[HN Gopher] Stories Are Coming to Signal
___________________________________________________________________
Stories Are Coming to Signal
Author : decrypt
Score : 104 points
Date : 2022-01-08 13:39 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| badrabbit wrote:
| Ffs! Just have cross platform backup/restore and migration,
| accounts not tied to phones and multi-device accounts already! I
| have heard others complain about this for years now.
|
| I can code but I don't code for a living, these things seem like
| they would take at most two weeks dev time, is there a complexity
| I am missing here? Or do they just not care? I have all but
| abandoned secure mobile messanging at this point. They either die
| from lack of adoption or live long enough to become the villain.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| One of Signal's main purposes is to be used by Snowden types
| (whistleblowers, dissidents, journalists, etc.) - or, at least,
| it used to be. Messages Are Private is the most important
| principle for Signal, even if it means messages are lost.
|
| Accounts not tied to phones, I don't really have an explanation
| for. It was in the works two years ago, but I haven't heard
| anything since.
| badrabbit wrote:
| There are better alternatives like Briar for snowden types.
| Signal is always competing against telegram or whatsapp and
| comparing themselves. Integrity and reliability are critical
| security properties.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| What the fuck are stories and what does that have to do with E2EE
| messages?
| bloopernova wrote:
| Just cancelled my monthly donation. They've lost their way.
| jraph wrote:
| I will take anything that could make people switch from Facebook
| Messenger or WhatsApp to Signal, even if my preference actually
| goes to Element / Matrix.
|
| Lately, people around me have been installing Signal, or I've met
| people would already have Signal, and it's been enjoyable to, at
| last, participate in fun group chats. They didn't miss me before
| but I'm happy to be there now.
|
| Signal works well. I'd like to be able to edit messages and react
| with multiple emojis like with Element/Matrix, but most
| importantly, Signal needs to look cool and to be something people
| want to install and use.
|
| Element/Matrix too, by the way, but they need to focus on
| usability first at the moment.
| deutschepost wrote:
| The feature that I missed the most after switching to signal was
| Live location sharing. It is just so convenient to find your
| friends while going out or going to the street exactly at the
| time someone is there to pick you up.
| waah wrote:
| Don't you get this if you click on the "+" icon? I see options
| for Camera, GIF, File, etc. then "Location" and I've sent my
| location this way. Using iPhone.
| deutschepost wrote:
| You can just send your current Location. Not have the message
| update continuously.
| argiopetech wrote:
| Same on Android.
| anthropodie wrote:
| Wow I did not realize that Signal was missing this. I think
| they are focusing on getting more people on board than building
| a great app.
|
| Too many people blame Matrix but I love it. It's UI is not as
| polished but hey I can work with it because sooner or later all
| these centralized apps run after revenue and ruin the most
| basic stuff that these app should do: messaging.
| Mystlix wrote:
| what happens in your decentralized system if one of your
| friends has their account registered on a naughty naughty
| server that just got blacklisted by the righteous admins of
| your instance and now you can't talk together anymore? does
| that person need to make a completely new account just to
| send some messages to you? does a migration scenario exist?
| and if it exists, does it warn your contacts and transfer
| everything seemlessly?
| deutschepost wrote:
| Last time I checked Matrix was researching about the topic
| of multiple homeservers. So you could just use a local
| homeserver on your device and a remote homesesrver with a
| fancy name simultaniously. This would also enable users to
| communicate P2P. But I don't know how advanced this system
| is yet.
| keewee7 wrote:
| >after switching to signal was Live location sharing
|
| Which messaging apps have actual Live Location sharing?
| Aachen wrote:
| Telegram
| deutschepost wrote:
| WhatsApp too...
| fragmede wrote:
| As do Facebook Messenger and iMessage
| rvz wrote:
| So another unnecessary feature coming to a chat app that no-one
| asked for - just like including their own cryptocurrency in the
| messenger.
|
| After all, from a privacy perspective it is still a disaster to
| create an account by using your phone number to sign in. From a
| typical user's perspective it is basically a worse version of
| WhatsApp that still cannot backup your texts and conversations
| properly, so why bother switching at all?
|
| The users will still sit on WhatsApp due to the latter still
| being the case. Once your phone is lost, stolen, or you have a
| different phone, your conversations are lost if you are using
| Signal.
|
| Oh dear.
| brodock wrote:
| Until they allow people to make bot accounts, theplatform eill be
| limited to person<>person communication. The actual strengh of
| WhatsApp is that companies are ditching their phone / support
| chat for whatsapp only. Which is the worst of both worlds.
