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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Privacy
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Well,I am quite suspicious just about signal as company.And have some reasons for that.
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/Okay, but what else are they gonna use? Matrix?
SimpleX, briar, session, Jami, Cwtch, ... There are plenty of alternatives these days.
yeah,or matrix or xmpp
I do not have the knowledge, time or money to set up my own servers for those sadly. And it would probably take time for my family to adjust to those.
Matrix doesn't require you to set up a server.
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.
And... people are gonna say you're spreading false information in 3,2,1...