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Why does everyone use signal? There are other messaging apps that are just plain more private, and better.

it is easy to get normans to use signal, it is designed with an apple-ey (meaning, user-hostile) interface.

>>32610 that is like kicking dead whales down the beach

because snowden says that signal is good and everyone belives him. also, signal is secure (right?), AND it is easier to setup than XMPP. Do you expect your grandmother to input a phone number or to setup a XMPP server? Signal is secure, but i expect a cyberspace warrior not to use it.

people saw this unsourced anonymous image & fell right into the dragnet, it was too hard to stingray all the activists' SMS so the psy-op dept made it seem cool & edgy to send your texts as data 'end-to-end' (did you generate the encryption keys? no? lol) direct to collect. have a nice day.

>>32610 >user-hostile What specifically about Signal is user-hostile? >>32618 >Signal is secure, but i expect a cyberspace warrior not to use it. What would you expect them to use, especially when it comes to communicating with their grandmother? >>32620 >did you generate the encryption keys? no? lol did you factor your own primes or calculate your own elliptic curves? no? lol

There needs to be a meta- app for messaging with a clean interface like Signal, but with arbitrary messaging methods. There's a principle that apparently most programmers are too smart to notice. The principle is to make the programme so easy an idiot can use it, even if it's only going to be used by the programmer. Why? Because the programmer has better things to think about. Make it once, use it many times. So? spend the extra effort up front to make it neat. Even if it's used only once. Why? Because so many things that the person thinks they'll use only once, they reuse.

>>32620 >(did you generate the encryption keys? no? lol) I also don't manually generate all my PGP keys by hand, because that would take several thousand years. Instead I trust the thousands of independent crypto experts who have read Signal's open source code and verified that it is in fact end-to-end encrypted. >>32622 >What specifically about Signal is user-hostile? -no multi-phone support despite having desktop support -requires a phone and a phone number to use at all -desktop version is always missing features -impossible to manually enter keys, you *have* to use your phone camera -OpenWhisperSystems release does not support hosting your own Signal server, and it is intentionally difficult to use official Signal servers with any other release -no multi-account support It also leaks metadata like a sieve.

>>32622 >What would you expect them to use, especially when it comes to communicating with their grandmother? huh, i never thoguht on it, i mean, xmpp (for example) for communicating with other cyberspace warriors and signal for their grandmothers. i think

>>32608 >There are other messaging apps that are just plain more private, and better. Name one that doesn't use signal protocol.

We have Signal thread at >>/sec/11163

>>32608 Is this low-tier bait? Signal competes with Whatsapp and Telegram and those two are just simply less private.

>>32631 It even has the same premise. >As we know, Signal is not the best choice for digital security and there's plenty of nice alternatives like matrix, etc. However this doesn't change most security professionals from suggesting it to laypeople, and is now probably what most rely on for secure communications.

>>32628 >-no multi-phone support despite having desktop support Actively being worked on, this is expected to happen as part of the move away from phone numbers. >-requires a phone and a phone number to use at all Again, actively being worked on. >-desktop version is always missing features Once again, actively eing worked on. They just implemented voice and video calling for desktop two weeks ago. >-impossible to manually enter keys, you *have* to use your phone camera You can just compare the numbers displayed, you don't need to use the camera for anything. >-OpenWhisperSystems release does not support hosting your own Signal server, and it is intentionally difficult to use official Signal servers with any other release Yeah, but most users aren't looking for a federated solution, they just want to stop using FB Messenger/WhatsApp/Skype. If you want federation, there's always Matrix, or XMPP if you don't care about scaring off your average user. >It also leaks metadata like a sieve. What metadata is leaked? As far as I'm aware, they're actively reducing the amount of metadata by implementing things like sealed sender. >>32631 >>32638 Yeah, not sure why this one was started.

>>32648 >You can just compare the numbers displayed, you don't need to use the camera for anything. for linking devices. All of the things that you say have been "actively worked on" have been "actively worked on" for years, but all we get are fuarrrking stickers.

