Mastodawn

Think this through: Imagine your #Signal advocacy is successful and we replace WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage and Kik with Signal. That leaves one single person in charge of global communications. One person who decides who can communicate with whom.
That’s an absolutely insane proposition.

Râu Cao ⚡Mar 11

@daniel One single entity. But that's just semantics, the point stands.

Ascendor Mar 11

@daniel one 501c3 nonprofit foundation.

🌈 Lascapi ⁂Mar 11

@Ascendor @daniel true, but that's still not something I would like to see appening.

Even as an NGO, I don't want to have to handle the burden to manage that.

Ascendor Mar 11

@lascapi @daniel that's surely disputable. But (to me) it's a VERY different situation than "one person".

@Ascendor @daniel

In the US! Nobody knows if their servers really work like they told us. They use AWS Cloud. The original client doesn't support Tor. Forks work, but they don't like them and tried to block in the past.
tbc...

It's a litte bit better than WA, nothing more.

Ascendor Mar 11

@algol @daniel I personally don't care too much about the server. Since the client is open source, we can know which data goes to the server, and in which form (encrypted). That makes the server pretty powerless.
And that's not only a BIT better than WhatsApp, it's a complete gamechanger. With WA, I have no clue at all, what's happening.

@Ascendor @daniel

"We kill people based on metadata."

The server is very important.

Ascendor Mar 11

@algol @daniel For metadata the same applies. You can check which metadata the server will receive.

Ascendor Mar 11

@algol @daniel Signal has previously announced, which information the server has: "Unix timestamps for when each account was created and the date that each account last connected to the Signal service."

https://signal.org/bigbrother/central-california-grand-jury/

Feel free to check that in the client's source code.

Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data, Central District of California

It’s the first half of 2021 – nearly five years since the “first half of 2016” – but in many ways not much has changed. The United Kingdom is still trying to figure out Brexit, another Justin Bieber song hit #1 on the charts (is it too late now to say sorry?), and Signal still doesn’t really know...

Signal Messenger

Daniel Gultsch Mar 11

@Ascendor @algol that's both not true, because at the very minimum they have push tokens which tie your Signal identity to your Google account and something that law enforcement these days regularly asks for, and entirely not the point of my original post.

Ascendor Mar 11

@daniel @algol "entirely not the point of my original post." - well, there have been 7 posts (only in this thread) since your original post. The discussion has developed. I responded to it. Welcome to social media ;)

Ascendor Mar 12

@daniel @algol here's a recent example again, which data Signal have and deliver to governmental/security authorities: https://signal.org/bigbrother/district-of-columbia/

@Ascendor @daniel

Shure, I trust Signal, I trust the US, I trust the FBI...

@Ascendor @daniel

And the server knows which message goes to someone by what info?

And they are so big in privacy, to refuse usage without phone numbers?

Ascendor Mar 11

> And the server knows which message goes to someone by what info?

Why does a server need to know that?

> And they are so big in privacy, to refuse usage without phone numbers?

I don't like that fact as well. But you're asking the wrong person, I'm not affiliated with Signal.

@dnlbrnds™Mar 11

@daniel ...under US jurisdiction

Dźwiedziu Mar 11

@dnlbrnds
Good cryptography still stands.

But a government can just order to turn off the servers, and it's a valid point of Signal critique.

methuselah Mar 11

@daniel well then it will become 2nd whatsapp! And they will start tracking it and hackers companies will make tools for the same. It will be horrible.

@daniel That's why we should instead switch to something that has existed for longer, supports a ton more features, and is not hostile to self-hosting setups. Switch to #XMPP!

@daniel it'll be a lot easier to convince people to use something else than signal once "everyone" has signal.

Right now "everyone" has whatsapp, and going from 1 to 2 is the hardest thing.

No one I know only has telegram, they already have at least 2 of them.
Once people have two of them, they'll be easier to get a 3rd one etc.

You cannot get diversity out of inaction.

Whatapp has not replace emails, Discord didn't replace emails or whatsapp or twitter, etc.
Signal will not replace whatsapp, even if "everyone" had signal installed.

No one went from emails to mastodon in one go.
No one will go from whatsapp to decentralised signal in one go if it existed today (it does not).

Iron Bug Mar 11

@daniel all centralized and non-free software is like that. it's just changing of one kind of slavery to another.
people should learn the lesson and switch to free and decentralized software, once and forever.

Shanie MyrsTear Mar 11

@daniel Imagine if a nonprofit could become ipso facto of communications.

I think assuming Signal advocacy being so successful that it eliminates all other communication systems is just as an insane proposition. But versus what we’re doing right now? Still better, and it means that one could advocate for even better solutions.

Lutin Discret Mar 11

@daniel don't worry. The DSA is here now and now Meta and other BigTech have a legal basis to legally force signal to become interoperable. If signal win, EU will stab us in the back and we'll be back to spywares everywhere.

🌈 Lascapi ⁂Mar 11

@lutindiscret
What do you mean with legal basis?
Signal is not named "Gatekeeper". The DSA doesn't apply to them.
Or I missed a point??

Lutin Discret Mar 11

@daniel hypothetis is "Imagine your Signal advocacy is successful and we replace WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage and Kik with Signal"

If Signal replace all thoses services, the userbase will be so huge that Signal will atrain the user count threesold abive which you become a GateKeeper according to the legal criteria. So, legally enforced interoperability with spywares.

Signal can't win.

🌈 Lascapi ⁂Mar 11

@lutindiscret Oh! I see your point.
Thank you 😌

LarsNygard Mar 11

Can matrix.org scale?

Push seems to be the problem for most messaging apps.

Is it possible to make a matrix client that can use Google services as push provider on Android, but also support independent push solutions?

And at last. Development is stale, but can a torrent based system work. (https://github.com/larsnygard/SnartNet)

GitHub - larsnygard/SnartNet: Verified, signed, and decentralized social media and messaging.

Verified, signed, and decentralized social media and messaging. - larsnygard/SnartNet

GitHub

🌈 Lascapi ⁂Mar 12

the technologies basis for SnartNet looks a bit like the Jami stack.
See @Jami.

Have you heard of them?

LarsNygard Mar 12

Yes, I've tried it. The problem is the need for a separate push service. Snart.net is more like a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and maybe messaging. The idea is to have the bandwidth and scaling capabilities of BitTorrent, and silly easy onboarding. Fully decentralized, and totally open.

It's both a fascinating and scary concept. I came as far as getting the BitTorrent serving to work as a PWA, but local persistent storage and Index is a bit cumbersome.

It's way above my skill level and full of AI slop, but if the concept works it may be a solution to many things.

LarsNygard Mar 12

I mean, for something to be adopted widely it should be "hey, scan my qr code with your phone, type your name and chat with me and all my contacts"

Exchange of cryptographic keys should happen in the background, and your data and keys will be backed up between yours and your close friends devices.