1. Worst Offender : Facebook Messenger --> spyware for tracking all your activities even in background
2. WhatsApp : Lost trust in it since Facebook bought it, more so with the new terms and conditions. Data is not safe anymore.
3. Telegram : Trust it's privacy but it's proposed business model is also advertisement based so avoiding it.
4. Signal : Best option, there are some sacrifices to be made with lack of contacts and some features but slowly and surely we can turn the tide. Also it's open source funded by a Non-Profit so that gets it bonus points.
Even better is Wire: no phone number required, doesn't access your contacts, free personal accounts available, you can use it on a desktop machine with nothing more than a web browser, when using an installed app you can be logged into three Wire accounts at the same time, source code is open source and has been audited for security, you can set up your own locally hosted (or in your own cloud)... and more I'm probably forgetting.
The fact that it's a "secure collaboration platform" means it doesn't fill the same niche. I don't need a secure collaboration platform to talk with my family or friends.
I'd just like to mention that Matrix (and its most prominent client "Element") sounds similar:
> Even better is Wire: no phone number required, doesn't access your contacts, free personal accounts available, you can use it on a desktop machine with nothing more than a web browser
Same
> when using an installed app you can be logged into three Wire accounts at the same time
Don't know if that's possible with one of the currently existing Matrix-clients. I guess that maybe in the future that would be possible, respectively, doesn't sound too difficult to implement.
> is open source and has been audited for security, you can set up your own locally hosted (or in your own cloud)
Same for Matrix. Not sure about the official audit, but at least France decided to use it as a base for its own governmental chat ( https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed... ) so I guess/hope that they audited the original software.
Thank you for mention this! I don't know why Wire is not mentioned in thread like this. It is best without meta data collection (such as phone number). You can register with just an email and it is based on the encryption protocol that Signal uses. On top of that, the server is written in Haskell!!! Yes, Signal server is in Java, btw. Which is not bad. And Wire is based in Switzerland, with GDPR in Europe it has better data privacy jurisdictions.
I like and use Element but it definitely isn't ahead in usability. Getting e2e set up for "average" people isn't trivial. Especially if they have multiple devices.
That being said it is the the best long term option in my opinion and I am donating to the organization. Hopefully they can work on polishing the e2e UX.
Exactly. Very bad name, too techy for the average folk and it doesn't have the same network effect as Signal or Telegram. I disagree that it is ahead of Signal for usability in fact it is still behind.
Although I do praise it for not requiring and collecting my phone number and being a bit more future-proof and decentralised, unlike Signal and Telegram.
But in terms of getting my friends grandmother over it, it completely loses on usability and its name is so confusing to them you just had to also mention the Matrix protocol, when it is just Element. which even that by itself is very ambiguous.
Matrix feels akin to trying to tell my (non technical) friends that they should use HTTPS as their social media site. I think it's technically more capable but trying to explain what you can do, how to get started, or why it's better is a much higher bar than something like Signal.
I wish that they would have chosen a different name when switching from Riot to Element because I am just starting to getting used to it. But it is still my #1 option.
I think Element is way behind Signal in terms of usability. The iOS app is the most confusing chat app I've seen, especially if you are using your own servers.
Consider Jami - https://jami.net/ too - you don't even need to share your phone number or email id to use it.
And it has support for nearly all desktop and mobile platforms (with all the features we expect from a messaging client, and more - it is also a SIP client). It is fully open source, and all data is stored on your device.
Signal may be run by a non-profit, but it a non-profit based in the United States. In the US, a non-profit can also be converted into a for-profit business.
I've played with Jami several times because it sounds good on paper but it just flat out failed to work a lot of the time. Messages sent but never received, no indication of why or what was going on. For my uses anyway, IM needs to be above all reliable - when I send a message I need to know the recipient will get it (and in a timely manner, modulo their availability).
Most of my network is on Telegram at my urging because it was the best option at the time, but I'm constantly looking for something better to replace it (as I'm aware of the downsides to Telegram). Currently I'm trialing Element with one of my contacts and I'd say it might be ready if I can get past the initial setup headaches, but Telegram just works so darn well and is so amazingly fast that it will be very hard to get buy-in for people to switch. Most people are overloaded with IM apps already, adding another one is tough unless it can completely replace and deprecate one they're already using. Jami definitely is not that IMO.
How is Signal going to fund their operations in the future if they grow to anything close to the other three in size? Donations? Even if they're a non-profit they still need to keep the servers running.
The Signal Foundation received a zero-interest loan of $100,000,000 by WhatsApp founder Brian Acton which doesn't need to be paid back until the year 2068 or something.
