromised and you were continuing to use it,
| which seemed inconsistent.
|
| Now understand you meant some tin-foil hatters think it was
| compromised, but you don't. That makes sense. (I also find
| the "it's a signal they're compromised" theory absurd).
| hardwaresofton wrote:
| Well someone brought it up, and I thought it was an
| interesting tin foil hat theory -- It _could_ have
| happened, I 'm not sure what to make of that. I can also
| probably say at this point I don't care enough to really
| do something about it.
|
| Personally the code being F/OSS is enough for me -- if I
| need to run my own instance of the server then I could,
| and if the many-eyes theory holds true and signal's
| security audit is any good, then I'm pretty happy with
| that. I already assumed I wasn't _quite_ out of the reach
| of three letter agencies because I had to use a phone
| number to get started. Phones are essentially pwned by
| default and easily pwnable for the agencies.
| Thorentis wrote:
| Putting aside the "should Signal add payment features" debate, I
| think the biggest issue is the fact that Signal chose to
| integrate a crypto which appears to be nothing other than a money
| making scheme for its creators. There are other existing privacy
| oriented cryptos. The whole thing smells like a scam, and loyal
| Signal advocates feel like they're being taken for a ride.
| qqii wrote:
| I think the article does a decent job at explaining why signal
| didn't go with existing privacy cryptocurrencies. The two
| points are:
|
| * Signal wants to make money (and they cite Tor as an example
| of the problems of not making money)
|
| * Monero's isn't fast enough.
|
| The first point obviously isn't really very good defense and
| the second point could be considered refuted by this tweet[0].
|
| Monero is simply unlikely to reduce their block time or the
| number of confirmation blocks. Given the work in integrating
| SGX, Stellar Consensus and fog calling it a scam is going too
| far but its not a good look for sure.
|
| [0]:
| https://nitter.dark.fail/moxie/status/1379560902463119361#m
| hyc_symas wrote:
| This tweet made the point about speed more explicitly https:/
| /nitter.dark.fail/_geonic/status/1379965832369823744#...
|
| Block time isn't really the obstacle the detractors are
| claiming it is.
| qqii wrote:
| As the article describes you cannot spend any transaction
| until a fixed number of block confirmations.
|
| This is a non issue if you already have coins in your
| wallet but it's not a very pleasant first time experience.
| ac29 wrote:
| But is ~20 minutes really such a deal breaker? For secure
| person to person payments, this really seems good enough.
| The network doesn't need to facilitate high frequency
| trading or something.
| Thorentis wrote:
| My own opinion is that Signal doesn't need to pick a single
| crypto, but if they'd wanted to integrate payments they
| should have created some kind of integration with an existing
| payment platform like Bitpay.
|
| It's clear that the real intent was to make money, and it's
| unfortunate that they haven't been upfront about this.
| freebuju wrote:
| If this guy was a lawyer representing me in a court, I be in jail
| by noon. His defense seems to call on the reader's (jury)
| optimistic nature too much when the stakes on the line are cut
| and dry.
|
| All jokes aside, excusing Signal for doing this would be bad. For
| the many users who would be exposed to the potential security
| threats that abound with this new payment integrations. Am no
| crypto-head but I've seen negative criticism too about this new
| coin being added.
|
| Signal seems to have built a good reputation of trust among
| privacy communities, despite having questionable anchors such as
| requirement of phone numbers for use and trusting only their
| centralized server. This sudden change in direction puts this app
| in even more shakier grounds.
|
| I'm glad the true intentions behind this app are now coming to
| light.
|
| More scrutiny is best for Signal.
| qqii wrote:
| Not to excuse signal but has the response really been justified
| for a beta feature being tested in a single country? The signal
| press release and activity on the forums makes it clear that
| they're asking for feedback.
|
| Their intentions were never hidden either, you can see
| interviews dating 2017 thst matches their current stance.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| They're asking for feedback? Then the response is justified.
|
| If you're doing payment processing then you need to abide by
| AML and KYC laws, which are incompatible with secure
| messaging.
| qqii wrote:
| They're not doing payment proceeding, it's just a wallet.
| davidgerard wrote:
| If money moves over the network, it's payment processing.
| I urge you to review FinCEN guidance on "convertible
| virtual currencies". https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default
| /files/2019-05/FinCEN%20... Similar regulations apply in
| most of the developed world. FATF regulations on virtual
| currencies only get tighter.
| 3np wrote:
| I did review this and my understanding is that for "self-
| hosted" wallet apps like this where the keys are on users
| devices and there is no custody, Signal is clearly not
| classified as a VASP/payment processor.
|
| Care to point to the contradictory section? Because that
| would be drastic and contrary to anything I've heard.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Ah, yeah right, looks like I've got my terminology and
| assumptions confused.
|
| That PDF linked above ( https://www.fincen.gov/sites/defa
| ult/files/2019-05/FinCEN%20... ) would indicate Signal
| would be a 'money transmitter' rather than 'payment
| processor'.
|
| Is that correct, or am I still confused.
