this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
489 points (96.6% liked)
Privacy
32173 readers
483 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
SimpleX is great, better than all P2P messengers
why
Unlike P2P, messenges are sent over easily replacable relay servers so both parties don't have to be online at the same time to exchange messenges.
SimpleX is special because it is the only messenger that has no permanent user identifiers whatsoever. Not even a randomly generated string of characters and numbers. This implies a LOT more privacy and security, especially for metadata-protection.
The server of Signal for example can't read your messages, but they know who sent how many messages at what time to which people. They know your entire graph of social connections. SimpleX does not.
Here's a comparison with other messengers: https://github.com/simplex-chat/simplex-chat/blob/stable/docs/SIMPLEX.md#comparison-with-other-protocols
It's decentralized, which therefore makes it harder than even Session.
It tries its best to be user friendly tho, that's a main concern of the dev. You should hear him talk in the main support group, he's really good.
You can also connect to the dev directly to express any concerns or ask questions. He will actually listen to you and shift his focus if multiple people tell him the same thing.
However, the software is only a few years old (much younger than all the other established messengers) and may not be ready for public use yet, but surely in the future.
I'm interested in the day it hits the Linux Desktop, but being even on iOS is crazy imo.
A cross-platform desktop client recently got released. Synchronization with the mobile app is not yet supported tho.
That's interesting. How do you connect to people you know then if there is no identity? Sounds a stupid question but I don't get it. You send a link? A qr? Or a temporary id like I'm Mike999 for the next 30 minutes and you tell your friend?
Finally something that sounds like speaking to someone in real life without eavesdropping. How it should be.
Yes, to first connect to someone you share a qr code with them or send them a link. The medium in which you share the link does not have to be secure, it is only to make the first connection between the two of you.
Here's a high-level overview explaining how it is possible that there are no user identifiers. Basically, with each contact you agree on different servers which relay your messages. You get separate communication tunnels for every contact. And these tunnels can be replaced by other tunnels at any time.
Thank you
You're welcome.