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01189998819991197253 ,
@01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

My only gripe with signal, is the use of phone numbers as usernames. Not everyone with whom I want to communicate via signal has a phone number. I understand why they went this route, but wish there was an alternative way.

solrize ,

What is signal anyway? I’ve never paid attention to phone apps much. Why isn’t it on F-droid if it’s FOSS? Is it like irc but with encryption? I guess I should look into it.

graphene ,
@graphene@lemm.ee avatar

Wasn’t there some controversy about Signal’s creation being supported by the US government to provide private communications for anti-us-enemy organisation or something? I’m sure I remember it correctly…

graphene ,
@graphene@lemm.ee avatar

theregister.com/…/telegram_ceo_calls_out_rival/

Alleged and mostly bullshit from the Telegram founder it seems.

sailingbythelee ,

This is a very rude question, but on this subject of being lean, I looked up your 990 and you pay yourself less than some of your engineers.

Yes, and our goal is to pay people as close to Silicon Valley’s salaries as possible, so we can recruit very senior people, knowing that we don’t have equity to offer them. We pay engineers very well. [Leans in performatively toward the phone recording the interview.] If anyone’s looking for a job, we pay very, very well.

So, I googled their tax filing out of curiosity. It’s true that Meredith pays herself much less than her engineers, which is great. What I was rather shocked to see is that they pay their software developers enormous salaries. They’re listing developers making over $400,000 per year, with their VP making over $660,000 per year. Now, I’m all for the value-creators making more money than the CEO. I just had no idea that software developers make that kind of coin. I was thinking of donating to Signal, but I’m kind of weirded out by those astronomical salaries.

mosiacmango ,

That’s inline with Silicon valley salaries. Basic houses cost 2mil there, so it’s not completely outrageous.

As an example, openai pays all its engineers 300k flat+500k/yr in some stock based asset. Another example is Netflix, who are notoriously a very fickle employer, but salaries start in the 400k range and go up from there.

Linktank ,

I mean, how does a free app with no advertising in it make that kind of money?

Twinklebreeze ,

I love the idea of signal, and want to use it and invite friends to it. But then I remember I don’t really want to message anyone, and don’t really have friends because I have no interest in messaging people.

nobleshift ,
@nobleshift@lemmy.world avatar

BTW, Moxie has a home made documentary kinda movie out called Hold Fast. It’s about sailing and uh stuff … It’s pretty keen, you should watch it.

Hold Fast

WldFyre ,

“hashtag anarchist yacht club”

Lmfao

kbal ,
@kbal@fedia.io avatar

I wish Signal was developed more openly, more like the linux kernel for a "critical infrastructure" example. I wish it had more features, so it could take the place of something like Slack. I wish it supported interoperability like fedi.

But it's good for what it is and I sure am glad it's around. People who disrespect it don't know what they're talking about.

ninjaturtle ,
@ninjaturtle@lemmy.today avatar

Isn’t matrix more like slack that you are looking for?

paraphrand ,

When it comes to security, I don’t think it’s close at all.

asdfasdfasdf ,

Why not? I thought it had very good security. It’s E2E encrypted and the government of France uses it.

paraphrand ,

Maybe I’m misunderstood. I thought I heard about terrible security implementations relating to matrix servers.

Edit: I think I was remembering this: arstechnica.com/…/matrix-patches-vulnerabilities-…

Looks like I’m mostly wrong.

noughtnaut ,
@noughtnaut@lemmy.world avatar

You know, if you want to replace Slack, look into Mattermost. It’s foss but otherwise pretty much exactly what Slack does so well.

MigratingtoLemmy ,

Time for Molly

Summzashi ,

Nobody is going to use Signal when it lacks so many features. Feels like MSN messenger compared to it’s peers.