| geek_at wrote:
| Agreed. I tried to implement a simple bot that would notify me
| about home security stuff but it ended in a rabbit hole that
| all points to a git comment of one of the devs stating possible
| account bans if an account is used for automated messages or
| even person to person messages using anything other than the
| official app.
| newscracker wrote:
| The development of Signal, sorry to put it harshly, seems to
| suffer from a split brained syndrome. On one hand they'll focus
| on adding stickers, stories and other trivial features to help
| appeal to a broader user base, but on the other hand they'll
| refuse to implement basic and important features that people need
| in a chat app, like chat backups (there is no backup option for
| iOS, only a device to device transfer...so if you lose or break
| your device or switch to a new device after selling your old one,
| your chats are all gone).
|
| I don't recommend Signal to others because its priorities don't
| match mine and that of others I know. I do use it, but I treat it
| more like a fragile platform where anything can disappear any
| moment. Don't share or keep anything valuable on it.
|
| The fact that Signal is another centralized platform that not
| only requires a phone number but also exposes your phone number
| to others (like in group chats) are larger issues for me.
|
| I've been trying Element (from Matrix), but its UX is quite poor.
| I just wish chat apps would copy at least some of the UX of
| Telegram.
| kelnos wrote:
| I'm skeptical that chat backups are that important to the
| average user. It's very important to me (I even wrote a little
| Android app to automatically upload the encrypted backup to
| GDrive every time one is created), but nearly everyone who I
| have promoted Signal to hasn't cared much when I warn them that
| the chat history/backup situation is bad.
| karmanyaahm wrote:
| SchildiChat (Android and web) is an Element fork focusing on
| simplifying the UX and making it like WhatsApp, Telegram etc.
| Them not having an iOS version is very unfortunate
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| I tend to agree. I want to be able to use the same account on
| two phones. I'm not the only one. Yes, there are workarounds,
| but ffs, come on already.
| jbreitbart wrote:
| I intentionally drop all messages from time to time (typically
| once I get a new device). Am I the only one who feels like
| loosing old conversations is just fine? After all, I don't
| remember all conversations I had in person as well.
|
| I understand that loosing them at an unexpected time can be
| annoying and a backup is useful, but I personally never had a
| use for that feature and knowing that it is annoying for
| someone to keep all my messages around forever is something I
| consider positive.
| xanaxagoras wrote:
| > Am I the only one who feels like loosing old conversations
| is just fine?
|
| I find text based instant messaging to be shallow and vapid
| and I have very little interest in them. Texting is best used
| (for me at least) to coordinate real life plans (I'll be in
| front of X at Y o'clock) or quick task-oriented notes (Hey
| babe, can you grab some sliced turkey if you're still at the
| store). If you want to actually talk to me, call me or let's
| meet in person.
|
| This attachment to one's messaging archive is IMO a symptom
| of data hoarding. 99.9% of text conversations won't be
| interesting in the future because they weren't interesting
| when they were happening.
|
| That said I do like enjoy the feature where all of the photos
| from a given conversation are easily accessible.
| sshine wrote:
| The first message I got from my girlfriend was a response
| to me sharing some music with her and asking for a song
| back. She sent a small video of her cat complaining.
|
| If I could have backups of entire conversations, I wouldn't
| have to export and save every single video and picture
| being sent with Signal.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Same here, I don't get that insistence on backups at all but
| I get that others might feel differently. I wouldn't be
| surprised that this is more prevalent in us techie types than
| the average user of chat apps.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Am I the only one who feels like loosing old conversations
| is just fine
|
| not only do I think it's fine I think it's actually healthy.
| I think the ability to search and turn over every word said
| in the past can produce some pretty neurotic and bad
| behaviors. There's a fun Black Mirror episode about this in
| one of the earlier seasons.
| piaste wrote:
| I recently decided to watch a movie that my ex-girlfriend had
| recommended to me, and I was able to quietly search for it in
| the chat history since we're no longer on speaking terms so I
| couldn't ask her.
|
| On the other side, when I broke up with her I also used the
| chat history to point out some times she had tried to lie to
| me. That was a bitter satisfaction I could probably have done
| without.
| zepearl wrote:
| > _Am I the only one who feels like loosing old conversations
| is just fine?_
|
| Same here - but maybe if doing Business then somebody might
| want to keep them (e.g. to keep track of whatever your
| customers told you in the past? Just a guess...).
|
| (btw. I think it's not "loosing" if you don't mean something
| like "letting them free", but "losing". "losing" vs.
| "choosing", I kept mixing that up until recently... :P )
|
| What I would like as a feature in Signal is "polls" (e.g. to
| choose with a few friends to which bar/restaurant to go, when
| to meet, whatever).
