The head of the Signal app has criticized plans in the EU to allow messengers to have backdoors to enable automatic searches for criminal content. Signal is considered one of the most secure messengers.
About freedom, not freedom and various other things - might want to extend the common logic of gun laws to the remaining part of the human societies’ dynamics.
Signal is scary in the sense that it’s a system based on cryptography. Cryptography is a reinforcement, not a basis, if we are not discussing a file encryption tool. And it’s centralized as a service and as a project. It’s not a standard, it’s an application.
It can be compared to a gun - being able to own one is more free, but in the real world that freedom affects different people differently, and makes some freer than the other.
Again, Signal is a system based on cryptography most people don’t understand. Why would there not be a backdoor? Those things that its developers call a threat to rapid reaction to new vulnerabilities and practical threats - these things are to the same extent a threat against monoculture of implementations and algorithms, which allows backdoors in both.
It is a good tool for people whom its owners will never be interested to hurt - by using that backdoor in the open most people are not qualified to find, or by pushing a personalized update with a simpler backdoor, or by blocking their user account at the right moment in time.
It’s a bad tool even for them, if we account for false sense of security of people, who run Signal on their iOS and Android phones, or PCs under popular OSes, and also I distinctly remember how Signal was one of the applications that motivated me to get an Android device. Among weird people who didn’t have one then (around 2014) I might be even weirder, but if not, this seems to be a tool of soft pressure to turn to compromised suppliers.
Signal discourages alternative implementations, Signal doesn’t have a modular standard, and Signal doesn’t want federation. In my personal humble opinion this means that Signal has their own agenda which can only work in monoculture. Fuck that.
Using mono ulture as a word doesn’t change the meaning here. If anything, its a pathway for the foal you ascribe.
I do give you credit about the second part - it would be better to have your own private key in chat apps, which isn’t handled by the app itself, at the very least to establish a shared key. I still think the existence of crypto is a massive boon to many, even in a “flawed” implementation with the “control” being on the side of corporations - tho if they are smart, they’d never store the keys themselves, not even hashes. Unless you’re part of the signal project, I doubt you know the exact implementation and storage of data they do.
Still, thanks for summarising your lengthy post, even if I had to bait you into it. Sometimes, brevity is key.
Using mono ulture as a word doesn’t change the meaning here. If anything, its a pathway for the foal you ascribe.
Of course it does. Federation can be a monoculture too (as it is with plants). A bunch of centralized (technically federated in IRC’s case, but united) services, like with IRC, can be not a monoculture.
Monoculture is important because one virus (of conspiratorial nature, like backdoors and architectures with planned life cycle, like what I suspect of the Internet, or of natural one, like Skype’s downfall due to its P2P model not functioning in the world of mobile devices, or of political and organizational one, like with XMPP’s standards chaos and sabotage by Google) can kill it. In the real world different organisms have sexual procreation, as one variant, recombining their genome parts into new combinations. That existed with e-mail when it worked over a few different networks and situations and protocols, and with Fidonet and Usenet, with gateways between these. That wasn’t a monoculture.
Old Skype unfortunately was a monoculture. Its clients for Linux (QT) and Windows and mobile things were different implementations technically, but with the same creators and one network and set of protocols in practice.
I still think the existence of crypto is a massive boon to many
That’s the problem, it’s not. You should factor psychology in. People write things over encrypted channels that they wouldn’t over plaintext channels. That means it’s not just comparison of encrypted versus plain, other things equal.
even in a “flawed” implementation with the “control” being on the side of corporations - tho if they are smart, they’d never store the keys themselves, not even hashes.
And that’s another problem, no. Crooks only steal your money, and they have adjusted for encryption anyway. They are also warning you of the danger, for that financial incentive. Like wolves killing sick animals. The state and the corporation - they don’t steal your money, they are fine with just collecting everything there is and predicting your every step, and there will be only one moment with no warning then you will regret. That moment will be one and the same for many people.
Unless you’re part of the signal project, I doubt you know the exact implementation and storage of data they do.
What matters is that the core of their system is a complex thing that is magic for most people. You don’t need to look any further.
Still, thanks for summarising your lengthy post, even if I had to bait you into it. Sometimes, brevity is key.
EDIT:
Still, thanks for summarising your lengthy post, even if I had to bait you into it. Sometimes, brevity is key.
Yeah, I just woke up with sore throat and really bad mood (dog bites, especially when the dog was very good, old and dying, hurt immunity and morale).
It was intended as an ICQ replacement, and its advocates even managed to sell it as that for many normies. It became supported, with federation or not, by many email service providers, social networks, and so on. Then that support mostly vanished. Its users percentages are not inspiring.