Varyk , (edited )

what do you mean? i use it a lot and it works great, photos, videos, phone calls, optional temporary location sharing with friends, and encryption.

what features do you want it to have that it’s lacking?

trailee ,

Don’t forget voice calls! It has some rough edges there (my audio doesn’t always connect successfully, etc), but when it works the codec sounds better than a standard phone call and there’s no mass surveillance. I use it in place of phone calls for all the people in my network who have it, including my immediate family.

Varyk ,

that’s a great point, i use the voice calls daily.

added above.

Valmond ,

And video! Group video too!

vinyl ,

Yea we heavily use it in the army

Varyk , (edited )

very cool, i had no idea.

free, convenient, reliable encryption.

DoucheBagMcSwag ,

I’m guessing they probably want stickers or something

Edit: apparently this is available on signal so I have no fucking idea then

Live_Let_Live ,

My guess is it heavily private and does not have channels

noodlejetski ,

does not have channels

except that it does. you can make a public group with a shareable link, and change permissions so that only the admins can post.

Bob_Robertson_IX ,

Don’t forget, cross-platform!

Varyk ,

i totally forgot, another great point

noodlejetski ,

very weak bait

big_slap ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/316651a6-0610-4c07-af51-a2349a78c860.jpeg

Lost_My_Mind ,

I liked msn messanger when it was around.

Frozyre ,

That's not a bad thing. Maybe some of us don't want to be cluttered with a lot of things we don't really care for on using. God forbid we go back to simpler days of communication whereas now we've got things like Discord trying to charge people to pay actual money to have fancy little animations for your profile picture.

Is that what you think is missing? Stupid pointless things that make you feel special because you paid money for it when the true attraction should be focused on how much communicating can be efficient and caring about your privacy and security?

trailee ,

Signal is the best thing going on in tech these days. I’m very glad it’s being led by Meredith Whittaker.

Did you know you can get a cool badge on your profile pic if you’re a recurring donor? $5 a month is far less than the value I get from it, but that’s all it takes for a cool badge (and knowing that you’re doing something active against the awful state of big tech today).

Frozyre ,

Bless the era of technology where Signal and ProtonMail exist.

chemicalwonka ,
@chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Signal yes, Proton I have my doubts

Live_Let_Live ,

Like?

noodlejetski ,

like them embracing Bitcoin and “AI”

sunzu2 ,

Embracing is a strong statement... Their core product are their core products.

I_Has_A_Hat ,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    noodlejetski ,

    I hope the rest of your day is as pleasant as you are.

    I_Has_A_Hat ,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    BassTurd ,

    I think yours is the first comment I’ve read that has Proton hesitancy. I’m curious what your reservations are.

    aStonedSanta ,

    I keep hearing they are CIA lmao.

    Zetta ,

    I actually don’t know what people’s hesitancy is, but I’ve seen numerous people say proton is not good, we’ll see if anybody chimes in with a reason.

    forgotaboutlaye ,

    I’ve seen doubt of it’s push to pack products into it’s offering ala Google - however I don’t see that as enough to call it not good.

    It’s also very easy (and suspicious imo) for anyone to call a service not good without any reason to back it up.

    Frozyre ,

    The one and only critique I'll give to Proton is how they have it where you can have Google e-mails forwarded to you to your Proton address.

    And it's like...why? The entire reason you're going to ProtonMail is to escape Google. Why the hell would you want Google to try and pry into your Proton usage when all you want is to distance yourself from them?

    01189998819991197253 ,
    @01189998819991197253@infosec.pub avatar

    That’s not everyone’s privacy posture. Some people use Proton to hide, some people use it to secure, some for both. If your goal is to secure, google’s antiprivacy isn’t against that.

    I’m with you, though.

    linearchaos ,
    @linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

    Not OP

    There’s not a lot of negative press about them.

    They complied with Swiss government requests to out the IP of a French activist.

    It looks like they’re really doing the best they can.

