Comment by unicornporn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by unicornporn | Hacker News Reader

Or you could download https://wire.com/ which allows developers to build their own clients and still use their infrastructure. Also, it doesn't force you to use a phone number for registration. It supports audio/video calls. Also, if you're really privacy minded, it doesn't need Google Play Services. That way it can be used in CopperheadOS.

It doesn't have the scrutiny regarding cryptography and implementation that Signal has had.

They claim to have secure end-to-end encryption. In fact, I would say using wire.com is better than Signal because Signal does not make any guarantee of anonymity.

With the wire desktop app you can take steps to anonymize your connection to their server, although on a mobile device it's probably roughly equivalent to Signal.

Also, here is a handy chart that compares the differences between these two services (and other similar competitors). https://wire.com/privacy/

You're promoting Wire for anonymity? Check out their privacy policy, Wire maintains a server side copy of your entire contact list, all the groups that you're in, the plaintext metadata for your groups (membership, plaintext group title, plaintext group avatar), etc etc.

They have broken voice encryption, and leak enough data to reconstruct the audio of your calls. They leak tons of plaintext directly back to themselves, like GIF searches, and rolled their own messaging crypto that experts say is broken.

They have been caught lying about what kind of encryption they provide, they lied about being open source for years, they lied about being based in switzerland. From what I can tell, the only people promoting Wire after all that are usually on Wire's marketing team.

Could you provide something that backs up these claims?

They did in another comment on this page. I do not see any evidence that worries me. Perhaps if you're a famous terrorist, you won't want to use it, because your GIF searches might expose your evil plans. But I only needed a way to talk to family and friends that was more private than Facebook and Google, while not sacrificing features and usability. I think Wire has done an excellent job. I've not found anything else that checks all the boxes.

Just wondering, but why not just use XMPP? You can choose any server that you like or trust, or run your own (on your own or third party infrastructure, up to you), and use OTR for end-to-end encryption if you feel you need to¹.

I have been using XMPP since 2000/2001. My current address is nine years old (and I control the server). I have a choice of clients on every platform that I use. All my contacts have the same set of choices regarding provider, accounts, and clients. As a bonus, not just my human contacts but also my infrastructure uses it for messaging and monitoring, so I can literally control some of my servers from my XMPP clients.

There must have been at least thirty major IM "solutions" going in and out of fashion during these 16 years. Individually, each might have been somehow "more convenient", but if start counting the cumulative migration effort, I'm not sure the convenience argument holds much water.

¹ I used it in anger once myself, initiated by one of my contacts. It was an interesting experience.

Is OTR really a practical option? You message seems unclear about it.

Also, how do you get all your contacts to use XMPP and your server?

Yes, it is.

Convince them :-) Same as with any other.

> Is OTR really a practical option? You message seems unclear about it.

It depends on your threat model, like other alternatives.

I have never initiated an OTR session myself, but I have received one from a contact in anger (whistleblowing).

> Also, how do you get all your contacts to use XMPP

In my case, I have been using XMPP for the last sixteen years, so my contacts have "grown organically", to use an en vogue marketing term.

It appears that Mac computers come with an XMPP client preinstalled (and possibly pre-configured?) Linux, the same. Android, there are a number of clients available. Windows, I think there is Gajim, ...

As far as a stereotypical common user is concerned, they are quite happy to install whatever applications their peers are using, which is how they end up with so much cruft on their computers, phones, etc. :-)

> and your server?

Nobody needs to use my server. It is like email, you can use whichever provider you like.

I hope this answers your questions!

For one thing, XMPP does not have the same features. Try Wire and see for yourself. There's audio, video, voice messages, multiple device encryption. Maybe XMPP has improved, but it didn't work as well for mobile use.

Do you know how Wire makes money to sustain what they are doing?

Don't want to invest my time into something that will eventually sell out and do that opposite of what they stand for today.

Last time i checked they have no revenue possibility. So I decided to skip, I am curious on this too

There's quite an interesting discussion here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/comments/57n8ee/inst...

As I see it, there's some sort of trade off for all solutions for private instant messaging right now. Wire comes close to a good solution. The biggest problem for me is that the official Android client is quite buggy, UI wise...

Fair enough critique on Android bugs, we're fixing them at a steady pace. But if you know any good Scala developers in Berlin / interested in moving to Berlin then we're hiring https://wire.com/jobs

On Twitter, they said they plan to sell premium features. They are currently funded by a founder of Skype.

> Don't want to invest my time into something that will eventually sell out

And what do you think the gentleman behind Signal is out there for?

His modus operandi:

* Start a company, call it something catchy, like Whisper Systems.

* Get media coverage and some users.

* Sell to Twitter

* Start a company, call it something catchy, like Open Whisper Systems.

* Get media coverage and some users.

* ...

Start to see a pattern? :-)

Rolling out paid stuff next year. As someone said - VC funded so have had the luxury to focus on building a great app, see if people find value in it. This has been true, lots of interest form B2B world from groups, teams, organizations where privacy and security important.

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