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Comment by darklajid | Hacker News Reader

It's .. the same thing. Now, bear with me: I don't say that it doesn't offer something over Telegram (most probably: Far better privacy/security), but it's a centralized service, hosted by a single entity, using your phone number as 'identity'. Ignore the first points, but the latter is so broken, Signal could be the most usable and glorious app ("Everything just works") on the planet and I'd still hate that idea.

Right now, Telegram suffers from the same faults (phone number = identity, closed/central server), but excels in usability and client availability. Signal is - for me, right here - worse. And I _should_ be part of Signal's target group.

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Signal uses asymmetrical encryption - your private key is very well able to prove your identity - I'm pretty sure the concept "identity" in Signal is built on that technology. But for contacting people - well - what else would you suggest?!

Hi plusquamperfekt.

I don't know your mail address or telephone number. If this message manages to reach you - can you explain your point a bit more?

If the private key would _be_ the identify, that'd be awesome. And maybe I fail to understand ChatSecure/Signal. I'd be glad to be corrected. But as far as I understand, that system ties a user to a mobile number, because 'that is as good a unique identifier as we get' and uses that instead. I think Threema does what you describe - or at least expects you to exchange keys via QR code when you physically meet?

My gripe with telephone numbers is this: I don't want to be tied to an identity I cannot control, to an identify that is public knowledge and unchangeable. I want to contact people via IM without them being able to call me.

Phone numbers are for calls (okay, texts for historical reasons).

I think the identity is connected to what key pair you control / what private key you have on your phone.

F.x. I installed a while ago Signal on my phone and recently went to another country where I used a different SIM card (hence a different phone number) and I could still use my Signal app as usual.

TextSecure (the predecessor to Signal) used to support encrypted SMS. You could send all the encrypted messages you want without using their centralized service. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they dropped that capability a few months ago. Then, to add insult to injury, the app disables itself if you don't update it for 6 months.

On the bright side, there's now an open source fork called SMSSecure. As the name implies, it does encrypted SMS. It works pretty well. I just hope the open source maintainers are keeping up with security updates to the protocol and not introducing any new bugs...

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