|
| But now unluckily I'm back on Whatsapp as even after having
| abandoned it, within almost 2 years most of my friends
| refused to install Signal -> in the end, on 31.Dec.2021, I
| decided to admit that I failed, and I reinstalled Whatsapp :(
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Yes. I keep my iMessages forever, and even back them up (as
| well as my photo library) as part of my desktop backups.
|
| I'm switching my social networks to Telegram after Signal
| burned up its good will focusing on features they want versus
| what their users want. Do I care if it's as secure? No, I
| prefer the convenience and superior UX iMessages and Telegram
| offers.
|
| Really unfortunate, as it was Signal's race to lose after
| their bump in usage and shoutouts from popular folks using
| it.
| hermanradtke wrote:
| > I'm switching my social networks to Telegram after Signal
| burned up its good will focusing on features they want
| versus what their users want.
|
| It seems to me like Signal has been focusing on making
| their UX closer to Telegrams. This seems to be what many
| users want?
| [deleted]
| slickdork wrote:
| I set signal to auto delete messages older than 2 weeks.
| There is zero reason to keep messages of a personal relation
| longer than that, for me at least. I am prone to nostalgic
| romanticizing, and not having access to past messages kind of
| solves that problem.
| abnercoimbre wrote:
| My conference [0] spins up a brand new Matrix server each
| event. It's the equivalent of having hallway conversations
| that shouldn't be tracked.
|
| Not everything needs to live on forever.
|
| [0] https://handmade-seattle.com
| emptysongglass wrote:
| I just think this is incredibly cool. Is there public
| source code to this?
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| I don't generally need to preserve all my messages forever,
| but I often do refer to recent ones, say from the last few
| weeks. I have switched devices a couple of times with Signal
| only to be stuck thinking "oh crap, did I agree to do X on Th
| or Fri?" The lack of sync for SMS with their desktop client
| also makes it basically useless to me, I'm sure that's more
| secure, but I wouldn't mind being to opt-out, especially on a
| contact-by-contact basis.
| SECProto wrote:
| For me personally, adding stickers is much more important than
| chat backups - at least on a day-to-day basis. The last time I
| switched devices was 3.5 years ago, the last time I used a
| sticker was 3.5 hours ago.
| [deleted]
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| _> I do use it, but I treat it more like a fragile platform
| where anything can disappear any moment. Don't share or keep
| anything valuable on it._
|
| Fwiw most people I use signal with have auto-disappearing
| messages enabled, so all our comms are ephemeral anyway.
|
| And for private messages, that turns out to be totally fine. I
| read it, act on it if necessary, open any links in a browser,
| download any files sent, and then have no need for the message
| to persist beyond that.
|
| This isn't Twitter where I'm deliberately creating a public
| record of commentary for like-minded folks to find and engage
| with me on, that needs to persist for a long time. Signal for
| when I've already found those folks and need to have private
| OTR conversations with them.
| ringworld wrote:
| Everyone has different UI feature desires so ill put that aside
| for this comment; flexibility is my key reason for Signal
| losing favor.
|
| What the Matrix solution gives me:
|
| - chat from multiple devices with history upon login (I read
| they're working on downloadable exports/backups) from any
| client;
|
| - zero knowledge webapp logins (e.g. the work laptop on VPN,
| app.element.io in a Chrome tab) just use your Security Key like
| MFA;
|
| - trivial and easy bridging with other endpoints (IRC, XMPP,
| etc.) it's not perfect but it works and I use this daily
| chatting with friends on other networks;
|
| - choice of many clients whether actual apps or web interfaces
| (yes, it's early days and rough around the edges but the
| _capability_ is there and happening) unlike Signal;
|
| - distributed (federation) server designs baked in to avoid
| single company server lock in (Signal is opposed to this, goes
| hand in hand with using only their clients);
|
| - less trouble and better client experiences about around the
| above than XMPP ecosystem. I just get annoyed using the XMPP
| versions of my bullet points above (and I've really tried,
| honest)
|
| Is Matrix/Element perfect? no, lots of rough edges being worked
| on especially with the e2ee keys (my opinion). But I see
| healthy work, continual improvement and a good future ahead.
| saurik wrote:
| And yet Moxie spends a ton of time and effort attempting to
| convince everyone that working on protocols and federated
| systems (not just "Web3" and crypto-adjacent stuff, as in his
| article yesterday, but the entire space: he gave a scathing
| talk a year or two ago you can find a copy of, though he
| interestingly hadn't wanted it recorded) are useless and that
| no one should waste their time building them :(.
