this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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Technology

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[–] RandomBit 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

RCS doesn't have a cross-platform end-to-end encryption solution. For cross-platform communication, cross-platform 3rd party solutions such as Signal work well.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

RCS would still be a benefit to incorporate without the E2E solution, as it would improve nearly every other aspect of communication over SMS/MMS.

[–] RandomBit 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I 100% agree that Apple wrong for not supporting RCS (and I am an iPhone user). However, I personally choose to only use E2E for my communication be that iMessage or Signal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Oh, I agree and would love to do the same. However, moving any of my family who currently uses Android over to any other platform is impossible. I can't tell my wife I won't text her anymore unless she uses it. That won't go over well hahah

Where possible, I use encrypted communication, but if doing so would result in me cutting off a friend or family member, I won't do so.

However, I would love to be able to text Android users without crappy quality and the other limitations of SMS/MMS.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@RandomBit @jmcs I prefer #Matrix.

I don't find #Signal or #Telegram (which is worse, it's basically a honeypot) to be particularly secure, but I don't see anything other than something like those platforms catching on with the masses as a sort of #USA-centric #Whatsapp-style replacement for text messaging.

Both #Apple and #Google need to come up with a consensus on the successor for #MMS, or else I could see another platform or app replacing both.

[–] RandomBit 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What security issues does Signal have?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

There are two legitimate concerns about Signal: they use real phone numbers as identifiers, and you have to trust Signal as the server operator as they don't allow their client to be used with other servers. While the server software is also open source, you have to trust that they're running the same version in production.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

With e2e encryption, you don't need to trust the server, you only need to trust the clients.

[–] RandomBit 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree; however, the second point I don't see as Signal specific. In any service, how do you verify that a server is running unmodified open source code? For the vast majority of people, they are also depending upon the client being unmodified.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

If you could run your own Signal instance, then that could help alleviate concerns of bad faith operators. That's what Session is essentially (started as a fork of Signal): https://getsession.org

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@sickmatter @dirtmayor @jmcs @RandomBit @realcaseyrollins

I'd argue another concern is Signal hosting data in the U.S.A. rather than a country with stronger data privacy laws and one that isn't part of fourteen eyes. The phone number requirement is my biggest issue though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@PublicLewdness @dirtmayor @jmcs @sickmatter @RandomBit @realcaseyrollins Signal was forked to create Session

Delta Chat is better then
Telegram
Whatsapp
Signal
Session

Delta Chat -
Open Source
De Centralised
No app mandate
No SMS mandate
Works with pop3/smtp email
No Cloud
Not "Russian"
Not "American"

Delta Chat
Website delta.chat/en/
App f-droid.org/en/packages/com.b44t.messenger/

My video on Delta Chat
joshwhotv.com/v/.73TrMQ

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@RandomBit I'm not aware of exactly what issues #Signal has, but I know it's centralized so I'm not a big fan of that

[–] RandomBit 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, it's not ideal. Decentralized key distribution seems to be a intractable problem for mass adoption.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@RandomBit That said if #Signal ever supports #RCS I'd strongly consider getting it, since half my siblings are on #RCS

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

@realcaseyrollins @RandomBit If Signal is ditching SMS, they aren't going to support RCS. Not to mention nobody other than Google (and via Google's direct offer, Apple) have the keys to use it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sort of off topic but are you replying from Mastodon?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That is pretty cool. I'm just figuring out how this all works so seeing 2 platforms melding into one comment thread is still like magic to me.