    MiltownClowns ,

    Correct. They comply with court orders, its a business. People still need to be secure in how they use it, which that guy wasnt. So if you’re attempting to evade the government, use a vpn. All your data is encrypted, where you access it from and your billing information cannot be.

    linearchaos ,
    @linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

    Do keep in mind proton also runs a VPN he may have been running their VPN and they complied.

    mildlyusedbrain ,

    If he was using their VPN, they wouldn’t have been able to turn that over according to their own site: protonvpn.com/features/no-logs-policy#:~:text=No-….

    Frozyre ,

    True but the guy was the one at fault and Proton had to comply. The French Activist was using ProtonMail e-mail for bad usages which is what it boiled down to. You left out the part where they complied with Swiss government yes but they didn't with the French authorities.

    Yet it still comes down to people's own responsibility. But people love to throw that out the window and expect everything to protect them when they get up in shit.

    ElectroLisa ,
    @ElectroLisa@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Not OP, I’ve heard criticism of their recent Duo subscription and their bitcoin wallet.

    I use Proton services and my biggest gripe is their mediocre Linux VPN app. No binaries to download/Flatpak, advertised port-forwarding isn’t fully implemented and requires playing around in a terminal, and UI feels less polished than it’s Windows counterpart.

    There’s a community made Flatpak of ProtonVPN though, in case it helps anyone

    MigratingtoLemmy ,

    Swiss laws aren’t as tight as a lot of people think.

    I’d like for them to lean more heavily into open source

    sunzu2 ,

    How much signal and she spend onnthis shameless self promotion.

    JFC, if anything she is taking signal the wrong way and going the way of mozilla IMHO

    Signal is a good product but there is a lot areas where it can do better... Have gotten any new features over last 5 years? Besides aliases?

    What are they working on?

    Seen interesting discussions about how signal is farming our meta data to the feds, I was clowned a few years back on this hot take. I am very regarded though. Can anyone pitch on this tinfoil?

    Main looking to understand if that is even technically feasible?

    Im_old ,

    (almost) anything is possible with a CIA black fund budget. I’ve moved to Simplex chat and not looked back.

    sunzu2 ,

    I feel that but people can't just move since we need somebody to talk on these super duper 69 layer quantum resistant protocols.

    Looks simolex is gunning for the crown nowadays tho but there other viable contenders baking.

    Once new leader arrives, going to need to tell my group we migrating again 🤕

    Zoot ,
    @Zoot@reddthat.com avatar

    Why? Just stay on Signal. For the time being it is one of the leaders in private communication.

    Though, if you truly need secure private conversations, you would want to move around a lot anyway.

    sunzu2 ,

    For now it is the gold standard but I don't trust the leadership and their PR approach.

    I won't move until I can justify moving my friends over and right now there is no alternative

    helenslunch , (edited )
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    Wow, this is truly a hot take.

    How much signal and she spend onnthis shameless self promotion.

    Why would she/they do that? Did you realize they’re a nonprofit?

    if anything she is taking signal the wrong way and going the way of mozilla IMHO

    Oh no, not that awful non-profit Mozilla…?

    Signal is a good product but there is a lot areas where it can do better…

    The same could be said for literally every product.

    Have gotten any new features over last 5 years? Besides aliases?

    Aliases is kind of a big deal. They also added stories which, despite what the internet might have you believe, was one of the most popular feature requests on the Signal message boards for many years. They created the first and only private and secure social media platform in existence.

    Keep in mind everything they do is 10x harder because it has to meet stringent safety and security requirements.

    Check out the handle @SignalUpdateInfo to see a detailed breakdown of added features.

    Seen interesting discussions about how signal is farming our meta data to the feds.

    That’s a bold claim that I assume has some sort of evidence?

    sunzu2 ,

    Does signal meta data allow for signal to time stamp witu who you communicate using their app and servers?

    Side note, PR like that costs about 15k fyi

    helenslunch ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    Does signal meta data allow for signal to time stamp witu who you communicate using their app and servers?

    No. They use your phone number as your identifier (unfortunately, probably for spam evasion) and the only piece of metadata they keep is the last time that # connected to the server.