| 3np wrote:
| Quoted from above PDF 1.2.1:
|
| > FinCEN's regulations define the term "money
| transmitter" to include a "person that provides money
| transmission services," or "any other person engaged in
| the transfer of funds." A "transmittor," on the other
| hand, is "[t]he sender of the first transmittal order in
| a transmittal of funds. The term transmittor includes an
| originator, except where the transmittor's financial
| institution is a financial institution or foreign
| financial agency other than a bank or foreign bank."
|
| As long as Signal or its servers don't itself take part
| in transmission (which they wouldn't as long as the
| Signal app acts as a real user-side wallet and client) or
| trades/converts assets on behalf of the users, they
| should be exempt of this regulation.
|
| Say what you want about this regulation, but so far I
| find it reasonable; as long as you as a business don't
| touch crypto assets or private keys either as issuer, key
| custodian, or transmitter but simply provide the
| wallet/node software, you're in the clear.
|
| Unless Signal acts in bad faith, I see no way they would
| fall under scope of Fincen regulation wrt MobileCoin.
|
| IANAL etc.
| 3np wrote:
| Is Signal doing payment processing here? Like issuing or
| selling MobileCoin? If it's just a non-custodial wallet
| then they'd be in the clear.
| Proven wrote:
| The article raises valid points and has succeeded to make me
| dislike the idea much less than several days ago.
|
| If Signal could offer a plugin and take a cut of all payments
| (whatever the currency) made in the app, that would be better. To
| support just one cryptocurrency decided is suboptimal.
| frereubu wrote:
| I spent a few weeks recently persuading two relatively large
| groups of non-technical people (50+ people in each) to move from
| WhatsApp to Signal. I absolutely hate this move from Signal, and
| this blog post makes no difference whatsoever to that feeling.
|
| The idea of private messaging is a relatively easy one to talk to
| people about. Adding cryptocurrencies into the mix - when, fairly
| or unfairly, news coverage about it is mostly about financial
| speculation, the "dark web" and illegal drugs - is a terrible
| idea if the idea behind Signal is broad uptake of a secure
| messaging app that doesn't have links to companies like Facebook.
|
| Whether the settings are buried or not people will find out about
| this as time passes, and when they do it's going to create
| distrust. As others have suggested, if you want to do
| cryptocurrencies, why not create a separate "Signal Wallet" app
| or something? Although even that won't help the fact that it will
| tarnish the "Signal" brand in the eyes of many.
| rapnie wrote:
| > I spent a few weeks recently persuading two relatively large
| groups of non-technical people (50+ people in each) to move
| from WhatsApp to Signal
|
| Yes, I had informally announced my network that I'd move from
| Whatsapp to Signal - which I already used - and was just
| planning to make formal announcement to all my contacts, and
| install an autoresponder (Watomatic) on Whatsapp with reminders
| to reach me on Signal. But I'm holding off now, not sure what
| to do. I haven't accepted Whatsapp's new privacy policy yet, so
| I guess will continue using that for a while longer.
| Considering if Matrix wouldn't be a better choice as my next
| default messenger.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Seriously consider GNU Jami - https://jami.net/ ...
| cageface wrote:
| I finally managed to move a big chunk of my friends over to
| Signal after almost a year of gentle but steady encouragement.
|
| Now I wish I hadn't bothered. I'm sure I won't be able to get
| them to move again and I've lost my confidence that any other
| new solution will be trustworthy. Maybe the devil you know in
| WhatsApp is better than more nasty surprises like this?
| webmobdev wrote:
| GNU Jami - https://jami.net/ - is what you needed to promote.
| There's a very good reason most of the commercial messengers
| never mention it when they compare themselves to other
| messengers ... it's the obvious winner.
| raspyberr wrote:
| I think Jami is great. Not having offline messages would be
| a pretty killer disadvantage to regular people though
| right?
| webmobdev wrote:
| Offline messaging is indeed a challenge on such
| distributed services that avoid any central servers.
| Currently messages are only cached for around 10 minutes
| in the DHT network before they are discarded. The way
| Jami currently handles delivery of such messages is to
| cache the message on the sender's device, and send it as
| soon the recipient of the message comes online. This
| ofcourse requires the sender to be online as much as
| possible. Beta testing is currently going on for group
| chats that will also provide a better solution for this -
| https://jami.net/swarm-introducing-a-new-generation-of-
| group... ...
| frereubu wrote:
| It's too late. I've already spent all my social capital
| moving those people over, and it'll take at least two years
| to build that back up again. I don't mean to be too
| negative about this because I'm sure you're suggesting this
| in good faith, but nobody is going to switch to something
| that literally none of them will have heard about. Whether
| a particular technical solution is the best or not will
| never trump network effects when trying to move 50+ non-
| technical people over to a new messaging app.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Yeah, that's a real issue - the network effect that locks
| in people to popular messaging services.
| baby wrote:
| Completely agree with this post. Moxie it you're reading this:
| remember, bad publicity is still publicity. Haters are going to
| hate, but Signal is now founded for a while!
| tromp wrote:
| Indeed, signal is now founded in moral hazards.
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