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Comment by moxie | Hacker News Reader

That's a pretty big holiday wishlist. =)

This is the world we live in: people do most of their communication on mobile devices running iOS or Android, use Chrome on the desktop, and expect contact discovery to be automatic in their social apps. The browser has won the desktop, iOS and Android have won mobile, and the velocity of the ecosystem is unlikely to make "distributed" communication mechanisms possible for some time.

We're trying to make mass surveillance impossible within this world of ours. We want to produce technology that is privacy preserving but feels just like everything else people already use, not somehow convince everyone to fundamentally change their workflow and their expectations.

It'd be sweet if we lived in an alternate reality where everyone ran SailfishOS or something (and maybe this year will be the year of Linux on the desktop!), but we can't just pretend that's already the case.

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If we ever meet I'll buy you a beer for the year of the Linux desktop line.

But honestly: I understand mobile support for iOS/Android only. I don't understand Chrome as a platform (FF isn't dead. And the biggest reason for that is that I fail to understand why that client needs to be 'web based' and then again not. A web app in a silo)

Mobile numbers.. Why? I mean, if 90% of the population WANT mum to see that they use a service and when they're online (or whatever metadata you want to exchange for contacts), just because they happen to know the phone number: Fine. But why isn't it possible to sign up, hit a box that says 'no phone number associated' and .. add contacts manually? I don't want the 99.999% to change, to make it harder for them. I just wish that Christmas brings an option that lets me opt-out of that. Chat contacts don't need my phone number. People that know my phone number are not chat contacts.

I'll get back pretending that Linux has won and will try to surf the web in FxOS for 30min just .. to prove you wrong. :)

This is my question exactly. What features does Chrome have that are worth making the app completely incompatible with other browsers? Why is it not just a "Web app" and it's a "Chrome app" instead?

Similar to Firefox extensions, Chrome has "apps" and "extensions". Both are locally-saved packages of locally-run JS/HTML/CSS, differing in what capabilities they have w.r.t. chrome api access.

So... I think the question still stands.

Perhaps Signal just isn't for you. No one who I've introduced signal to has ever had a problem with it. Now if you add a randomly generated 128 bit account identifier, then people WILL have problems with it. Not with you, but with your mum/grandma.

I really think Signal might not be for you. Signal is not about building the most secure or private system, it's about building the first mass-market encrypted that that's Good Enough. Signal is a infinite percent improvement over plaintext/https. It's not supposed to be as good as OTR.

Non-technical people I've introduced to Signal on iOS stop at the "upload your contacts" stage and go "I don't want this random little company to have access to my contacts". These are non-technical people who understand the importance of keeping their contact list private, and there are a lot of them.

Making it a de facto requirement that users on your network be personally identified via a phone number ("get a burner number"? really?) and that you have a copy of their contact list and phone calls, all within US jurisdiction, means mass metadata surveillance a single judicial order away (as it is now with the telecoms).

Unlike POTS, Signal prevents phone taps, yes, but it does not hide your social network, and so does little to provide you with the ability to associate with someone anonymously.

> These are non-technical people who understand the importance of keeping their contact list private

Do you take this opportunity to point out to them that they do away with this privacy every time they install whatsapp / fb messenger / hangouts / skype / practically anything that asks for contacts permissions?

The last person I'm recalling this conversation with actually blocks Whatsapp / Facebook from getting her contact list, but trusts Microsoft and Google. I'm not sure how representative that is, but I wouldn't be surprised if people trust big companies with big brands over relatively no-name startups in this regard.

See, that identifier might be an option. Or .. it might not be necessary. If that identifier would be the core 'me' on Signal, why wouldn't you be able to add me by phone number - if I gave Signal one to share/associate with? Mum and Grandma would see no change. People like me could run around without a phone number.

It's not as if that hasn't been done. twitter.com/darklajid is me (not worth checking it out). See? A name, tied to an identity. Same here. I used to have a FB account and even _there_ you can have a profile name that is unique and shareable. I really think you conflate things here: I DO NOT want to make life harder for mum/granny/the average WhatsApp fan. If you love that random people show up in your roster because you store their number (or vice versa: You show up on your Ex's roster because she didn't delete you yet) that's fine. And could continue to work like that.

I really have a hard time understanding why it isn't impossible to opt out. If I have a key, registered with Signal - why would I need a number on top? _Especially_ given that there's no federation to speak of, so I assume they don't need to 'shard' base on the identifier. foo@example.com -> talk to example.com? That's not happening here. And I don't see why/how they'd shard on numbers? +49 -> route to a German server?

Why is a phone number (and all the things that come with it: Discoverability for example) a requirement? You didn't answer that.

Yes, Signal might not be for me. I'm reasonably sure that I mentioned that before in this thread ;-)

If that identifier was linked to my Keybase.io account, that would be really cool. Or linked to Namecoin. Using methods like that to find my contacts would be great.

> Not with you, but with your mum/grandma.

Hey, please consider finding a better way to say "the average person" than calling out women and old people as being groups you think of as non-technical. Thanks!

It's a bit of a slippery slope argument. Things are hard. Let's compromise to make them usable.

That said there's a lot of potential as the crypto libraries are known to be top notch and reviewed. I hope they progressively address these issues.

If Signal's not good enough for us, what is?! I want to know...

> FF isn't dead

From http://www.computerworld.com/article/2893514/an-incredibly-s...:

> In the last 12 months, Firefox's user share -- an estimate of the portion of all those who reach the Internet via a desktop browser -- has plummeted by 34%. Since Firefox crested at 25.1% in April 2010, Firefox has lost 13.5 percentage points, or 54% of its peak share.