About freedom, not freedom and various other things - might want to extend the common logic of gun laws to the remaining part of the human societies’ dynamics.
Signal is scary in the sense that it’s a system based on cryptography. Cryptography is a reinforcement, not a basis, if we are not discussing a file encryption tool. And it’s centralized as a service and as a project. It’s not a standard, it’s an application.
It can be compared to a gun - being able to own one is more free, but in the real world that freedom affects different people differently, and makes some freer than the other.
Again, Signal is a system based on cryptography most people don’t understand. Why would there not be a backdoor? Those things that its developers call a threat to rapid reaction to new vulnerabilities and practical threats - these things are to the same extent a threat against monoculture of implementations and algorithms, which allows backdoors in both.
It is a good tool for people whom its owners will never be interested to hurt - by using that backdoor in the open most people are not qualified to find, or by pushing a personalized update with a simpler backdoor, or by blocking their user account at the right moment in time.
It’s a bad tool even for them, if we account for false sense of security of people, who run Signal on their iOS and Android phones, or PCs under popular OSes, and also I distinctly remember how Signal was one of the applications that motivated me to get an Android device. Among weird people who didn’t have one then (around 2014) I might be even weirder, but if not, this seems to be a tool of soft pressure to turn to compromised suppliers.
Signal discourages alternative implementations, Signal doesn’t have a modular standard, and Signal doesn’t want federation. In my personal humble opinion this means that Signal has their own agenda which can only work in monoculture. Fuck that.
that’s a lot of words to say you generally accuse any programm that isn’t federated of having an agenda targeted at its userbase.
And lots of social woo-woo that doesn’t extend much further than “people don’t understand cryptography and think it’s therefore scary”.
A pretty weird post, and one which I don’t support any statement from because I think you’re wrong.
No, that’s not what I’m saying. I used the word monoculture, it’s pretty good.
Not that. Rather “people don’t understand cryptography, but still rely upon it when they shouldn’t”.
I mean, you’ve misread those two you thought you understood.
Using mono ulture as a word doesn’t change the meaning here. If anything, its a pathway for the foal you ascribe.
I do give you credit about the second part - it would be better to have your own private key in chat apps, which isn’t handled by the app itself, at the very least to establish a shared key. I still think the existence of crypto is a massive boon to many, even in a “flawed” implementation with the “control” being on the side of corporations - tho if they are smart, they’d never store the keys themselves, not even hashes. Unless you’re part of the signal project, I doubt you know the exact implementation and storage of data they do.
Still, thanks for summarising your lengthy post, even if I had to bait you into it. Sometimes, brevity is key.
Of course it does. Federation can be a monoculture too (as it is with plants). A bunch of centralized (technically federated in IRC’s case, but united) services, like with IRC, can be not a monoculture.
Monoculture is important because one virus (of conspiratorial nature, like backdoors and architectures with planned life cycle, like what I suspect of the Internet, or of natural one, like Skype’s downfall due to its P2P model not functioning in the world of mobile devices, or of political and organizational one, like with XMPP’s standards chaos and sabotage by Google) can kill it. In the real world different organisms have sexual procreation, as one variant, recombining their genome parts into new combinations. That existed with e-mail when it worked over a few different networks and situations and protocols, and with Fidonet and Usenet, with gateways between these. That wasn’t a monoculture.
Old Skype unfortunately was a monoculture. Its clients for Linux (QT) and Windows and mobile things were different implementations technically, but with the same creators and one network and set of protocols in practice.
That’s the problem, it’s not. You should factor psychology in. People write things over encrypted channels that they wouldn’t over plaintext channels. That means it’s not just comparison of encrypted versus plain, other things equal.
And that’s another problem, no. Crooks only steal your money, and they have adjusted for encryption anyway. They are also warning you of the danger, for that financial incentive. Like wolves killing sick animals. The state and the corporation - they don’t steal your money, they are fine with just collecting everything there is and predicting your every step, and there will be only one moment with no warning then you will regret. That moment will be one and the same for many people.
What matters is that the core of their system is a complex thing that is magic for most people. You don’t need to look any further.
EDIT:
Yeah, I just woke up with sore throat and really bad mood (dog bites, especially when the dog was very good, old and dying, hurt immunity and morale).
XMPP was sabotaged by google (and meta) but is still alive and well.
It was intended as an ICQ replacement, and its advocates even managed to sell it as that for many normies. It became supported, with federation or not, by many email service providers, social networks, and so on. Then that support mostly vanished. Its users percentages are not inspiring.
I think you mean IRC replacement.
I think you may need some sleep man. wtf are you talking about
Perhaps you need to get some sleep if you don’t understand what I’m talking about.
I get it messenger = gun wow i didnt know!
Holstering my phone now thanks