>>32620 >it was too hard to stingray all the activists' SMS the last SMS text message ever sent was in 2017. so that can't be the reason.

I suggest everyone look into Session. It's still in the early stages of develpment but what it does (text messages) is far beyond any other app out there for privacy. From memory so don't quote me on this: It uses about 70% of Signal's code base. Messages go through a blockchain-based proxy relay in the style of Tor. The price of hosting a relay increases exponentially per relay a user tries to host to help mitigate adversaries deanonymizing messages by owning both enter and exit relay. No registration, it instead gives the user a random string per local account to share. Focused on being metadata-free; the only thing the Session devs have are a log of app downloads that prunes anything older than two hours.

1995: middle school girls run their own websites and use email 2020: grown-up men are too dumb to use something else than whatsapp/gaymessage

>>32627 >meta- app This is sooo 2008. Pidgin, Miranda, lots of them. Point is, the companies that produce their own closed-server jabber flavor each year are not eager with users having freedom to choose communications medium because those sweet dataming moneys from venture capital are going dry out when a user originally registered to meme messaging app #1488 and decides to switch to meta-client to be able to talk to his friends on XMPP.

>>32661 Sending all messages through blockchain to be recorded forever is something that really glows in dark.

i dont know anyone who uses signal >>32674 OH NO NOW THE CIA DOESNT NEED TO BUY A 1PB SERVER TO STORE ALL TEXT EVER SENT BECAUSE THE USERS ARE STORING IT UNTIL THE BLOCKCHAIN CRALWS TO A HALT WHAT A PSYOP!!! SOMEONE WHISTLE BLOW THIS D::::

>>32671 >1995: middle school girls run their own websites TOP KEK

>>32686 Ok

>>32658 I sent two MMS yesterday

>>32608 It's a user-friendly version of the trash that privacy enthusiasts will recommend.

>>32674 Are you retarded? Since when did utilizing blockchain mean "anything that utilizes blockchain gets stored by blockchain"? Pretty rich slinging the word glowie around when your complete lack of understanding is exactly the weak demoralization characteristic of an useful idiot.

Signal is exceptional security wise, it's easy to use, has features to compete with everyday usage. Signal is an excellent replacement for SMS/MMS, iMessage, WhatsApp, Line, etc. for IRL friends and family. It supports SMS/MMS if you can't get people on it, you still don't need to use two separate apps. It literally can just replace your SMS/MMS app. The PIN sync thing can be disabled if you want. Landlords, family members, friends, etc. there is zero reason not to be using Signal for all these discussions. However currently mostly they're done over SMS/MMS or iMessage or even Whatsapp. I hope we can push to get IRL people on Signal, it's very nice. The only major concerns I have is it uses centralized servers, and their official apps contain GMS. However there is a non-gapps fork. As for centralized servers, well it is the compromise. I am okay with it though, again I am providing my phone number, not attempting anonymity and their encryption is excellent. https://community.signalusers.org/t/ive-removed-gms-from-the-signal-website-build-its-now-completely-open-source/14382 I do wish the desktop version could stay up to date with the mobile apps. It is missing a fair amount of features, feels hacked up and it doesn't keep messages up to date meaning there is a major gap between messages on your desktop client and your mobile client if you do not sign into your desktop client for a while. It is clearly intentional, as they provide a message stating it. But there needs to be an optional way to keep them in sync. Specifically IRL friends and family. I believe everyone should be using Signal for IRL. If you're looking for anonymity, go elsewhere. If you are willing to trade your phone number with someone, then use Signal.

>>32649 Secure value recovery was just implemented in May, which is a prereq for getting rid of phone numbers. Voice and video was just added within the last month. They're delivering on claims. Maybe take a breath and stop screeching about stickers. You really think the same developers who implemented a feature like stickers are the ones coding the hard math required for encrypted value recovery and sync? >>32678 >i dont know anyone who uses signal Be the change you want to see. When I started using TextSecure years ago, I had one friend that used it, which was the person that introduced me to it. I now have 91 contacts that use it. >>32893 >It literally can just replace your SMS/MMS app. Only on Android, iOS forces you to use iMessage for SMS/MMS, unfortunately. >I hope we can push to get IRL people on Signal I introduced my therapist to it, we now use it for all our sessions. I was also able to get a friend to use disappearing messages for their entire office so that they weren't sending around HIPAA sensitive info in plaintext.