Signal is quite good and I use it for person to person. Hopefully with an influx of new users and with that, funding, it can reach feature parity with WhatsApp which is currently much better for groups. WhatsApp and Uber and Lyft etc, are very well crafted applications on iOS. They feel magical. Signal can get there as well, but it will take funding+effort.
I see the opinion that more users will help make Signal reach feature parity but I don't understand why that follows. Unless there is a massive increase in donations but that is largely covered by the 0% interest rate funding from WA founder.
How come you trust its privacy? Its privacy guarantees are by far worse than those of WhatsApp as Telegram messages aren't even end-to-end encrypted by default.
Keybase is effectively in maintenance mode after being acquihired by Zoom.
If anything, Signal should adopt some of the crypto identity primitives Keybase was known for [1] for persona management that builds on (but still supports) phone DID identifiers. Would Zoom sell or donate Keybase infra to Signal Foundation? That'd be swank.
Keybase showed a lot of promise, but ever since they were bought by Zoom I’ve been hesitant to depend on it. There’s a good chance it’ll be neglected or cannibalized in the future, not to mention the real or imagined CCP influence. Perhaps failure is a self fulfilling prophecy.
I tried signal, matrix, Riot, Slack, Discord, Messenger, Hangouts, and Keybase is by far the best option.
It is in an uncertain place though since Zoom bought them and moved its developers to work on Zoom. There has only been one small update to Keybase since zoom purchased them.
I've been a Keybase user for a couple years now. I started using Signal when it was TextSecure. From Signal Insights 98% of my conversations are encrypted because I pushed Signal hard on friends, family and colleagues early on. I talk to one person on Keybase that refuses to use Signal (not exactly sure their rationale anymore). For some reason I thought Keybase was going to give me the early experience of Twitter, where I was able to interact with people in the same field without having to know them IRL. And while Keybase does recommend I follow / interact with some of those people it feels less attainable to start up a random conversation or jump into a public thread like I did early on with Twitter. To be clear I'm not saying that's Keybase's fault. As for getting non-technical family and friends using Keybase, well... I find that it's not as approachable. I think it is more convenient in some cases (chat history is probably the #1 item), but it's also clearly geared towards people who likely have an idea what PGP is (re: PGP key identity proof, etc). I wish there was something that mashed up the best of Signal, Keybase and Twitter. But at the end of the day I'd probably still use Signal for the majority of direct person to person messaging because of the time and personal effort I've put into getting my circle to use it. The switching cost is too high a bar now to consider anything unless it's exponentially better (and I don't think that exists). I also really don't like the fact that Zoom owns Keybase and can't see myself recommending it much moving forward over alternatives like Element.
I had a contact show up with a super old name that I wanted to update but it was right in all my other apps. Turns out I still had the old name in one of the read only merged contacts from WhatsApp (contact showed up fine in WhatsApp). I had to remove my WhatsApp account clear the app data for signal and resync everything.
I rate them differently- I can use Facebook and supply minimal real personal information. WhatsApp by contrast demands full access to all my contacts whether they use WhatsApp or not
All of them: Require your phone number to work, and ask for your full address book.
Asking repeatedly for information that is not necessary is a red flag. It is suspicious, to say the least, that Signal is not censored from Apple’s Appstore.
After being in the business world for 30 years, one truism is that business relationships can only be sustained for the long term if the interests of the parties are aligned. All parties need to contribute and all parties need to benefit, and the contributions and benefits need to be commensurate all around.
Social media and their users are struggling because their (our) interests have not been aligned all along. Initially, the services grew by providing great value. They developed equity through size and usage. Interests were not aligned for the long term because they lost money quarter after quarter. Then came the day they needed to convert the equity into revenue.
At that point, the pendulum swung back the other way. The users had given up privacy and publicized their lives to the world and developed habitual (addictive?) use. The user experience deteriorated, '3rd parties' paid for access and insinuated their banners into our feeds. We've become invested in these platforms, in some cases literally by developing primary income from YouTube, Locals, OnlyFans, ...
Clearly, we still don't have aligned business interests.
How can 'Big Tech' and 5 billion Internet users align our interests for the long term?
> How can 'Big Tech' and 5 billion Internet users align our interests for the long term?
This is a fascinating question, I want to see this discussed more. I'll throw some thoughts to get a conversation started:
I would happily pay for big tech company services - if I'm worth $30 a month in advertising revenues, I'm willing to pay $30 to subscribe to the same services in exchange for privacy. I'm convinced that I'm not the only person who thinks like this. I am waiting for a product to come around and service this market.
