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Comment by mitchellpkt | Hacker News Reader

This seems to be a "bug or feature" situation where the answer depends on the user profile. The ability for messages to leave the Signal app in plaintext SMS is a "feature" for users whose top needs include a single-app UX, and a "bug" for users whose top needs include an app that is foolproof E2EE (so users don't have to consciously pay attention to which conversations are Signal-native vs SMS). Maybe SMS support could be an opt-in feature, to accommodate both groups?

From my perspective (and I am NOT speaking for anybody else) this is an improvement. I already have multiple messaging apps installed, and when I click send on a Signal message I expect it to go end-to-end encrypted or not go at all. But I am not the only user profile.

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> Maybe SMS support could be an opt-in feature, to accommodate both groups?

It already is opt-in.

I agree with your perspective - for me Signal is yet another (more secure) internet messaging app on my phone, and I'm happy that way. I wouldn't want it to have anything to do with SMS, no more than I want FB messenger to start handling my SMS (which it does offer at installation time). Plus, having used Signal since the TextSecure days, I saw the SMS feature the same way the announcement seems to characterize it: as old tech debt waiting to get dropped. After all, I don't think Signal for iOS ever had SMS ability.

And to your main point, I hadn't even considered before seeing this comment thread that anybody felt differently, let alone so strongly. Really illustrates how differently people think about the same app.

Never used signal, so I don't know it's UI language. Couldn't they just put a red unlocked padlock symbol next to the send button, if the sent message is going to be over an insecure channel (SMS in this case)? Maybe they already had something like this, so sorry for my ignorance.

The SMS symbol was a dull grey circle with a paper plane and an open lock, while the encrypted message was a big blue circle with a lock in the center. You had to choose purposefully with a long press on that button to use SMS if that is what you wanted, and the recipient was using signal.

None of the naysayers has addressed your point (and those of TFA) rationally, as you have.

UX elements already exist to tell the user whether they're encrypted or not, removing the ability to send unencrypted shrinks their userbase while ensuring the apps adoption plummets.

There, points addressed. Can we move on?

No, and thank you for asking. No one addressed what to me is the main point, which is that Signal is handling complaints from people who were being charged for SMS and didn't know that would happen. People these days are often not at all civil when dealing with support issues like this, and for that reason alone I could imagine I'd drop SMS.

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