>>32671 >1995: middle school girls run their own websites Is this real?

>>32902 Have you never watched ICarly?

>>32900 >Only on Android, iOS forces you to use iMessage for SMS/MMS, unfortunately. The power of Apple. Anyways you can still use it, just not replace it >I introduced my therapist to it, we now use it for all our sessions. I was also able to get a friend to use disappearing messages for their entire office so that they weren't sending around HIPAA sensitive info in plaintext. Very nice, didn't think about therapy that's important. And yeah no these are excellent use cases. Glad to hear anon. I've had a handful of stubborn family members, but I've also gotten a fair amount of family members on it.

>>32720 Peer-to-peer means me, my ISP, intermediary ISPs between us, your ISP and you have the logs Client-server model adds server logs to this Since all these parties are independent, their storage space for logging is limited and they after some time will probably overwrite these logs Blockchain is a permanent record of communication logs stored at each participant of the network, no only of our connection path, but also, your mom's computer, CIA nodes and NSA. This is how blockchains have been working so far, in Internet money like Bitcoin for example. Every transaction is recorded forever on every participant's hard drive and eventually can be traced back while the last participant keeps the blockchain.

>>32912 No, I have never watched or used Ithis, Ithat, iThose, even ironically, nor watched anything that is even a satire of iThis. The entire iShit was always a forced meme and hard-not-to-ignore noise like advertisements.

>>32961 Giving a hostile response to proudly show you don't understand a reference doesn't make you look cool. It makes you look like an insufferable jackass who thinks only the things he likes are worthwhile.

>>32686 Not the anon who posted that. But some of them actually did. I knew a girl who was a few years older than me who ran an anime website from 1996 - 2006. It didn't gain an awful lot of attention. She met her future husband through it though as well as started running a large anime convention out of it. So I guess she had somewhat of a success story from her internet life of yesteryear.

>>32686 I mean, geocities was easy as soykaf to use right? t. Born in this century, damn i wish i lived the 90s

How does signal enforce disappearing messages? It's an open protocol, so what's stopping someone from writing a compatible app that receives the messages---but doesn't delete them when the as the protocol would request. Or is there a cryptographic trick that ensures this?

>>33160 it would be impossible to enforce, disappearing messages is just a convenience.

>>32961 I have never watched anything with an iName either, I'm obviously not in your target demographic if you use that kind of title, also fuarrrk irony, everything is "ironic" and I'm sick of it.

>>33160 Someone you send PGP encrypted data to could have a script on his computer that saves it in plain text on Google Drive. He could have his phone locked by swipe only. He could install malicious software. You still depend on the security practices of others, the tools are just tools.

>>33160 >open protocol What did I miss? As far as I know there's only one official Signal client and no one can create another client that uses the official Whisper System servers.

why does the desktop app need 400mb of dependencies?

>>33213 because it is a chromium browser

>>33214 oh it's Electron in the trash it goes

>>33213 >signal uses electron color me unsurprised. i read the source back when signal started and was confused why they added 60KLOC of bloat for making fuarrrking icons and soykaf, and eventually just gave up and concluded its not a serious program

>>33212 They released java and c libraries and there are other clients but they're barely functional.

>Maybe if you installed WhatsApp so we could actually communicate like normal people, you know >Dude what's the problem with Signal? >I don't receive notifications for it, I can't see the messages >You don't read SMS either >Just get on fuarrrking WhatsApp so I can uninstall this Signal soykaf >Dude fix your phone if you can't receive notifs for anything other than WA >Thank you so much eh you're so understanding *hangs* Is this actually plausible on certain phones / work settings or am I just being pressured? Why do people act like having a messaging app other than Facebook is some kind of torture?