| Slothborg wrote:
| > he gave a scathing talk a year or two ago you can find a
| copy of, though he interestingly hadn't wanted it recorded
|
| Do you mean the talk he gave at C3?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj3YFprqAr8
|
| Never heard anything about him not wanting it recorded,
| presenting at C3 means your talk will be recorded and
| distributed.
| ngrilly wrote:
| I don't recommend Signal either due to the lack of encrypted
| backup/restore. I don't understand the prioritization of other
| features over that one.
| jraph wrote:
| It would be best to have backups built in, but in the mean time
| wouldn't Signal Desktop be a way to make backups?
|
| I moved my home directory to a new computer and Signal Desktop
| started like if something changed. Sure you would lose your
| messages on your phone, but you can still access them on your
| computer if needed.
|
| On a rooted Android phone, you could use oandbackup to backup
| Signal. If you care about these things, maybe consider using a
| rooted Android phone?
|
| I agree with you on the centralized platform aspect and the use
| of phone number (which is both a blessing (this makes it easy
| for new users to join) and a curse). I also agree with you on
| Element's UX, but it's getting better and most people can use
| it fine. I have a few groups on both apps.
|
| I personally prefer Element, which seems more open than Signal
| and which I can actually use correctly on the PinePhone. And
| definitely didn't requires the hoops I had to go through
| because I don't have an Android phone or an iPhone. Axolotl [1]
| still needs some work.
|
| [1] https://github.com/nanu-c/axolotl
| jfim wrote:
| > On a rooted Android phone, you could use oandbackup to
| backup Signal. If you care about these things, maybe consider
| using a rooted Android phone?
|
| You don't need a rooted phone. Signal can do backups on
| Android, they can be enabled through Settings > Chats >
| Backups.
|
| I'm not sure why they don't have that feature on iOS though.
| mathnmusic wrote:
| > the centralized platform aspect and the use of phone number
|
| Don't forget how Signal built MobileCoin integration
| completely in secret for a whole year. Public was kept in
| dark just so $MOB insiders could benefit handsomely.
| noahtallen wrote:
| Yeah, I was evaluating a few group chat options to replace
| iMessage for a large group, and the lack of message backup and
| strong multi-device support is the reason Signal probably won't
| work. One of the most confusing aspects of iMessage (before
| recent years) was that it didn't sync chats to all devices.
| Some devices could get into a messed up state, not have all
| your messages, etc. Apple solved that problem with iCloud
| backup, which lets the cloud store messages.
|
| Not seeing your complete chat history on a new device is just
| not tenable for the average person, and a selling point of
| signal was that I could use it on windows or Linux, where I
| can't use iMessage. I also heard adding signal on an iPad or
| second phone cousin be messy too.
|
| Compare that with telegram, which is extremely fast across any
| devices, has even more features, and is slightly easier to
| use...
|
| I mean, encryption in transit and at rest is good enough for
| most people. I agree philosophically with e2e encryption, but
| practically, is it all that important for average chat users,
| especially if it means sacrificing features people actually
| use?
| [deleted]
| deafsquid69 wrote:
| jimkleiber wrote:
| > On one hand they'll focus on adding stickers, stories and
| other trivial features to help appeal to a broader user base
|
| > I've been trying Element (from Matrix), but its UX is quite
| poor. I just wish chat apps would copy at least some of the UX
| of Telegram.
|
| I think Signal may be trying to copy some of the UX features
| that drive people to WhatsApp and Telegram, while maintaining
| the security. Adding stickers and stories with e2ee is probably
| quite the challenge and maybe less challenging than a creating
| secure solution, especially connected to the cloud.
|
| I personally am grateful they're adding more features and
| agree, would love for Signal to add UX elements at the rate of
| Telegram. BTW, I don't think Telegram has stories, which is a
| feature I really love on WhatsApp, so I think if Signal has
| that, it may be easier for me to get people to switch to
| Signal.
| saurik wrote:
| Well, one of the big reasons people use services like
| Snapchat is so they can talk to people they meet in semi-
| sketchy circumstances without giving out their phone number
| (which can be used to track or stalk them). Moxie seems to
| insist that the only way to build a successful service is
| using telephone numbers, but clearly that is false as the
| world's largest unencrypted messengers--which should be the
| enemy, NOT WhatsApp!!!!!!!!--do not use phone numbers as
| identifiers and allow users to hide them even if they are
| collected.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| > Moxie seems to insist that the only way to build a
| successful service is using telephone numbers, but clearly
| that is false as the world's largest unencrypted messengers
| --which should be the enemy, NOT WhatsApp!!!!!!!!--do not
| use phone numbers as identifiers and allow users to hide
| them even if they are collected.