    We know this because Signal has disclosed subpoenas publicly.

    Side note

    No its not.

    PR like that costs about 15k fyi

    …and? My question remains.

    sunzu2 ,
    1. @yogthos what you got to say for this one?
    2. Verge doesn't run flulf for free. This is PR 101. But I trust you bro
    helenslunch ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    Verge doesn’t run flulf for free.

    The Verge makes money the same way almost every modern media publication does; advertising to their readers.

    sunzu2 ,

    Re-read what you wrote... JFC

    This can't be serious

    scytale ,

    They also added stories which, despite what the internet might have you believe, was one of the most popular feature requests on the Signal message boards for many years

    This was weird for me personally. I consider Signal a messaging tool which in my mind is separate from an actual social media app, so it was a bit of a head scratcher for me to see stories as a very popular feature request. I don’t really care about sharing “stories” in that format to my contacts or seeing theirs, but then again that’s just me.

    helenslunch ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    And I don’t care about what you think about it. If you don’t like it, disable it, and it’ll be like it was never there. Simple as that.

    Like I said before, they created the first and only private and secure social platform. Nothing else like it exists or has existed. Personally I find that super valuable.

    scytale ,

    Lol calm down, no one’s trying to fight you over Signal being the best private messaging platform. I was just sharing that it was weird to me how stories was one of the most sought out features from users.

    helenslunch ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    And I just don’t understand why so many people feel compelled to share their feelings about it any time it is mentioned.

    sunzu2 ,

    It is the internet and we are on a discussion board lol

    mark3748 ,

    You made a post in an open, public forum and you’re confused why others would like to discuss the things that you posted?

    helenslunch ,
    @helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

    I don’t understand why people feel the need to derail the discussion every time it is mentioned.

    ThrowawayPermanente ,

    In the future please be sure to get your opinions approved by the comment thread captain before sharing them publicly.

    ABCDE ,

    I was clowned a few years back on this hot take. I am very regarded though. Can anyone pitch on this tinfoil?

    ?

    underwire212 ,

    Yeah idk I’ve read it like 4 times and still struggle to find a coherent thought here.

    deranger ,

    Poster was made fun of in the past for saying Signal gave metadata to the feds. He has a learning disability (regarded = deliberately misspelled R slur). They’re looking for someone else to corroborate the metadata claim.

    That’s my interpretation at least.

    sunzu2 ,

    You sir ain't only a linguist but a regard whisper too!

    Thank you for the service!

    Lost_My_Mind ,

    “Retarded” is not a slur. It’s a medical term. “Idiot” is a slur that roughly means the same thing, though not nearly as far.

    noodlejetski ,

    “Idiot” is a slur that roughly means the same thing

    “idiot”, “moron”, “cretin” and “imbecile” were all medical terms once and described different levels of intellectual disability, but they fell out of use and are now considered offensive. language changes, and context is important.

    CosmicTurtle0 ,

    They did a blog post about how the feds had made a second attempt to get metadata from them and they could only provide two fields of information: the date the account was created and the last time it connected to the service.

    It’s in the public record as well if I’m not mistaken.

    sunzu2 ,

    The issue that if they were under FISA order or some other such shit, legally they would have to say what feds tell them, ie they would not be able to say and we give feds your logs.

    Question is whether they can technically collect the logs which is tinfoil i am following up on.

    Basic opsec thinking, if it is technically feasible, you must assume it is happening. This is game 101.

    So here we are trying to prove a negative but nobody also is able to provide anything beyond, trust signal bro.

    jollyrogue ,

    They probably have turned over logs because legal persuasion, and it sounds like they anticipated that. Moxie has been around the cypherpunk scene for a while, so they knew what they’re doing.

    Plus the paper on the double ratchet algorithm is out there. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm

    jollyrogue ,

    Signal uses Google Cloud Platform for their servers, for one.

    Then I think it’s something to do with metadata.

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