>>33439 it's just people being lazy. My friend once told me that it was "too much effort" to open Signal. How fuarrrking lazy do you have to be where opening an app is too much effort? I basically told him it's either Signal or SMS and I will not install WhatsApp under any circumstances.

>>33440 How is it any harder than opening WhatsApp? The notification you have to hit with your finger looks exactly the same as WhatsApp, Signal looks and works exactly the same as WhatsApp. It's not like I'm telling people to talk to me with PGP. I send messages and this person receives them (one checkmark) but doesn't read them for days because he says the app doesn't work. I don't understand the psychology behind it.

>>33439 It's because they're either terrible persons who would rather let you suffer instead of having a the incredible inconvenience that is growing a second brain-cell they can rub together with their first, in which case you should treat them as you would any other toxic persons, or they don't even have a first brain-cell, in which case please be accommodating of their disability---maybe communicate with them exclusively in the flesh.

>>33450 I'd love to just go with the narrative that these people are mouth-breathing dumdums but they're way sharper than me as far as life outside computers is concerned, and I'm not even sure if these choices I make have any practical value. All I know is that they reject these things so violently. Maybe they're intolerant because this is one of many annoyances. I see people who have no issue getting others to switch, so it could be just me.

>>33457, I'm not >>33450, but: Sure, but they lack general intelligence i.e. willingness/ability to learn. They might be wizards in some other area, but they're patently deficient in this area. That's a disability (I suspect the two-braincells thing was a metaphor for creativity, rather than (one-braincell) mere perfunction). Also, there's a basic premise of specialization that the specialist trusts the judgement of specialists of areas he's not a specialist of. (I might be expert at use computers well, but I'm nowhere near expert in helping a person know/learn how to use their computers well.)

>>33459 No more expertise than is needed to use whatsapp is needed to use signal, they work exactly the same.

>>33479 People are lazy, it takes 1 action out of their habit to open signal, so they just don't.

>>33479 >No more expertise than is needed to use whatsapp is needed to use signal, they work exactly the same. Wasn't that exactly >>33459's point? that a person proficient about WhatsApp but can't use Signal at all is patently deficient.

>Why does everyone use signal? There are other messaging apps that are just plain more private, and better. I notice your contrexemplic reticence. If there is a more-private messaging system, all it would take for it to be a good replacement for Signal is the neat interface. Really, the neat interface should be free i.e. applicable to any messaging system. So that I can have all my messages of all the different systems in one place, with one neat interface

>>33489 I phrased that badly. I meant to say that I wouldn't blame it all on unwillingness to learn since Signal's UI is just the same as WhatsApp's. There's nothing to learn. I think it may be about submission: you have to install my weird and snobby thing to talk to me rather than the opposite.

>>33492 >I phrased that badly. I meant to say that I wouldn't blame it all on unwillingness to learn since Signal's UI is just the same as WhatsApp's. There's nothing to learn. You phrased it fine. That's exactly my point about it being a disability. If a person can't do something that everybody, by default, is expected to be able to do, e.g. something very easy, we call that a disability.

>>33490 >If there is a more-private messaging system They are all based on Signal protocol. Differences come from the approach to network architecture >a good replacement for Signal is the neat interface People responsible for backend and cryptography (aka the privacy stuff) are not necessarily UI designers.

>>33498 Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but this sounds like a monoculture.

>>33160 It's not exactly DRM; it's more like "you and your friend have orchestrated this panic-button"

I've met 3 people in real life who shared Signal numbers (all in tech jobs or tech degrees) More than any other privacy respecting messaging service so that's good.

>>33490 Conversations.im has at least as good an interface as signal, but it can't do voice/video calls. Features do matter too. Hopefully matrix will offer an alternative here some day, or else xmpp will rise from the ashes with clients that support modern chat features (the protocol and afaik the servers support them already...). >>35486 Yeah my literal grandmother uses signal to call me. She likes that it lets her see my face when I talk to her even though I don't have an iphone. My parents too. I've found older people are way easier to sell on it than young people because they don't give a soykaf about apps. If you tell them "signal is like imessage for android too" they're sold. Young people on the other hand bitch and moan about it not being discord or WhatsApp or whatever other retardware they'd rather foist on you.