|
| I don't think Moxie insists on this. I remember reading
| this on the Signal blog[0] a few years ago:
|
| > Social apps need a social network, and Signal's is built
| on the phone numbers that are stored in your device's
| address book. The address book on your device is in some
| ways a threat to the traditional social graphs controlled
| by companies like Facebook, since it is user-owned,
| portable, and accessible to any app you approve. For
| Signal, that has meant that we can leverage and contribute
| to a user-owned portable network without having to force
| users to build a new closed one from scratch.
|
| > However, many Signal users would also like to be able to
| communicate without revealing their phone numbers, in part
| because these identifiers are so portable that they enable
| a user's conversation partner to contact them through other
| channels in cases where that might be less desirable. One
| challenge has been that if we added support for something
| like usernames in Signal, those usernames wouldn't get
| saved in your phone's address book. Thus if you reinstalled
| Signal or got a new device, you would lose your entire
| social graph, because it's not saved anywhere else.
|
| > Other messaging apps solve this by storing a plaintext
| copy of your address book, social graph, and conversation
| frequency on their servers. That way your phone can get run
| over by a car without flattening your social graph in those
| apps, but it comes at a high privacy price.
|
| [0]: https://signal.org/blog/secure-value-recovery/
| golemotron wrote:
| As much as people complain about patents, maybe patenting things
| like stories and stickers in social media / messaging would've
| kept them from being playbook items that we see in the journey of
| every single online product. It's tedious and rather lazy
| compared to developing new ideas.
| folkhack wrote:
| Why?
|
| Stories are not something I need from a chat app. I wish these
| apps would stop the ideal of "constant feature growth" and focus
| on core competencies. Signal is a SMS/chat app for a privacy
| focused audience... I do not see an overlap for a stories.
| jameslk wrote:
| They're taking a play out of Facebook's strategy book: copy every
| feature of your competitor as quickly as possible. In this case,
| it seems they're going after WhatsApp and they're copying
| WhatsApp's status feature.
|
| This seems like a smart move for them because they can run for
| parity with WhatsApp and they'd still have one major benefit
| Facebook has been in a very tight spot to match: privacy.
|
| Most people don't seem to care about privacy, but if they start
| losing their (privacy aware) friends and family to Signal, they
| too will consider installing it as well.
|
| If they acquire enough network effects, they could hollow out a
| large chunk of WhatsApp, unless WhatsApp starts offering features
| Signal can't offer (e.g. better integrations into Facebook's
| other properties).
|
| It'll be interesting to watch how this plays out.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Whelp, there goes the neighborhood.
|
| Honestly, why can't we just make products and services that do
| one thing and do it well. Leave "stories" to the social media
| applications.
| iszomer wrote:
| I didn't think the "Stories" feature would be as controversial
| as "MobileCoin" integration but apparently it does on HN? This
| would just push me to disable it (if possible) whenever it is
| finally rolled out or, inspire me to remove it from my system.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| WhatsApp has had stories for years, just called statuses. Most
| of my American friends don't use it or know they're there, but
| my East African friends use them all the time. Frankly, most of
| my US friends aren't even on WhatsApp or Telegram or Signal. I
| don't know where they are :-D Maybe iMessage, Instagram,
| Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook.
|
| How do you define the difference between a messaging app and
| social media app? Many seem quite blurred to me.
| fragmede wrote:
| It's the blurring of lines that some users are objecting to.
| Instagram is a perfect example where yes, important
| communication happens via Instagram messages, but the problem
| is that once the app is open, it's _exceedingly_ easy to
| accidentally spend minutes /hours listlessly scrolling. In
| order to avoid listlessly scrolling, users will uninstall the
| app or set time limits on it, or other techniques to avoid it
| sucking up so much time. Compare this to a 'plain' messaging
| app without a broadcast stories feature - there isn't the
| same distraction factor and for those that abhor the
| algorithmic-feed and distraction factor, it's a huge turn-off
| to add that feature.
|
| Go into Instagram/Twitter/TikTok/Snapchat/Facebook and try
| and turn _off_ the stories /feed. You _can 't_, that's the
| main engagement loop for the app!
| Mystlix wrote:
| Why are you conflating a finite amount of content generated
| by only your contacts on a daily basis with the infinite
| amount of content suggested by an explore section? After
| the couple of minutes or less that it takes me to check out
| the stories of people I care about the content is
| exhausted, there is no more stuff to check and look at.