I suspect it's another micropayment problem. You're actually worth $0.05 in ad revenue (or something like that), but due to payment friction & billing fees you wind up paying monthly Spotify: $10 Facebook: $20 News x4 sources: $40 LinkedIn: $30 HackerNews $5 Various Forums: $50 (etc)
You get the idea- in the end you're paying incredible sums of money for a collection of services that just aren't worth all that much. A conclusion supported by the fact that your use of these services currently generates pennies a day in ad revenue.
We can see this game at play today in news, where you could easily blow $50/mo subscribing to a small selection of decent papers. It's not a big deal if you only had one subscription, but few people read only one paper- or participate in only one social network.
To make matters worse, as seen in the cable industry, paying subscribers by definition have money to spend. This means they are by definition the most valuable advertising targets, which makes the lure of advertising to your subscribers eventually impossible to resist...
While I think this market is definitely there I think the problem is it's the much smaller market so a company isn't going to make a competitive set of services and intentionally alienate the other e.g. 90% of users with it by doing pay only. On the flip side it's been shown that all but a very small fraction of that 10% will use the data sale funded version of these services it's all that's offered.
So it ultimately comes down to "do we create an alternative funding model for that 1 percent of user space" which doesn't seem like much incentive vs trying to find ways to get more more out of the 99% of users.
I think the only way this changes is if that userbase grows significantly, I don't think it's simply been an overlooked/forgotten internet business model.
> if I'm worth $30 a month in advertising revenues
Per service though, are you willing to spend $30/m each for what facebook was, for what twitter was, for what youtube was, for what reddit was, before ads took over? (that's over $100/m on 4 sm sites... now we're getting into medium, tech news sites, gmail, google search, maps, etc. And what about the people who can't afford a $300/m "internet" bill are they just cut out of this brave new world?
Excellent comment. I'd say there are at least three possible answers to the question you pose at the end of it:
1. As another commenter replied, Big Tech will have to start charging market prices for their services.
2. Big Tech will be unable to charge for their services, and the business relationship between them and their users will collapse, taking Big Tech with it.
3. The relationship between Big Tech and its customers will change from a business relationship to something else, where the truism you stated will no longer applies.
One might argue that (3) has already happened, and the "something else" is more like a manorial or totalitarian relationship, in which the interests of the users are irrelevant.
It seems clear that interests can be very aligned where users are paying for their product. It is only when services are "free" where alignment is an issue.
I moved 10 of my non-IT (male, age ~30-35) friends from FB Messenger group chat to Signal. None of them had any problems setting it up, none had any questions during the setup. I just invited them to the group after they created accounts (you can also use an invitation link) and the chat continued on Signal. No one has looked back at FB Messenger and we are not missing any functionality. I am slowly spreading in my circles and so far with only positive feedback.
What is happening here is interesting. Almost like facebook messenger has lost its network effects. Its so easy to install Signal and get setup, and there is a compelling reason to leave Facebook's ecosystem. I previously assumed the network effects were so strong no one could leave Facebook without being a hermit. It turns out people who actually want to contact me will actually bother to install Signal and join me.
I have to. But in this case it's not a social network, I don't care if the rest of world uses WhatsApp. I don't need a "network effect". I am fine when the people around me use it. So I achieved my personal goal and while I am happy if more people will join, it will not impact my own usage.
I think the possibly big letdown at some point might be the non-intuitive or non-existing message backups. Getting started with and using Signal is great but the backup functionality stops me from recommending it to non-technical friends.
Facebook messenger history is online and doesn't need to be thought about. I'm fearing there will be a fair bit of resentment once the non-technical Signal users change devices and realise that all their messaging history got lost in the process.
I've managed to do the same as well - the pushback has been minimal at best. I'm more surprised at how many "X is on Signal!" messages I've received from completely non-technical friends.
I'll probably burn some karma on this, but I have to ask as I'm genuinely trying to form a consistent opinion on these topics and understand better. Given that lots of people on HN are advocating in favor of Parler being deplatformed on the grounds it was used by groups to advocate and coordinate violence, and given that it's not a stretch to imagine that e2e encrypted communication apps like Signal have groups on them spreading "fake news" and "advocating violence" and cannot be moderated, how does one reconcile supporting Signal/Telegram/WhatsApp, but not Parler? What's the fundamental moral or technical difference that makes one ethical but not the other?
Doesn't Telegram have broadcast (channels)? And isn't this a highly requested feature for Signal? This seems to be what will happen to any communication network unless restricted significantly.