How do you cope with the fact that their on-screen keyboards record every word and upload it to Google/Apple? What is the point of this security theater if your communications are tapped at higher level already?

>>35498 Lucky. My country has WhatsApp as an established group texting tool (well that and SMS).

>>35517 why do you use the botnet keyboard lain? fwiw in google android, signal requests the private keyboard which ostensibly doesn't keep logs.

>>35517 https://f-droid.org/packages/org.dslul.openboard.inputmethod.latin

>>35521 >>35524 A poster above laments about his friends not being able to comprehend another messaging app in their notification pop-ups, and you suppose regularios will totally change their favorite keyboard that suggests funneh gifs powered by A.I. and science! to some boring thingie from third-party pirate "apps-tore" (oh noes, scarey, it must the a way for hackers to get access to your nudes)?

>>35520 Here as well. WhatsApp has become the default chat app and is exceptionally popular. Other popular stuff is Facebook's Messenger with few using Telegram. Oh, and no one I knows uses Signal or any of the privacy focused alternatives here.

>>32608 What are the more privacy friendlier alternatives to Signal?

>>35544 Wasn't there a fork that the creators of Signal were pissed about?

>>33508 Only in the same manner that everything using TLS is a monoculture. It's a protocol. People are welcome to use something different, for example OMEMO, Olm, or MLS, but until you have a well polished client that uses those protocols the vast majority of people are going to use a client that depends on the Signal protocol.

>>35517 Got a citation for the record and upload claim? That aside, if you're worried about your device being compromised then this doesn't fit your threat model. Understand what you're trying to defend against and act accordingly. Not everyone needs license to kill deep cover triple agent OpSec, and anyone who claims they are is lying. The people that actually need that aren't discussing it on fuarrrking imageboards.

>>35546 Are you referring to the Wire/Signal licensing drama? Or LibreSignal?

>>35544 Conversations XMPP client connected to onion server. This is how drug dealers work in my city.

>>35553 >le nothing to hide argument Give me your credit card number, pin and cvv, sheep. The fact that keyboard suggests phrases and gifs based on user input and whatever is displayed on screen is a strong claim that it uploads all typed words to server to perform searches.

>>35557 >using a low-latency service over Tor drug dealers in your city are dumb dumb

>>35559 Are you trying to sound smart? Tor is a low-latency network for low-latency application protocols. Did you imply that XMPP is always a synchronous like IRC meaning a law enforcement can perform traffic fingerprinting/confirmation attacks? Well, it is not, with OMEMO or without encryption if you do it on private server, it can be asynchronous like email, after all, it was developed for combining convenience of ICQ/IRC and behavior of email federation, some old clients still offer email-like message composing interface windows with To: and Subject: fields. Using personal obfuscated bridges with non-zero IAT (or a personal VPN tunnel with randomized traffic) solves traffic confirmation problem completely.

>>35563 >Did you imply that XMPP is always synchronous like IRC meaning a law enforcement can perform traffic fingerprinting/confirmation attacks? yes, and unless they're using XMPP as glorified email it is certainly possible to perform confirmation attacks regardless of how Tor is configured.

>>35566 FWIW that's part of how they de-anonymized a lot of lulzsec. A long-term informant can narrow down the search space until they can catch even the tiniest opsec fuarrrk-up.

>>35567 Lulzsec were deanonymized because one of them accidentally connected to their clearnet IRC server bypassing Tor.

>>35568 yes Sabu was, but most other members never did such a thing and were de-anonymized by a combination of narrowing down their physical location using the informant and confirmation attacks.

>>35568 they caught hammond because he gave to much info (he was on the terrorist watchlist, freegan, eating out of the garbage, etc.) just keep an eye on when someone is online and when their online handle comes on, easy and effective.

>>35558 > suggesting people type cc info into gif search > suggesting markov chains or gpt require upload > still not defining threat model