You don't need to, as facebook, messenger , whatsapp, imessage, and Telegram will be forced by the EU to interoperate with Signal and other messengers in about six months. (for now only text chat no voip in sight)
this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Privacy
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If this ends up to be implemented it's literally my best opportunity to stop using propietary apps without losing the ability to interact with friends/people using them.
I didn't know that :o
Would you have a relevant link to share so I can learn more about it please ?
do you have a source for this?
Well, Meta can still do their practices though. And I fear it will be even worse since they can know when you texted, who you texted, where you texted, for how long you texted in WA and i fear this will spread to other platforms too.
It's a tradeoff to be aware of. you will have to assess your threat model and decide which approach suits you more
Would Google Duo also need to interoperate? (Or did they remove the allo from duo again, or what was the text chat app again?)
I don't know which google product they will make interoperate. what I know is that google is already working on implementing this. Teams will probably made to. in the early stages, I read that one criteria to be designated a gate keeper is to have more than 50 million users.
I don't use WhatsApp since 2017 If someone wants to talk to me it must download Signal or no deal.
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I see a lot of people in this thread talking about an EU regulation that will allow interoperability between messengers. I'm an EU citizen living here and this is, on one hand, amazing, because we can finally ditch proprietary apps and still keep in touch with people that still use them.
On the other hand, I'm concerned about the privacy implications of this. Converting people to Signal is pretty difficult in most cases, however, once they download it and start using it, Facebook gets no messages and metadata from our chats. If this interoperability comes into play, most people will see no reason in downloading Signal, since they can chat with people on Signal anyway. This would mean, that Facebook would still get the chats.
To me, this looks like a desperate way for Big Tech to keep profiting off user data even though better alternatives exist, while making it even more difficult to get people on these better platforms.
What do you guys think about this?
These are valid concerns. But I doubt Big Tech is joyfully opening up their userbase to third parties to harvet more metadata. they would rather keep their walled gardens intact, add to that smaller players are insignificant compared the billion users these companies already serve. question mark is what other shenanigans are they going to inact once this legislation in enforced.
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Conversely they could more easily be convinced to make the switch, since they could still communicate with their contacts without forcing them (and in turn the entire social graph) to change app too.
If it's implemented well I think it will be mostly beneficial and it could actually end up slowly transitioning a lot of people to privacy respecting apps whereas before it seemed so impossible, due to this chicken and egg problem
I'm really concerned about this.
I was a very early adopter of Signal. I was using it before it was called Signal, and the voice calls used a separate app. I had also been following Moxies's work for some years prior on a Firefox extension. I got almost all my friends and family to use it, and I use it everyday.
Now though, I'm looking for a good alternative and no longer evangelize it. I don't believe conspiracy theories about Signal, but the persistent phone number requirement and the recent dropping of support for SMS in android has me looking towards a future with a different protocol.
Unfortunately, I don't think there exists yet the perfect alternative. The closest I've found for my needs is Matrix, but it isn't smooth enough for me to pressure my contacts into using it.
Yeah, they drop sms support, but still use numbers. It's pretty dumb
Phone number requirement is there to avoid spam, isn't it? How else would you do it?
Huh? I don't get spam on xmpp or on matrix, neither of which require phone numbers. I'm pretty sure Signal's main argument for phone numbers is to make it easier for people to find each other.
Great but just like with mastodon you have to find a public server that you trust and this will stop a lot of users from using yet. To stop spam you can do two things: make sing up more complicated or tie accounts to something that's not free, like a phone number. One is better for privacy the other is better for discoverability. Matrix is good for technically aware people but for general public you need something simple, like Signal.
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I am using signal with my wife and 2-3 closed friends for 3 years now. The problem with signal is that you need a phone number. Now i am using SimpleXchat which is a decentralized messenger and i believe is the future of privacy chats. Its hard to convience people to switch their daily chat app, but if tou do it i would say go with SimpleXchat.
Tried it about a month ago, it felt barebones so I deleted it but it's quickly updating, might check it again!
Your main concern I believe is to move your relatives/friends there. And for work, communication with strangers you can use your usual messengers. This way you don't lose opportunities in your career, but you protect the most sensitive information. You can tell your relatives/friends that you will not talk to them on the phone in other messengers. It is also an effective tactic.
I got my mom to switch. Well, made her to. Sent her a link to install it and just said "It's like Whatsapp, but no Facebook" along with "Keep Whatsapp for your old contacts".
Can i ask why exactly signal?
Well, it's more privacy-focused, feels like home, and it's not hard to get used to and it's not a data-hungry company like Meta or Google. Also Other platforms i tested didn't really fit right with me.
Well,I am quite suspicious just about signal as company.And have some reasons for that.