I see the stances as very different. Parler is a social media site dedicated to extremism. While I believe in their 1st amendment right to exist (not all speech is protected though) I do not like this group. On the other hand I see companies like Signal and CloudFlare as being neutral. They have taken a position that they choose not to be the arbiters of right and wrong. These companies also aren't dedicated to extremism. I believe that being able to speak freely and make mistakes is an essential part of democracy. A privacy preserving platform protects this idea. If the service is dedicated to the public (aka neutral) then I think this is the right move. Extremists will (and have) congregate on Signal (as they do on WA, Telegram, Twitter, 4Chan, Facebook, etc). I see encryption orthogonal to the issue of extremism. This may make it a bit harder for security to monitor these groups (no dragnets), but if they are mass groups it won't be hard to infiltrate anyways. If a member of the public can get in then why can't someone from the CIA/NSA? It might as well be in clear text. If they can't infiltrate these groups then we have much bigger problems and everyone has been overestimating the power of these organizations for decades.
So to sum up. I highly value privacy and security (especially as we're adding more to the internet. The danger is increasing). But I'm against extremism. It is a numbers game that more public members will gain value from privacy than the dozens of terrorists who will. But it is a different situation if someone creates a space dedicated to extremism.
(I do think this is a very reasonable question to ask though)
Edit: I wouldn't say that Signal will be completely unmoderated. Groups still have admins. But you're right that Signal won't be able to moderate. But this isn't that different from any federated platform.
Thank you for a very reasoned reply. I guess my fear for my karma was unfounded. ;)
Two follow up questions: How do you objectively determine Parler is dedicated to extremism but Signal is not? I think Parler would argue (even if incorrect or insincerely) that they choose not to be the arbiter of right and wrong too, or at least to do so as minimally as possible. Since we can't see into Signal, we don't have any data on the % of messages dedicated to extremism.
"If a member of the public can get in then why can't someone from the CIA/NSA? It might as well be in clear text. If they can't infiltrate these groups then we have much bigger problems".
Isn't that an argument for allowing Parler to stand? It actually _is_ (er, well, was) clear text, and I would be _shocked_ if CIA/NSA weren't monitoring it. Wouldn't we be safer with bad guys coordinating on Parler than on Signal.
I'm not sure of my own position, but I think the fundamental moral difference for those supporting moderation is that if one does have the ability to moderate, then they should have a moral obligation to do so. Technically, there's no central authority that can moderate Signal, so you can't have the moral obligation there.
I don't think there would be a significant proportion of people that would advocate for Signal to become centralized so it would allow moderation by a central authority.
Another perhaps more cynical take is that even if there is hate-speech and other undesirable communication in Signal, it's not seen so people aren't concerned about it. As they say, "out of sight, out of mind." That makes me wonder if expectations would change if people started publishing screenshots of Signal groups with hate-speech. I think they'd be pretty limited to small sizes, so perhaps they wouldn't be as concerning.
The existing platforms work well enough for people who aren’t kicked off of them, or hindered in sharing their views. Liking, caring about, or knowing of the existence of these new platforms is a strong proxy for the kinds of political views that some find easy and safe to hate on.
Engagement inside Signal is with your existing networks and groups, and can only grow iteratively—not virally/exponentially—it’s a chat app. WhatsApp and Telegram do support and encourage broadcast oriented communication, and personally I do associate WhatsApp with misinformation-fueled violence in countries where it’s the first exposure people have to internet-style mass direct communication.
Signal invented new cryptography to justify its existence. WhatsApp scaled chat, SMS-analogous to start, for the world to use. Telegram invented secret ways to MitM chat connections, and wasn’t under US influence. Parler exists to make a political statement in the current US political context.
As Signal has allegedly seen a huge boost in signups since Jan 6, I think this is a very pertinent and difficult question.
The way I see it, Signal will not make it any easier for outsiders to get radicalized (there's no public forum aspect), but once people are already radicalized and connected, it can be used to great mischief. That said, I tend to be liberal on this topic, and I feel the benefits of across-the-board E2E encryption to society outweigh the risks. But it seems likely to me that that principle is about to be sorely tested.
From my point of view, the conversation is more about supporting privacy vs not. I don't think anyone is supporting WhatsApp, specially after the recent news.
I think for the sake of shireboy's question, WhatsApp can be ignored.
shireboy's point seems to be that it seems inconsistent to want moderation in one type of network and not mind not having it in the other. Though, it's possible that the users supporting the moderation are different than those supporting e2e networks.
I believe the support for Signal comes from the privacy it offers from Facebook, et al., and by extension also possibly the government (Snowden, et al.), not because it can be used to coordinate violence.
Just emotions that sacrosanct capitol was breached by fascist Trump's supporters.
That begs the question which platforms were used for organizing BLM riots for months and why there aren't any consequences?
Companies claiming to uphold democracy are the worst offenders if it makes business or idealogical sense yet HN crowd is cheering. Look at how they are willing to suck upto China, Iran, and even Taliban.
Disclaimer: Trump is a unreliable character so I don't like him personally a lot. But cheering up one-sided suppression without looking at the full picture is distasteful.
