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Comment by mikece | Hacker News Reader

I don't like this: it seems like Signal wants to morph into a social network rather than a secure messaging platform. I predict the next major features will be unencrypted public groups and API messaging access like Telegram has.

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Would you rather live in a world where Signal is laser focused on secure messaging to the point where no one uses it? Telegram is growing rapidly because it's adopting social media paradigms. I use both, and I wish I only used Signal.

About once a week I get a notification that random person X I haven't talked to in a decade is now on signal. About two months ago the super at my old apartment building got on signal and I got a notification. My late coworker's phone number finally got recycled and the new person using it is on signal too. They appear to be reaching critical mass.

Still really mad about them dropping SMS support. I'll be deleting it when that happens.

I really don't understand the qualms with SMS support. SMS was never secure, and it certainly doesn't become more secure when you push it through a pass-through on one app or another. There is nothing you can do to SMS to make it more secure except to send encrypted strings: but then you have the same problem of sharing secrets, etc. that requires a separate app to manage anyway.

It means I need an extra app now. Signal replaced my SMS app. I'm not going to stop using SMS completely, so if Signal drops it I need to use one more app.

One comes preinstalled with every major mobile OS...

And one that I have been able to happily ignore for years because Signal handled all my messages. If you are not a long-time Signal user then maybe you don't remember how they made a big song and dance out of offering this feature in the first place to make Signal more usable and accessible.

Because you can use it as your only messaging app if it has SMS. You can't if it doesn't.

Because I already have an encrypted messaging app. It's called Whatsapp. This bumps up to E2E encrypted if both people using "SMS" have signal installed. Now this is just an alternative to WhatsApp. I will just keep using WhatsApp.

WhatsApp and Signal do not provide the same level of security, despite what Meta might try to tell you.

> About once a week I get a notification that random person X I haven't talked to in a decade is now on signal.

Settings > Notifications > Notify when... > turn off "Contact joins Signal"

That let's me turn off annoying notifications from other people. Guess what, it doesn't help someone who would prefer not to advertise their adoption of Signal to everyone who ever had their contact details.

Really, is it so hard to think about both sides of this equation?

Hey, I was just trying to help. I didn't make Signal and don't work for them.

same. unless Signal has public metrics to suggest its reached a real critical mass, the lack of basic SMS functionality kills the app for me.

> same. unless Signal has public metrics to suggest its reached a real critical mass, the lack of basic SMS functionality kills the app for me.

Did its SMS feature support encryption somehow? Because sounds like a bad idea to include unencrypted messaging in a secure app: it's a giant footgun.

But isn't, because there's a giant icon that clearly Signals it and it pops up a warning the first time you send a message to someone new over SMS, every time. In over 5 years of using Signal, I have never sent an SMS message in the mistaken belief that it was secure, and I typically get hundreds of incoming messages per day and typically send out 100 or so.

'We're taking features away for your security' is a lowkey way of telling users that they're idiots who can't be trusted to operate their own devices. This is really pretty offensive to the people who have been evangelists for Signal for the last 6-7 years.

Telegram is an interesting comparison, because it isn't focused on security at all: it's a social network delivered through an app that looks like a messaging app.

I'm not against social media fundamentally, I'm against the lack of privacy and emotional exploitation as means to sell more ads on social media. Social media could be done solely in the interest of its users, and I think that could be fantastic. So far, Signal has a reputation good enough to make me optimistic about it adding social network features.

I definitely do not expect Signal to drop encryption by default in any feature though. That's their fundamental value.

I too am not a fan of such a move. However, their goal is to increase usage rates among the mainstream audience hence why such a feature is being introducing, just like stickers back in Dec 2019.

Though I'm not sure how many will actually use Stories. WhatsApp has something similar as well but I have never seen anyone among my contacts use it

I just want to share some stories with friends in my contact list. On Signal you don’t have “followers”, just people you are in contact with. This is an unobtrusive way to for example share something interesting, or some event happening near you and so on.

I don't see how Signal adding features that shift communications from insecure venues to private encrypted channels would lead you to think they are abandoning privacy.

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