Finally
this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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Privacy
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Now if they'd just let me run the damned client on more than one device so I can reply to messages from my tablet.
I'm running it on phone, tab (long ago), and desktop... What do you mean?
Maybe they mean how the messages don't sync between devices
Ah, I thought that was by design.
But they do sync. They just don't keep messaging history, which is, as you say, by design. Signal doesn't keep copies of your messages so they cannot give you old message history if you connect your account to a new device.
That's true, but once you trust a new device, there's no reason the authority (your phone that has all history) couldn't transfer the history over to the new client.
I get it would add some complexity, but it could be done in a secure and private way.
I feel like that is also by design. If your account is compromised, you wouldn't want them to be able to pull messages from your existing devices. It kinda defeats the purpose of them not being stored on the servers.
They could just make it opt-in, no?
"New device X has logged in to your account. Do you want to transfer existing history on this device to it?"
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They could sync those between devices on the same network. It’s definitely possible to have both.
Probably mean run it on more than one phone. I'd love to run it on my iPhone and my android phone but it can't be run without a phone number on a phone afaik
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Take a look at Molly for your tablet!
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Still sucks you will need a phone number to use it though. Hopefully they adopt meshnet type technology similar to https://berty.tech so people can communicate even when the internet is shut off across all platforms with end to end encryption
My mouth waters at the idea of decentralised, infrastructure-less, encrypted, p2p, mesh messaging
Thanks for pointing me towards Berty!
infrastructure-less
I'd say it is infrastructure-agnostic and not necessarily without infrastructure.
There's Briar, but I am upset they don't have the bluetooth mesh functionality on desktop at least yet, and I don't know if you can make it work in a VM.
I think I tired Briar, but I either couldn't get it working on android or on iOS
In the world of Mobile, you’re always going to have to have some kind of signalling protocol that will have to be through someone else Simply because establishing listening functions that help push notifications reach you at all consumes battery. In this case, I think what the real thing should be is, if we should be trusting these push notification systems We should be able to host them as well Servers we choose to associate with our devices
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Another day, another chat service.
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Why are phone numbers a requirement anyway
To validate that a user is a person. The idea is to trust the phone companies that a person who happens to possess a phone number is actually a person.
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I never said it was a good solution. There is no way to trust any validation that a user on the Internet is a person. But this way is cheap easy and most people aren't gonna go through the effort of masking their identities.
Also one discrepancy in an audit of a phone number trusted user base sticks out enough for cops to make some progress.
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People are putting too much thought into this. It's discovery. Signal is a WhatsApp alternative. You switch from WhatsApp and want to know which of your contacts you can still talk to? No action necessary, you can do it right away.
Simple as.
Try doing that without a phone number.
I guess that's true, but I'd prefer the phone number part being optional. If you don't give it, you don't get access to the easy migration or discovery features, but you get to hide your phone number.
Edit: It's not that I don't trust them, either.
You need some sort of verification that the person is a person. Phone number puts a layer between you and the service you are trying to use - the provider of the number. The provider holds your identity but only passes on a phone number.
It's definitely not ideal, but not bad
Some question to be honest. I cannot expect any privacy if I have to share my phone number.
Privacy and anonimity are different things. As long as nobody besides you and the indented destination(s) has access to the content of your communication, that communication maintains privacy, even if everyone sees that it's you talking.
Also, and this is something I mention all the time, the only information this gives is that you use signal. Besides that, as soon as anybody else registered your phone in their contact list, your phone number is already known and associated with you considering that many apps (like all the meta ones) gain access to the contact list and the chance that anybody who has your phone number uses one of those is almost 100%.
App-accessible contact lists is the original sin of smartphones. As a result, a few powerful corporations know the social graph of entire countries. The handful of people who make efforts to stay anonymous be damned - they're in the database too thanks to their friends. This one infuriating feature makes decent privacy all but impossible.
They do their best to use the number in ways no one but your contacts who use Signal can actually see what that number is, to be fair. And you're still private either way. What a phone number breaks is anonymity, which is something they don't explicitely claim to give you. (I think)
What is this stupid website. Cant open it because they have banned my IP. Why the fuck do they ban MullvadVPN servers?
Some malicious users do use VPNs to send spams and many websites automatically bans these IPs. Normally switching to a different VPN server will resolve the issue.
Banned on my VPN, too, good to know I shouldn’t be aggravated at my service.
Try a different server. I've never had any issues accessing bleepingcomputer with Mullvad.
c'mon Signal, gimme that apk & I give you some logs in return, don't make it hard on me
They want you to do just that: https://community.signalusers.org/t/public-username-testing-staging-environment/56866 That link has instructions on how to sign up.
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omg i’m so excited for this
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