I have a few family-related whatsapp groups and I've been thinking about asking/moving those groups to signal, but I really can't imagine my parents/sister/friends to understand, nor care about the facebook data issue. After all, they're all on Facebook and all use it.
I don't think I'll ever get to request it, because I'm pretty sure it's going to fail, especially with my parents and other from this age group - having them download another app, signup, etc. will be too complicated.
My family group is all iphone users, so I thought about moving this to iMessage, which feels more possible, but again, I'm not even sure my parents understand the difference between whatsapp and iMessage, as they send me messages on both platform without much logic.
Like everything else "bad" that happens to Facebook, this event won't change much and impact on whatsapp will, unfortunately, not change anything.
Remember when corporates stopped advertising on Facebook? They're all back.
> I don't think I'll ever get to request it, because I'm pretty sure it's going to fail, especially with my parents and other from this age group - having them download another app, signup, etc. will be too complicated.
I moved my whole family to Signal, and its surprisingly easy. It asks for their phone number, name (it's autocompleted) and a pin. You can create a link to your family's group chat so then can join without needing someone to invite them.
I'm in the process of moving family and friends. For my friends who I believe are more than capable of moving, I just said them that I'm leaving WhatsApp, you can still reach me on Signal. Then I block them on WhatsApp, so I don't relapse. Almost all of them have moved across so far. I installed Signal for my mom and then blocked my myself on WhatsApp on her phone, so she's forced to use Signal to contact me. If someone can use WhatsApp they can definitely use Signal. It's more secure and it's cleaner.
For the vast majority of people, WhatsApp works just fine; you’re trying to get them off something they’re comfortable with rather than getting them to use something better than SMS.
I don't like "nothing will happen" as a talking point. "Nothing will happen" because... they cornered the market. They're the only game in town. It's the only way for many people to contact their friends. It's not their fault Facebook is a scummy organization run by a sociopath, they don't really have any options. I don't like this implication that the public is to blame
Comparing Signal features with Whatsapp I have two thoughts:
1. I noticed that Whatsapp allows me to add someone to a call (sort of like upgrading a phone call to a group call). I couldn't find a way to do that with Signal - although Signal supports group calls (that is, calling an entire group at once).
It's a minor feature, but I discovered that I rely upon it quite often.
2. Last year, I attempted to switch from iOS to Android - and I discovered that there isn't a clean way to move my whatsapp messages over. On iOS, whatsapp creates a backup on iCloud, there isn't any way to recover that on Android.
I aborted the attempt to switch to Android only because losing my whatsapp chat history was unacceptable.
Signal currently seems to be just as bad. However, if signal can implement a reasonable way to create backups and recover them across devices and operating systems, it will seal the deal and convince me to permanently delete whatsapp from all my devices.
The problem that Signal has to solve, transfer of new messages to a new phone. Right now the iOS transfer is a whole lot better than the manual android process ( ive heard the former is not fool proof )
Being a house full of Pixel devices and sole IT person, I dont want to be responsible for lost messages when it comes time for a new phone.
Also if your phone is lost or bricked ( either platform ) say goodbye to messages
Moving from Android to iOS, bye messages.
I can move my savvier friends and family over, but the rest will remain on whatsapp where "its easier" compromise works.
I just migrated from a pixel 4xl -> 5 and back with signal.
Nobody noticed, no warnings about encryption keys changing, no problems whatsoever. Took about 5 minutes each time (including googling of the directions).
Just make a backup (with an encryption key), then do a restore (and enter said key). Not as convenient as if it was automatic, but it does seem like a pretty secure approach.
Exactly this. A lot of other messaging apps have this problem (read the App Store reviews of LINE for a sampler of people upset about it), and I find it baffling. Have these devs never lost a phone (or had one break unexpectedly?)
It seems like it should be trivial to back up message history to the cloud.
I love that Signal generally seems receptive to features that users ask for. It's far from perfect, as there are certain features I've seen repeatedly requested that are still yet to be implemented, but over the years that I've used it, Signal has come much closer to a full-featured WhatsApp alternative while taking the harder path of maintaining privacy for these additions.
My personal wishlist:
- Making the app available on F-Droid, either on the official repos or just hosting a third-party one
- Bringing the Android backup solution (encrypted blob) to iOS
- Bringing the iOS backup solution (direct device transfer over Wi-Fi) to Android
- Signup with usernames/emails as an option instead of only verified phone numbers
- A more reliable desktop client, because most of my contacts on Signal (myself included) have experienced syncing issues, message decryption issues, notification issues, etc. I do like that the desktop client is temporarily standalone in that the phone running the app does not need to be available, although I have had to re-connect the two every once in a while so I don't find it reassuring to depend on the desktop client alone.