I love Firefox, but having used FxOS and mobile versions of Mobile Firefox, the Mozilla Foundations new products feel like the Netscape 6 / Mozilla Browser Firefox was created to replace, rather than the lightweight, user focused alternative.

Chrome is not any better at all. Speedwise they're about the same, but Chrome has better separation between tabs. However it allocates ram like there is an infinite supply of it, and it absolutely kills the battery on my computer. This is with the same extensions installed in both browsers, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, No Script, Last Pass, and Wunderlist.

They are not at all the same. I love Firefox too, but had to change to Chrome because of JS engine speed alone.

> I understand mobile support for iOS/Android only. I don't understand Chrome as a platform

> Mobile numbers.. Why?

Pidgin + OTR works on Linux, and doesn't relate to mobile numbers or Chrome at all. This might be a better fit for you.

I'm aware of that. I used to run an xmpp server and recently switched to Telegram for inter-family conversations (wife, brother, intimate friends) because the xmpp UX story is unfortunately not perfect (you need message carbons, you need stream management and you probably want MAM to have a usable system that can be used on mobiles as well).

This is great news! Such a big fan of the work you guys are doing at Whisper Systems. We are in the middle of an update to Umbrella App (which contains lessons on digital and physical), so will add the latest Signal changes to it in the next few days.

If anyone is interested in taking a look (free, open source, code reviewed, Android) please feel free: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...

The problem of course being that those users that use the closed source Google browser and iOS won't care much about what Signal is offering either. They're already using Hangouts, iMessage and Signal is pretty much a downgrade from those.

Millions disagree.

nope!

I don't really know anybody who uses "Chrome apps", technical or non-technical. I agree that was an odd choice, and will probably exclude a lot of people.

It's also odd to me that privacy advocates would push people to Google's ecosystem.

I hope one day there will be Windows and Mac apps. And that instead of phone numbers, we can use email addresses.

First, congratulations on shipping. Usable E2E encryption is something I care deeply about and Signal is the best Ive ever used. Completely agree fighting mass surveillance for avg users is highest priority.

What do you mean by "the velocity of the ecosystem is unlikely to make distributed communication mechanisms possible for some time"?

Ecosystem - tools and services with network effects, like Google Cloud Messaging.

Lots of phone carriers whitelist that server of theirs to allow it to wake up phone unprompted from idle while typically only allowing phone-initiated connection to stay active, and they also tend to block most incoming connections once the phone has been inactive for a while.

While it isn't technically hard to make something distributed, to also make it work well can be troublesome...

Yet another reason I want home servers to become common, as your phone could automatically request that your carrier whitelist your chosen trusted nodes such as your home server.

"most people" in "the world we live in" are completely hopeless. You won't get to them until you sink completely to the level of the services you are trying to replace. So you won't help people who can be helped because you're trying so hard to get to the people who just can't be.

By the way - the biggest problem with textsecure^Wsignal right now is the lack of encrypted export and import of the private key. Forget the issue about message history, the freaking private key is the most important thing. All the dumb users you may manage to reach with your current integrations and conveniences are just accepting a changed key for their contacts at any time, and now also smart and diligent people are doing the same thing because you can't keep private key continuity unless you root your android phone and use a root backup app. It's a basic core failing.

I would argue that the removal of SMS encryption is a worse failing. Accepting all key changes without question renders you vulnerable to active attacks, but you remain safe from mere passive collection (the most common case). On the other hand, whatever Whisper Systems would have you believe, people really do still use SMS. A lot.

I will never convince my friends to use an internet-based messenger - I might as well try and get them to use Pidgin+OTR if that's the ball game. I have, however, switched a few of them over to SMSSecure, the SMS-only TextSecure fork, which is a perfectly serviceable SMS client.

Why do your friends care about the underlying transport?

I too think SMS transport should have been maintained, but I believe it only really matters when you're stuck without mobile data access (for example, when I was on a cruise ship earlier this year I had roaming SMS/voice but not data).

As long as you _do_ have mobile data access at both ends, then a message to another TextSecure user will be sent encrypted over the data connection; and a message to a non-TextSecure user wouldn't have been encrypted anyhow.

I am farting in a thunderstorm, since this argument has been had a million times. Nevertheless, i will explain why i personally worry about the transport. Perhaps the other commenter has different reasons, i don't know.

I currently pay €2 per month for my mobile bill. That is very little money. Notably, that includes no internet/data, but it does include unlimited text messages. Can you see why SMSSecure is something i would want?

Because most people I know keep their data switched off most of the time, which will always be the case as long as apps are abusive about phoning home.

I like the fact that Signal makes good cryptography available to the masses. But I also share the OP concern about Chromium (and about a central server, but this is technically much harder to fix).

Perhaps it would be possible to have a simple CLI app that is free from these dependencies (which should also be quite simple to develop).

some signal cli clients were discussed on the mailing list yesterday: https://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/whispersystems/2015-12/msg0...

Sounds very interesting, thanks.

Yes because the GUI is the hardest part of p2p networking.

The main thing I have against webapps is that from a technological point of view they aren't meant for the use we go today. Obviously the privacy thing is another big issue, but this leads me to point 2; I can protect my privacy: I just need to switch off my router, throw away my phone and say good bye to the grid, but that is the 2015 way of being an heremit and honestly, is something I don't want. So I came up with this solution: carefully try to not divulge sensible data and, if I need to, split that over many possible unrelated services.

We're not going to win, but at least I try to defend myself

Please make it possible to use public keys as identifiers somehow, maybe linked via for example keybase.io to provide simplicity in lookups and tracking usernames.

It would also be much easier to allow federation with that mechanism, as your keybase.io account even could point to your chosen server together with the public key.

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