The Signal messenger and protocol.

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Signal changelog (programming.dev)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] teolan 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The purpose of an app like Signal is specifically to be able to share stuff with people.

What makes it private is that you are in full control over who can see what you send. You're arguing that for something to be private it must prevent you from sending what you want to send.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah you're right, with your viewpoint I can see the hole in my almost cyclic logic, so I appreciate your take on things.

I'm not too bothered about what is being sent with user consent - another user made a facetious comment about sending SSNs which is fair enough, if that's what someone wants to send then wire in - but I think the key worry for me is the constant sending of identifiable and locatable data, something a little more than a single instance of encypted data sent at a user request, but the idea of a stream of data broadcast in the background which doesn't sit right with me.

That said, I'm not overly arsed either way, it's not a deal-breaker for me and it was a useful feature when I was a WhatsApp user when on holiday with family and friends.

[–] teolan 0 points 10 months ago

I’m not too bothered about what is being sent with user consent

For an app to be private, it shouldn't be about "consent", but it should be about "demand". Send something only if the user demands it, not if they agreed to it. This goes with the principle of least surprise and the idea that the app should only act for the interest of the user.

the constant sending of identifiable and locatable data

Have you ever used such feature? I don't think you understand what is being asked. We're not talking about constant background location sharing (like I think snapchat is doing). We are talking about live location sharing with a contact or a group, for a limited period of time.

Here how it works in Facebook Messenger. The location is shared explicitly with a specific group of people for a limited time period, and the UI should make it pretty hard to forget, and deactivate automatically after a certain time.