There is bad blood between F-Droid and the Signal devs. I don’t expect the app to ever appear on F-Droid. Signal’s developers are on record as preferring the Google Play store as the official distribution method, and even downloading the APK directly from the Signal website is something they tolerate only grudgingly.
Plus, some are predicting that forthcoming changes to Android – Google possibly mainstreaming its “advanced protection” model so that phone owners cannot install the F-Droid APK except through enabling ADB and pushing it to the phone from a computer over the command line – will further marginalize F-Droid.
Readit News
1. Worst Offender : Facebook Messenger --> spyware for tracking all your activities even in background
2. WhatsApp : Lost trust in it since Facebook bought it, more so with the new terms and conditions. Data is not safe anymore.
3. Telegram : Trust it's privacy but it's proposed business model is also advertisement based so avoiding it.
4. Signal : Best option, there are some sacrifices to be made with lack of contacts and some features but slowly and surely we can turn the tide. Also it's open source funded by a Non-Profit so that gets it bonus points.
Reference: https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/04/app-privacy-labels-messaging-...
Also, no mention of free personal accounts here: https://wire.com/en/pricing/
And phone ID required is a plus. I don't need people to log in or search for contacts. Just install and boom, we're connected.
> Even better is Wire: no phone number required, doesn't access your contacts, free personal accounts available, you can use it on a desktop machine with nothing more than a web browser
Same
> when using an installed app you can be logged into three Wire accounts at the same time
Don't know if that's possible with one of the currently existing Matrix-clients. I guess that maybe in the future that would be possible, respectively, doesn't sound too difficult to implement.
> is open source and has been audited for security, you can set up your own locally hosted (or in your own cloud)
Same for Matrix. Not sure about the official audit, but at least France decided to use it as a base for its own governmental chat ( https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed... ) so I guess/hope that they audited the original software.
I mean it seriously. Replicating different social graph that automatically includes your closest people is superpower.
I like and use Element but it definitely isn't ahead in usability. Getting e2e set up for "average" people isn't trivial. Especially if they have multiple devices.
That being said it is the the best long term option in my opinion and I am donating to the organization. Hopefully they can work on polishing the e2e UX.
Although I do praise it for not requiring and collecting my phone number and being a bit more future-proof and decentralised, unlike Signal and Telegram.
But in terms of getting my friends grandmother over it, it completely loses on usability and its name is so confusing to them you just had to also mention the Matrix protocol, when it is just Element. which even that by itself is very ambiguous.
If only it could be present-ready.
No, I am kidding :).
The way I see it Matrix and Signal have different short term and long term goals, some overlapping. And both could do way better in term of usability.
And it has support for nearly all desktop and mobile platforms (with all the features we expect from a messaging client, and more - it is also a SIP client). It is fully open source, and all data is stored on your device.
Signal may be run by a non-profit, but it a non-profit based in the United States. In the US, a non-profit can also be converted into a for-profit business.
Most of my network is on Telegram at my urging because it was the best option at the time, but I'm constantly looking for something better to replace it (as I'm aware of the downsides to Telegram). Currently I'm trialing Element with one of my contacts and I'd say it might be ready if I can get past the initial setup headaches, but Telegram just works so darn well and is so amazingly fast that it will be very hard to get buy-in for people to switch. Most people are overloaded with IM apps already, adding another one is tough unless it can completely replace and deprecate one they're already using. Jami definitely is not that IMO.
People use Telegram, because it has a fantastic UX and UI.
If you want people to even considering switching from WhatsApp, then the alternative must be 120% polished.
Deleted Comment
How come you trust its privacy? Its privacy guarantees are by far worse than those of WhatsApp as Telegram messages aren't even end-to-end encrypted by default.
https://keybase.io
If anything, Signal should adopt some of the crypto identity primitives Keybase was known for [1] for persona management that builds on (but still supports) phone DID identifiers. Would Zoom sell or donate Keybase infra to Signal Foundation? That'd be swank.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keybase
It is in an uncertain place though since Zoom bought them and moved its developers to work on Zoom. There has only been one small update to Keybase since zoom purchased them.
I had a contact show up with a super old name that I wanted to update but it was right in all my other apps. Turns out I still had the old name in one of the read only merged contacts from WhatsApp (contact showed up fine in WhatsApp). I had to remove my WhatsApp account clear the app data for signal and resync everything.
https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/04/app-privacy-labels-messaging-...
Asking repeatedly for information that is not necessary is a red flag. It is suspicious, to say the least, that Signal is not censored from Apple’s Appstore.
Signal (the foundation) does not get to use my phonebook even if Signal (the app) does.