| When I look at all my Whatsapp stories there is no
| algorithm that shows me content from random people around
| the internet. The reason why Whatsapp (and Signal with
| stories) is completely different from Instagram is because
| everything happens only between you and your contacts and
| there are no other avenues into the outside world, no
| "discover" tab. That's what makes them a messaging
| application vs a social network imho, you can't be hooked
| on Whatsapp more than you can be hooked on MMSs
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Ah, yeah, fair point. When I was building an app, I tried
| to make it as not addictive as possible, and yet the
| thought that would come to my mind was that if what I make
| is not that addictive, they may just use the other one. So
| this back and forth about not wanting people to be addicted
| to it but also wanting to be compelling enough to pull
| people from the other ones. I've thought about this with
| podcasting--I don't want people to listen to my podcasts
| all day, I'd prefer they also talk with people around them.
| That being said, people will listen to podcasts and would I
| prefer they listen to me over someone else, given no matter
| what I do, they may spend X hours per day listening?
|
| I appreciate you saying what you did about the blurring.
| Mystlix wrote:
| Could you elaborate over what the "one thing" a messaging
| application should do actually is? Because I could argue that
| sending people pictures, videos, documents or general file
| blobs is waaaay outside of what a "pure" messaging platform
| should offer
| nixpulvis wrote:
| I can tell you that posting a story is clearly outside this
| domain, but as for the exact set of features, that's a harder
| question.
|
| I like the idea of MMS tho, so I'd personally like messages
| to be like short and quick e-mail. Packaged up media is nice
| to be able to send as opposed to just links, since they are
| more direct. Though links are good too, esspecially when
| files are large and might be shared with multiple people.
|
| Building a streamlined interface still remains an unsolved
| problem it seems, which is why it pains me to see yet another
| chat app fail to prioritize features effectively.
| Aldipower wrote:
| I miss Signal "Android Tablet". Shouldn't be too hard for them as
| they already have the Desktop part. Look at this close and
| unresolved PR from 2014. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-
| Android/issues/614
| robryk wrote:
| Right now signal's infrastructure could figure out (if it stored
| data that everyone claims it doesn't) which IP address is sending
| messages to which IP address. If stories end up being implemented
| as a group conversation with all your contacts, everyone will be
| reasonably frequently sending a message to all their contacts,
| which changes the above into "which IPs are contacts of which
| IPs".
| agucova wrote:
| If this gets more people to use safer, better messaging apps
| and/or fund Signal, I'm all in.
|
| There's no place for purism, I just hope they add a way to
| disable stories for unwilling users.
| flubflub wrote:
| So long as Signal is not less secure and this does not affect
| battery life I don't mind.
|
| It does feel pointless though.
| deafsquid69 wrote:
| aksgoel wrote:
| few predictions on why this PR is an indication to Signal falling
| into the chasm:
|
| 1. The Signal team will soon realize that adding social messaging
| concepts to a private messaging app in a safe way is possible and
| more importantly is wanted by a big subset (early majority) of
| people. 2. The early adopters of Signal App will feel offended as
| they were looking for a strictly principled secret messaging app.
| 3. The target market of early majority will not see much
| difference in Signal and other options and they will stick to the
| app where their network is already at.
|
| https://www.businessillustrator.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/...
| [deleted]
| mbgerring wrote:
| I really like that aside from being a highly secure
| communications channel, Signal has now also replaced most other
| social networks for online interaction with my real friends.
| ufo wrote:
| What are Stories? The linked commit doesn't seem to describe it.
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| God fucking dammit. I literally just put my reputation on the
| line with family _last week_ that we should all switch to Signal.
| All I want is a decent E2EE messaging app.
|
| Between this and their upcoming crypto payment system, I'm
| thinking I made a huge mistake switching from Telegram.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I'm confused at how stories may make this no longer a decent
| e2ee app. Is it that you actively dislike stories and don't
| want other people to have the option to use them? While you may
| not want them, is it possible your family does and this may
| even make it easier for them to switch to Signal (and stay)
| than not?
|
| Not trying to add snark, just genuinely curious why the
| addition of stories would detract from its e2ee nature.
| spurgu wrote:
| > All I want is a decent E2EE messaging app.
|
| > I'm thinking I made a huge mistake switching from Telegram.
|
| Does not compute.
| i5heu wrote:
| What speaks against riot+matrix?
