Signal had something good when it could simply be your default messaging app on your phone, and it'd transparently send either encrypted messages, or plain-text SMS. Now that they've removed SMS, they've just turned into a worse Whatsapp (because nobody is on it). Network effects are important in messaging apps.
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Trust me I know, having my whole family try it out and then have them pull that later was a punch in the face
Was that the punch in the face, or was it all the morons intentionally misinterpreting this argument and saying "but why would u want to send nonsecure messages are you aware SMS isn't secure it's like so insecure to send SMS bro it's not secure it's like literally a security risk bro SMS isn't secure at all and also are you aware SMS security is poor"
Not doubting that pushy idiots are going to pushy idiot, but I think you've strawmanned the actual reason hard enough.
Most people who want it back don't need, want, or understand why secure messaging exists.
Here's the simple facts:
SMS is not secure, or private.
Signal is for secure, private comms.
As mildly inconvenient as it is, Signal explained their reasoning in great detail, and I happen to agree: There should never have been an insecure option on a secure messaging app.
Well, I happen to disagree. I'm a privacy-conscious person, but I'm not an activist. Most of my contacts in real life (i.e the people I need a messaging app to talk to) are non-technical, and not really privacy-conscious. They're not going to install a different app just to talk to me. The big draw of TextSecure (before it became Signal) was that they could just set that as their default SMS app, and it'd magically start to send encrypted messages if the other end was also using TextSecure, and they had to change exactly 0 of their habits.
I guess it depends on how you view it:
- Move as many people as possible over to encrypted comms with the least friction possible, or
- Provide a niche secure messaging platform for niche activists with niche needs.
I thought the goal was 1, but turns out it was 2. All my contacts are now back to Facebook Messenger...
It sounds like you're slightly mis-remembering this oft-cited Hacker News comment from Moxie from 2015. I'm going to quote the main bit here because honestly a lot of people in this thread could stand to think about it:
If we were going to rank our priorities, they would be in this order:
Make mass surveillance impossible.
Stop targeted attacks against crypto nerds.
It's not that we don't find #2 laudable, but optimizing for #1 takes precedence when we're making decisions.
I wasn't actually quoting this, but yeah, I think that's the point. Supporting SMS was helping adoption by promoting a seamless transition for users. Dropping it feels like prioritizing #2 to me. (All this comment thread about opsec, compartimentalization, activism, etc is really about #2, IMO)
Totally agree. Good opsec is all about building good habits. Having 1 app for secure and a different app for normal creates a healthy compartmentalization in the mind for ease of building and maintaining habits.
Indeed.
It's a very basic trade that it seems few understand. You MUST trade a bit of convenience to increase your security, or mistakes will happen.
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Same here. It's pretty frustrating.
This always struck me as strange thinking.
Are most people really unable to understand and use different messengers with different contexts and groups?
Honestly I use a few myself. My job has Tiger Connect. I use Signal with all my family and friends. Then I use SMS for some companies automatic notifications. It's pretty simple and easy.
Well, yes. But when all your friends are already on Facebook Messenger, good luck getting them to install Signal only to talk with you. Network effects are important; a messaging app has no use when you have nobody to message on the app. Supporting SMS was taking advantage of its network effect, and I don't think their network was big enough to be self-sustaining for most users (it wasn't in my case, my only contact in there is my wife).
Convincing people to leave Facebook Messenger isn't that hard. Just let them know Zukerberg and everyone at Facebook can see everything they send.
It is easier with a whole group of friends. If none of your friends known each other, you should work on that for other reasons. Groups of friends are better in general.
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I've just kinda made anyone I message regularly message me on Signal or Telegram. Fuck Meta 🤷
I don't see the issue? Just use your native messenger for SMS. Why does it need to be part of Signal? It just makes things convoluted and confusing to have an unsecure messaging service inside an otherwise secure messaging app.
Matrix is the federated alternative to Signal.
However it would be cool to see Signal implementing their encryption into Matrix and turning Signal into a Matrix provider, becoming a federated messanger.
I believe Matrix already supports olm which is the same encryption technique used by Signal. The main issue with Signal becoming federated is that in order to make the federation work, a lot of metadata will leak and that could be a cause for concern when using Signal as a private messenger for important things like whistleblowing, etc.
True
Do you mean decentralized or federated? I don't really see how Signal would work with something like ActivityPub where so much information is meant for public viewing.
There's also Matrix if you're looking for just decentralized and federated.
I was thinking more in the finding contacts way since Signal only uses phone numbers
Try Matrix or XMPP.
Not a fan of giving my phone number to federate to every server.
Session is like Signal but decentralised (like Tor, not like Fedi) and without the phone no requirement. That sounds better to me.
Appreciate the heads up on session.
https://www.securemessagingapps.com/
Session doesn't have perfect forward secrecy. Session also depends on the oxen Blockchain not collapsing.
Session has its uses, just be aware.
Maybe, but if I want to privately talk to randos from the internet, then using my phone number like with Signal is a no-go from the start. Threema is paid and only partially open source.
Session is fully decentralised and while you can think of crypto whatever, at least it gives people the incentive to run nodes, unlike Tor where the incentives are all over the place, or centralised messengers which are fully reliant on one entity.
Though the fediverse is good for a lot of things, security is not one of them. Maybe this will change in the future, but right now there are just too many chances for bad actors.
I heard that's the case, but hey it's FOSS maybe it'll change in the future
Thank you, I'll probably keep Signal away from it, but WhatsApp and SMS hoover up my metadata anyway, so nothing to lose there.
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