Made the switch yesterday. Hope this will be a turning point for Facebook
Social media and their users are struggling because their (our) interests have not been aligned all along. Initially, the services grew by providing great value. They developed equity through size and usage. Interests were not aligned for the long term because they lost money quarter after quarter. Then came the day they needed to convert the equity into revenue.
At that point, the pendulum swung back the other way. The users had given up privacy and publicized their lives to the world and developed habitual (addictive?) use. The user experience deteriorated, '3rd parties' paid for access and insinuated their banners into our feeds. We've become invested in these platforms, in some cases literally by developing primary income from YouTube, Locals, OnlyFans, ...
Clearly, we still don't have aligned business interests.
How can 'Big Tech' and 5 billion Internet users align our interests for the long term?
This is a fascinating question, I want to see this discussed more. I'll throw some thoughts to get a conversation started:
I would happily pay for big tech company services - if I'm worth $30 a month in advertising revenues, I'm willing to pay $30 to subscribe to the same services in exchange for privacy. I'm convinced that I'm not the only person who thinks like this. I am waiting for a product to come around and service this market.
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You get the idea- in the end you're paying incredible sums of money for a collection of services that just aren't worth all that much. A conclusion supported by the fact that your use of these services currently generates pennies a day in ad revenue.
We can see this game at play today in news, where you could easily blow $50/mo subscribing to a small selection of decent papers. It's not a big deal if you only had one subscription, but few people read only one paper- or participate in only one social network.
To make matters worse, as seen in the cable industry, paying subscribers by definition have money to spend. This means they are by definition the most valuable advertising targets, which makes the lure of advertising to your subscribers eventually impossible to resist...
So it ultimately comes down to "do we create an alternative funding model for that 1 percent of user space" which doesn't seem like much incentive vs trying to find ways to get more more out of the 99% of users.
I think the only way this changes is if that userbase grows significantly, I don't think it's simply been an overlooked/forgotten internet business model.
Per service though, are you willing to spend $30/m each for what facebook was, for what twitter was, for what youtube was, for what reddit was, before ads took over? (that's over $100/m on 4 sm sites... now we're getting into medium, tech news sites, gmail, google search, maps, etc. And what about the people who can't afford a $300/m "internet" bill are they just cut out of this brave new world?
1. As another commenter replied, Big Tech will have to start charging market prices for their services.
2. Big Tech will be unable to charge for their services, and the business relationship between them and their users will collapse, taking Big Tech with it.
3. The relationship between Big Tech and its customers will change from a business relationship to something else, where the truism you stated will no longer applies.
One might argue that (3) has already happened, and the "something else" is more like a manorial or totalitarian relationship, in which the interests of the users are irrelevant.
Facebook messenger history is online and doesn't need to be thought about. I'm fearing there will be a fair bit of resentment once the non-technical Signal users change devices and realise that all their messaging history got lost in the process.
So to sum up. I highly value privacy and security (especially as we're adding more to the internet. The danger is increasing). But I'm against extremism. It is a numbers game that more public members will gain value from privacy than the dozens of terrorists who will. But it is a different situation if someone creates a space dedicated to extremism.
(I do think this is a very reasonable question to ask though)
Edit: I wouldn't say that Signal will be completely unmoderated. Groups still have admins. But you're right that Signal won't be able to moderate. But this isn't that different from any federated platform.
Two follow up questions: How do you objectively determine Parler is dedicated to extremism but Signal is not? I think Parler would argue (even if incorrect or insincerely) that they choose not to be the arbiter of right and wrong too, or at least to do so as minimally as possible. Since we can't see into Signal, we don't have any data on the % of messages dedicated to extremism.
"If a member of the public can get in then why can't someone from the CIA/NSA? It might as well be in clear text. If they can't infiltrate these groups then we have much bigger problems". Isn't that an argument for allowing Parler to stand? It actually _is_ (er, well, was) clear text, and I would be _shocked_ if CIA/NSA weren't monitoring it. Wouldn't we be safer with bad guys coordinating on Parler than on Signal.
I don't think there would be a significant proportion of people that would advocate for Signal to become centralized so it would allow moderation by a central authority.
Another perhaps more cynical take is that even if there is hate-speech and other undesirable communication in Signal, it's not seen so people aren't concerned about it. As they say, "out of sight, out of mind." That makes me wonder if expectations would change if people started publishing screenshots of Signal groups with hate-speech. I think they'd be pretty limited to small sizes, so perhaps they wouldn't be as concerning.
Engagement inside Signal is with your existing networks and groups, and can only grow iteratively—not virally/exponentially—it’s a chat app. WhatsApp and Telegram do support and encourage broadcast oriented communication, and personally I do associate WhatsApp with misinformation-fueled violence in countries where it’s the first exposure people have to internet-style mass direct communication.
