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Comment by int_19h | Hacker News Reader

Why do you think there are no "ordinary users" who don't have phone numbers, or don't have them in a manner that Signal needs? For example, it's pretty common for older people (especially in less technologically developed countries) to not have smartphones.

I personally know at least one person who can't use Signal because they don't have a smartphone to install it on (but could install it on the desktop, if the desktop app didn't require the phone app to be configured first). I know two more people who can't use it because they use tablets, and Signal still hasn't released a table version, even one that works the same as the desktop one.

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Again, what Signal is trying to do is to create a wholesale replacement for the (vast majority of) messaging traffic that exists now and is addressed by phone numbers.

It's weird to me to see people downplaying this; if they succeed, it will be a monumental achievement, surpassing SSL/TLS in impact to communications.

As tptacek says - Signal isn't attempting to solve every problem or cover every edge case.

If you don't have a smartphone you can install apps on - perhaps the company making a smartphone app which happens to integrate with a desktop app as well) isn't for you. Same for "tablet users".

FWIW, you don't need to do _too_ much hoop jumping to get a non-phone device running Signal - I mainly use it on a dedicated iPod Touch, and I've got the iPhone app running on an iPad as well - in old-school 2x ugly-mode, but it works. (You do need to be aware of the risks around whatever phone number you use to bootstrap your way in possibly being reallocated. You might not want to use a 30 day burner SIM or a temporary Twilio number if you might have a targeted enough attack to impersonate you by hoovering up temporary mobile numbers...)

> You do need to be aware of the risks around whatever phone number you use to bootstrap your way in possibly being reallocated.

They recently added an optional "Registration Lock" feature to address this: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059792-Re...

This all has network effects. I have a smartphone, and I run Signal. But I run it much less, precisely because several people whom I want to interact with regularly are unable to, due to its limitation. This also means that I'm less likely to recommend it to others.

And I don't think that tablets are an "edge case". I mean, seriously? We're talking about millions of devices on the market. They may not be as popular as phones, but they are popular, and people use them. So when a guy uses, say, iMessage today, because it works across his iPhone and his iPad, I can't really pitch Signal to him. And that, again, has network effects.

Why don't you use it for SMS? At most 20% of my contacts use Signal, but for the rest of my non-Signal contacts I still use it to communicate using normal SMS/MMS without any hiccups, the only thing being the lack of encryption. I also personally prefer it to the IMO horrible default SMS apps provided by multiple vendors (including stock Android, at least up to V7).

People might be used to other SMS apps (better feature, familiarity etc) and Signal can't be used as an SMS app on iOS.

> Signal can't be used as an SMS app on iOS.

Sounds like a broken smartphone platform to me.

I'm not being glib: I really do believe that I should be easily able to replace any app on my phone. Android, while imperfect, is closer to that goal than is iOS, and so I use it, and recommend it to others.

It also seems to be the future. Phone numbers are how people receive phone calls, and more and more people are opting out of that in favor of instant messaging and video chat. More and more people have stopped answering their phones. Including our parents, who got sick of the scams and the robocalls. In my region, despite phone number portability, the numbers are fairly ephemeral with people switching to new ones all the time for all sorts of reasons. And nobody cares, because it is the IM system that is important.

Skype almost managed to replace the legacy phone network, but fell out of favor. If there was interoperability between clients like Signal, Whatsapp, Line, Wechat, it would take over a multi-billion dollar industry. Instead, my bank is trying to use some proprietary video conference system to schedule meetings with me.

This is another aspect of inter-portability that, I think, is often ignored. Matrix is doing great on this front. But then there's another concern here, which any Matrix/Riot user would have noticed - you interaction is as secure and private as the least secure of the two (or more for groups) clients in conversation - unless of course you enforce encryption which is also something you can do in a Matrix client. But it's nowhere near the WhatsApps and Telegrams when it comes to user of use.

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