- First. https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/79127/how-cia-created-signal-messenger.html
- Second this is quite strange bug which was sending random images from the gallery to the user's contacts https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/10247
- Third
they are betraying idea to free/open source,quoting
To keep Signal a free global communication service without spam, we must depart from our totally-open posture and develop one piece of the server in private: a system for detecting and disrupting spam campaignshttps://signal.org/blog/keeping-spam-off-signal/ - Fourth Messenger Signal reported that it leaked phone numbers and confirmation codes of 1.9 thousand users. This happened due to the hacking of the Twilio database, which checks numbers. https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/4850133017242
- Fifth From new president of Signal was required to remove the registration by phone number by users.But nothing happened https://community.signalusers.org/t/usernames-in-signal/9157/622?page=29 under reasons they are fighting with spam--
Signal is not perfect, but it's still the best option we have for mainstream consumption.
The points you illustrate demonstrate that signal will not be the final form of private communication. They are poor stewards of federation, and open source, so somebody's going to eat their lunch. Sooner rather than later.
I want signal to be great, but they're too focused on control so I don't think they can let themselves be great
Hmm, good points.
Most of these have some kind of (strong or weak) counter-arguments.
I have mixed thoughts about the first point, they kinda have some good points though.2 and 4 got resolved, very critical issues nonetheless, shouldn't have happened. The 3rd point seems kinda OK, I'm sure they would like the idea of making that open-source, but that would probably make it bypassable, correct me if im wrong. I didn't know about the fifth! The reason they gave also seems defenseless.
Concerning situations for all of the points.
Not trying to hate or back up Signal here, just my opinions.
There's no reason you can't open source anti spam. The only reasons not to do so are that it's either absurdly to bypass if it's known, which makes it useless, or if they don't want it visible.
Why wouldn't they want extra eyes on it? That's how a lot of vulnerabilities get found, people actually checking the code and testing it.
That suggests some other reason, and they haven't said (that I'm aware of). Since that means that part can't be trusted, you can't trust the rest of it either. That isn't to say you can't choose to use it, but you're using it blind, which makes it no more secure or private than telegram or any other options.
Hmm, yeah true. More people can take a look at the code, find vulnarabilities and fix it. Then it should be open-source too, since it would also be hard to bypass even if that happened. So there's not really an argument to not make it open-source.
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If they don't care about privacy you don't have any argument for them to switch. I don't think you can argue that Signal is better functionally than WhatsApp, it just has better privacy.
They do still have an argument for them to switch. "if you want to message me here is how you can do it. I don't use whatsapp". No need to convince them, they can either switch or not send you messages.
That's valid but a gamble.
Here in the NL it's almost like some kind of privatized utility. It's used for sensitive things too.
A while ago there was an audit: Lo and behold the backups weren't e2ee. What ever happened to warrants?
Well I just told everyone I'm switching a few years back and that's that. And actually a lot of people switched because they preferred it over email and SMS.
It's best to avoid trying to persuade others. Just say how they can contact you and leave it at that.
Exactly, just stop using it yourself and let others know how they can still contact you. If they aren't willing to do that they aren't worth talking to in the first place.
To be fair I did have to install discord to stay in contact with a good friend. It's such a piece of junk I don't see what she likes about it, but ahh well.
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As others have already mentioned, there will be EU regulation that comes into effect soon that will force messengers to be interoperable. Despite following the topic quite actively, it still seems to be quite uncertain how this interoperability will look like. I also have some concerns about companies making interoperability opt-in, requiring users to go to the app settings and manually turning it on or presenting them with a popup that makes it seem like interoperability is a security risk (a Meta spokesperson revealed that they were pushing for a solution like that pretty heavily). Either way, before trying to get other people to migrate to another platform I would first wait and see what the implications of this regulation are.
I think it is difficult for others to tell you whether it is "worth it", because that is very personal.
For me, personally, transferring my family and friends to Signal is not worth it because Signal requires a phone number. If I will invest such an effort, I would rather help them migrate to a service that does not require a phone number - such as Matrix or an XMPP server. But needing a phone number to register might not be a problem for you - in which case Signal could be a perfectly reasonable choice.
But... Even then - is it worth it? Again, it is up to you. I tried, but my success has been limited. The reality is that I still have a phone with WhatsApp that I leave at home and I check it every day or two. I tell people that if they want to reach me, the best is to use e-mail. And to my closest friends and some of my family I did convince them to use my XMPP chat so that we can be connected more often. No one really left WhatsApp, but at least we can have some fun conversations on our own server, which is nice.
But I am not going to lie, I am sacrificing a ton of functionality and convenience. For me, this is worth it because I think that it is GOOD not to be available through the phone all the time, and I am idealist when it comes to not giving big companies our data. But for some people these sacrifices might be unsustainable, and it might not be worth it.
So: I don't know. Maybe it's worth it?
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