Signal invented new cryptography to justify its existence. WhatsApp scaled chat, SMS-analogous to start, for the world to use. Telegram invented secret ways to MitM chat connections, and wasn’t under US influence. Parler exists to make a political statement in the current US political context.
The way I see it, Signal will not make it any easier for outsiders to get radicalized (there's no public forum aspect), but once people are already radicalized and connected, it can be used to great mischief. That said, I tend to be liberal on this topic, and I feel the benefits of across-the-board E2E encryption to society outweigh the risks. But it seems likely to me that that principle is about to be sorely tested.
shireboy's point seems to be that it seems inconsistent to want moderation in one type of network and not mind not having it in the other. Though, it's possible that the users supporting the moderation are different than those supporting e2e networks.
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That begs the question which platforms were used for organizing BLM riots for months and why there aren't any consequences?
Companies claiming to uphold democracy are the worst offenders if it makes business or idealogical sense yet HN crowd is cheering. Look at how they are willing to suck upto China, Iran, and even Taliban.
Disclaimer: Trump is a unreliable character so I don't like him personally a lot. But cheering up one-sided suppression without looking at the full picture is distasteful.
I don't think I'll ever get to request it, because I'm pretty sure it's going to fail, especially with my parents and other from this age group - having them download another app, signup, etc. will be too complicated.
My family group is all iphone users, so I thought about moving this to iMessage, which feels more possible, but again, I'm not even sure my parents understand the difference between whatsapp and iMessage, as they send me messages on both platform without much logic.
Like everything else "bad" that happens to Facebook, this event won't change much and impact on whatsapp will, unfortunately, not change anything.
Remember when corporates stopped advertising on Facebook? They're all back.
1. Install the app when you visit, go to the process together (difficult these days, I know...)
2. If you have many iPhone users in your family, answer on iMessage whenever they send you a WhatsApp. This way you can pull them over slowly
3. If Android users send you a WhatsApp, check if they have Signal installed and answer there instead.
It is "Salami tactics", but works for me.
I moved my whole family to Signal, and its surprisingly easy. It asks for their phone number, name (it's autocompleted) and a pin. You can create a link to your family's group chat so then can join without needing someone to invite them.
1. I noticed that Whatsapp allows me to add someone to a call (sort of like upgrading a phone call to a group call). I couldn't find a way to do that with Signal - although Signal supports group calls (that is, calling an entire group at once).
It's a minor feature, but I discovered that I rely upon it quite often.
2. Last year, I attempted to switch from iOS to Android - and I discovered that there isn't a clean way to move my whatsapp messages over. On iOS, whatsapp creates a backup on iCloud, there isn't any way to recover that on Android.
I aborted the attempt to switch to Android only because losing my whatsapp chat history was unacceptable.
Signal currently seems to be just as bad. However, if signal can implement a reasonable way to create backups and recover them across devices and operating systems, it will seal the deal and convince me to permanently delete whatsapp from all my devices.
Being a house full of Pixel devices and sole IT person, I dont want to be responsible for lost messages when it comes time for a new phone.
Also if your phone is lost or bricked ( either platform ) say goodbye to messages
Moving from Android to iOS, bye messages.
I can move my savvier friends and family over, but the rest will remain on whatsapp where "its easier" compromise works.
Nobody noticed, no warnings about encryption keys changing, no problems whatsoever. Took about 5 minutes each time (including googling of the directions).
Just make a backup (with an encryption key), then do a restore (and enter said key). Not as convenient as if it was automatic, but it does seem like a pretty secure approach.
It seems like it should be trivial to back up message history to the cloud.
How do you protect from various evil entities from stealing your cloud backups?
My personal wishlist:
- Making the app available on F-Droid, either on the official repos or just hosting a third-party one
- Bringing the Android backup solution (encrypted blob) to iOS
- Bringing the iOS backup solution (direct device transfer over Wi-Fi) to Android
- Signup with usernames/emails as an option instead of only verified phone numbers
- A more reliable desktop client, because most of my contacts on Signal (myself included) have experienced syncing issues, message decryption issues, notification issues, etc. I do like that the desktop client is temporarily standalone in that the phone running the app does not need to be available, although I have had to re-connect the two every once in a while so I don't find it reassuring to depend on the desktop client alone.
Plus, some are predicting that forthcoming changes to Android – Google possibly mainstreaming its “advanced protection” model so that phone owners cannot install the F-Droid APK except through enabling ADB and pushing it to the phone from a computer over the command line – will further marginalize F-Droid.
From a security point of view it seems quite reasonable to object to f-droid handling all signatures.