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Matrix as an underlying technology is pretty good.
|
| All of the clients are varying degrees of suck though.
|
| What I want is a 1:1 copy of Discord's client UX. That's it.
| noman-land wrote:
| I agree matrix is the dream but getting people to use Signal
| was hard enough and the UX of Element is good but not _quite_
| up to snuff for the general populus yet.
| tcfhgj wrote:
| Seems like Stories will come to Matrix as well - through
| FluffyChat and Minestrix!
|
| https://youtu.be/tLlSGqzgzhg?t=1045
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Good luck getting mainstream acceptance for something that
| sounds like a furry dating site.
| Sunspark wrote:
| Boss, let's edit our images using GIMP.
|
| No, it's not one of the banned words in the HR guide.. I mean
| yes it is, but that's not what it means.
| tcfhgj wrote:
| One of the benefits of a standard like Matrix is that the
| adoption of individual apps is mostly irrelevant.
|
| Curious, which app do you refer to?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The parent comment suggested that Matrix would support
| stories and the first implementation (which I guess could
| be considered the reference implementation) is called
| "FluffyChat"...
| iszomer wrote:
| Probably referring to bridges (eg: irc <-> matrix, telegram
| <-> matrix, etc)..
|
| https://matrix.org/bridges/
| vageli wrote:
| This seems like such a strange addition. My use of signal is
| primarily group chat or as an SMS replacement. It is hard for me
| to see the benefit of adding stories like this to what to me is a
| tool for directly messaging specific individuals. I would be
| interested in hearing from people who think this is a good
| change.
| noisem4ker wrote:
| I share your indifference to the medium, but people out there
| do occasionally publish stories if such feature is available.
| If Signal makes it possible to say "you can keep publishing
| your stories too" when joining, and as a result more people
| move off WhatsApp (or, more generally, embrace the idea of
| platform independence), I can pinch my nose and enjoy the long-
| term side effect.
| Mystlix wrote:
| I can discreetly share text, images or videos with a subset of
| my contacts all at once without bothering them in a private
| conversation. They all appear in order and in full without some
| algorithmic trickery, they get flushed after a day or so and my
| friends can decide if they want to give them a look or not.
| It's a very nice feature especially for the kind of general
| stuff that I wouldn't want to personally send to people and
| clog our conversations.
| i5heu wrote:
| Yes! I love stories. They are a subtle way to share cool
| stuff and avoid to be seen as annoying if you are the type of
| person that likes to share nice things ^^
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Exactly, and those who want to reply, can do so directly,
| not filling up a long group chat with messages that are
| meant for just the original person.
|
| It allows broadcasting to a group and people to opt in to
| watch and reply.
| anthropodie wrote:
| So Signal is missing a basic feature like location sharing and
| they chose to go ahead with implementing Stories. I guess they
| are focusing more on getting new users than making a great app.
|
| The thing is none of these centralized apps will ever get
| messaging right. Because no matter how good the intentions of the
| team are sooner or later the higher management or the PM wants to
| have bigger piece of cake. This in the end ruins the most basic
| functionality that a messaging app should do right: messages.
|
| What these teams do not understand is it's okay for an IM app to
| not keep adding fancy features. Focus on providing security fixes
| and minor improvements that improve user experience. If you keep
| focusing on getting more people you will end up with yet another
| social app like Instagram/Snapchat. We do not really need more of
| that stuff. Consider this: if people who built electric grids
| kept adding unnecessary features to it, we would not have a
| robust infrastructure like it today. They built them and then
| those people left to work on something more interesting. We need
| more of that in Software. What we currently have is millions and
| millions of engineers trying to figure out how to keep users
| glued to their app.
| evilos wrote:
| I'm sorry, since when is "location sharing" a "basic feature"
| of a messaging application? Can't you just send them a maps
| link to your location? Or your GPS coordinates?
| jimkleiber wrote:
| As a counterpoint, if I want to share a message or photo with
| many people on Signal right now, I have to create a large group
| and choose whom to invite and I think give it a name and have
| it persist unless I actively delete it. If I want them to be
| able to reply directly to me, they may have to do some
| gymnastics to copy and paste the photo in a private message to
| me or forward it to me.
|
| Since those options doesn't easily exist, I use WhatsApp or
| Snap or IG to achieve that because I may still want to
| communicate a message to all my contacts and find the outlet
| that lets me do this.
|
| So I hear you on the element of focus to maintain robustness, I
| just think it may always be a trade off between doing one thing
| very well and adding new things.
|
| Also, while you may see location sharing as a basic feature, I
| see it as an advance feature and see stories as a basic
| feature. Which basic feature should they add or should they not
| add any new things?
| marssaxman wrote:
| What is "location sharing"?
|
| Sounds like people differ on what they consider to be "getting
| messaging right".
|
| I was happy with TextSecure; all I ever wanted was encrypted
| SMS.
| bostik wrote:
| For a messaging application whose _intended_ target audience
| includes dissidents, location sharing even as an option sounds
| dangerous.
|
| Especially given this from your comment: _Focus on providing
| security fixes and minor improvements that improve user
| experience_ - when UX includes such irrelevancies such as
| "avoid getting users vanished and/or killed", the guiding
| principle should be: no footguns.
| fragmede wrote:
| A secret tracking device that reveals the location of the
| rebels secret underground base certainly sounds dangerous,
| but allowing dissidents to share location of the protest for
| everyone to gather at seems almost necessary for a modern
| messaging app! How else do you get to that critical mass of
| people in the main city square? In the end, it's just a tool
| that isn't inherently good or evil.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| There's a difference between sharing a location (good) and
| sharing your location (perhaps not so good).
| 0xCMP wrote:
| happy they're adding this. one more important feature to replace
| whatsapp and instagram for normal people.
|
| stories is a great feature by letting you post however much you
| want and letting the viewer choose to view/skip/ignore the
| content easily. plus its ephemeral by default which is another
| good feature imo.
|
| everything should be e2ee. anything which helps convince your
| mom/sister/dad/friends to use signal is a good thing.
| barrenko wrote:
| First they destroyed WhatsApp, now Signal is next.
|
| Stop developing features. Fire all PMs.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| stavros wrote:
| If reliability and other features don't suffer, why do you
| care? Just don't use it.
|
| Though I do wish they'd prioritize editable messages and
| formatting before stories...
| mdaniel wrote:
| Your last sentence is the whole problem -- time and glucose
| are not infinite, and thus what goes in determines what else
| doesn't make it
| brianmcc wrote:
| UX gets worse though when screens are cluttered with crap I
| have no intention of using.
|
| Features that can be 100% ignored when not wanted - no
| problem.
|
| Foisting more and more bloat - problem.
| steelstraw wrote:
| Apparently they have too much money? I thought I donated to
| help them be a strong encrypted messaging app and survive for
| the long term. Not to tack on a bunch of social media features.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Hmm. Knee jerk I agree. But aren't stories just expiring
| photo/video messages sent to multiple people without
| notifications?
|
| Seems like the fundamental nature of the service will not
| need to change much.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| What I think keeps me and many of my friends in East Africa
| hooked on WhatsApp is the ability to post statuses (stories).
| It gives me a strong reason to come back to the app as it
| helps me with conversation starters. I frankly might love if
| signal has it.
| noah_buddy wrote:
| You can post stories in WhatsApp? TIL, I had no idea.
|
| What other apps are common among you and your peers?
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Yup, called Statuses. In iOS, it's the bottom left corner
| of the menu, click that and you can add a story near the
| top next to My Story. Probably similar UI for Android.
|
| > What other apps are common among you and your peers?
|
| Ironically, I'm in the US but used to live in East Africa
| and have lots of friends out there. So I'm not sure
| what's too popular out there nowadays besides WhatsApp
| and TikTok. Some apps probably for managing mobile money,
| but not sure.
| fragmede wrote:
| I'd be extremely curious to hear about any the money
| management apps (even if you're not sure which one is
| dominant, or the information out of date). I'm guessing
| the main apps in the US (Venmo and Paypal) don't even
| operate in East Africa.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Ahh, well, I'm not sure of any new players, as of a few
| years ago most of the telecoms have their own form of
| mobile money transfer. It mostly started in Kenya with
| m-Pesa years ago, where people could send money thru USSD
| codes. Now these companies have apps to do it, like
| Airtel, Safaricom/Vodacom, MTN, Togo, etc. Some companies
| in West Africa appear to be going hard for the market in
| consolidating across telecoms, like Paystack and
| Flutterwave, one of whom I think got investment from
| Stripe and the other from Visa I believe.
| LambdaComplex wrote:
| Facebook added stories to Facebook itself, Instagram, and
| Whatsapp a few years back, almost certainly in an attempt
| to claw some users away from Snapchat.
| fitblipper wrote:
| What are stories?
| brimnes wrote:
| You can check out the Wikipedia page [1]. Apps like WhatsApp,
| Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook already have the stories feature.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stories_(social_media)
| [deleted]
| metabagel wrote:
| OK, I still don't understand what a story is. Also, get off
| my lawn!
| reducesuffering wrote:
| It's a short-lived (usually 1 day), short length video or
| photo on your account that any of your connections can view
| as part of a carousel of other stories. You can post yours
| and/or view your connections' stories in sequence.
|
| I.e. You go into the app. 10/100 friends have posted
| stories. You watch them one after another (without needing
| to go to each friends account) to see what they were up to
| for the day.
| rex_lupi wrote:
| Is this similar to WhatsApp's status feature? That'd make it much
| easier for me to convince some people to move to signal.
| thekyle wrote:
| Yes, I would imagine so
| emerongi wrote:
| Any social features are appreciated, even though I don't use
| them.
|
| Payments were probably a waste of engineering time, unless it
| somehow attracts users in oppressed countries.
| [deleted]
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