Google created an iMessage like messaging system called "Chat".

AltTabbins said:
They have tried, been moderately successful, then axed all the progress. Then made another messaging app to add to their 7 that come pre installed on every android phone.
Click to expand...


So their solution is to make yet another program again further confusing their users instead of adding the functionality and fixing one they already have. Doesn't anyone see the irony in this and why it spells failure? the fundamental problem with android messaging is all the messengers and the lack of anyone up in google taking leadership and saying no, get all the features and shit into 1 and kill the rest and I don't care which one you pick. I suspect that Google has a culture problem where everyone wants to be able to claim on their resume they worked on the new app or was the architect of the new app and that causes them to keep making more and more of the same shit. To the end user, this is a freaking messaging program and the end user doesn't know or care why there are so many of them. These things literally do nothing that ICQ didn't do 20 years ago why is it these clowns can't figure this out?
 
RanceJustice said:
The way this is written you might consider an Android (or other) device if not for iMessage. What is so unique or important about it in your view to play such a large role?

I personally don't see iMessage as anything special from either a technical or usability point of view so I am curious. The vast majority I've spoken with who seem to place great stock in it seem to have some sort of "Apple reality distortion field" quasi-cultural answers as opposed to technical/functional, but I don't want to assume and know there are others with different rationale.
Click to expand...

iMessages big point is that for the last....decade? If has been on every iPhone. Free messaging between iPhones back when SMS commonly cost.

(edit 6/19/2019-22:12-incoming somehow tapping the left side of the screen posted...)

iMessage isn’t exactly special, it just is available. If it wasn’t available people would be using SMS or the market filling messaging clones. But why use Whataapp if the 13 people you like to message also have iPhones? Just use iMessage. If you/ or they have Android well obviously it makes sense to have them use WhatsApp or similar for free internet based messaging.
 
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Google needs to work a deal with Apple to make this compatible with iMessage.. or Apple just needs to release iMessage for android and put this out of it's misery already.. and charge like $5 for it, I'd happily pay. I'm the only one in my family that doesn't have an iPhone, I must suffer and get horribly compressed photos and videos. But I don't like iPhones enough to actually switch to one.
 
AltTabbins said:
They have tried, been moderately successful, then axed all the progress. Then made another messaging app to add to their 7 that come pre installed on every android phone.
Click to expand...

That's my take. Hangouts was a really good app for a little while IMO. Back when it integrated SMS and worked seamlessly with anyone using Gmail on a desktop. It did a good job of allowing you to send files and it animated gifs way better than anything except iMessage at the time. Video and conference functionality tied to calendar worked great. Still does since it's still alive and well on the enterprise level. No SMS, though. We use it at my company.
 
RanceJustice said:
I can't see how a semi-proprietary, non encrypted (end to end) offering is a real improvement. We've had "Signal" for years, which is open source, has end to end encryption, doesn't go through Google's servers open, and has SMS fallback among other features s described. I figure its probably the best drop-in replacement for default mobile SMS clients to date, on both iOS and Android.

There are other solutions of course depending on what features you wish, but if you want a SMS replacement (and more, as it can even do encrypted video and voice if you wish), Signal seems to be the way to go.
Click to expand...
Have you looked at Wire.
https://wire.com/en/
Plagiarizing from another post

"Fully encrypted end to end with features such as delayed send, limited life messages, the ability to delete your messages for all participants in a chat, every message is encrypted with a unique, randomly generated key so if one key is compromised a bad actor doesn't get the whole conversation, 100% open source so if you were inclined you could see and audit the code to know exactly what it does, VPN friendly, encrypted calls (video and audio with each stream being independently encrypted), and that is all in the free, basic install. Moreover, with Wire, I can have multiple profiles in the same client so if one profile is somehow ever compromised, I can switch to another and each profile is sandboxed away from any and all others.

I know Signal has similar capabilities but it is not as rigorously audited as Wire."

Thanks Burrito of Peace bluesnews forums
 
No encryption no go

I use silence for text ( sub component of signal i believe) wish more ppl would use it though.
The issue with all the fancy internet based messaging system is that well they are different and ppl need to have support for them. text works for all phones
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I guess I just don't use my phone the same way you guys do.
[EDITED TO THE PERTINENT BITS]


In the grand scheme of things though, I don't message a whole lot.

For everything else I generally just email people.

This is a mixed bag, If you are counting on encryption you could easily find yourself accidentally sending a message without it. In general, unless EVERYTHING is encrypted, it is of limited value.


This is convenient, though hardly unique.

Whats the need in a Chat app?

This is kind of wasteful in a chat app.

I see this more as a negative.

Again, this is a negative to me.

Again, this seems like a negative to me.
Click to expand...


So you don't use chat apps, and think you are the arbiter of what people want in a chat app.

For things like this that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, why the hell can't people jsut sya.. hmmm not for me, moving on quietly.

You also ignore the fact that imessage brought this stuff to the table pretty early on, and is why some of the stuff is in every new chat app. These apps also focus on the fairly restrictive ecosystem that are off the shelf smart phones. HAving a way to get media between phones was very useful, especially early on in the life of imessage.

But even so, you see a funny video, sharing the link, or sharing the actual video directly and immediately is a lot more convenient and natural for most people than saying hey... go check that dropbox link I sent you or something similar.
 
It is about time IMO. I have always liked imessage for its simplicity with features. The key being that it is already there, once you have to get people to download the same app as you to send stuff then it no longer is simple or convenient. I use my phone a lot for work, mostly because of the ease of grabbing a photo or video and having the ability to quickly send a video to a coworker is nice. Using the exchange server for email forces me to recode it for a 10mb file size which takes extra time.

SMS needs to move on it is an old format and has outlived its usefullness, it is nice as a fallback but that is about it. SMS messages get lost, anything over imessage or other apps for messaging seems to have a good record for me and my groups I message.
 
Jim Kim said:
Have you looked at Wire.
https://wire.com/en/
Plagiarizing from another post

"Fully encrypted end to end with features such as delayed send, limited life messages, the ability to delete your messages for all participants in a chat, every message is encrypted with a unique, randomly generated key so if one key is compromised a bad actor doesn't get the whole conversation, 100% open source so if you were inclined you could see and audit the code to know exactly what it does, VPN friendly, encrypted calls (video and audio with each stream being independently encrypted), and that is all in the free, basic install. Moreover, with Wire, I can have multiple profiles in the same client so if one profile is somehow ever compromised, I can switch to another and each profile is sandboxed away from any and all others.

I know Signal has similar capabilities but it is not as rigorously audited as Wire."

Thanks Burrito of Peace bluesnews forums
Click to expand...

I am familiar with Wire , its another good option worth mentioning. It has many of the same features of Signal, but I consider it more of a "Skype" replacement in that you have to create another account/identifier, as it doesn't use a phone number the way Signal does. Some people who seem to be most adamant in support for things like iMessage, Google's mobile messengers, or some of the 3rd party proprietary "mobile focused" messengers seem to place great benefit upon automatic use of a phone number as account and/or fallback to SMS, which Wire cannot do. Of course, many like Wire for exactly this reason as they prefer to create a separate account etc.

Adding to Signal and Wire, I would also suggest people look into the Matrix network ( https://matrix.org/ ) and its most polished and full featured client, Riot. ( https://about.riot.im/ ). Where Signal may be a "iMessage/WhatsApp/et al" replacement, and a Wire may be a "Skype-like" replacement, Matrix / Riot is a "Discord / Slack-like" replacement with a considerable feature set. It supports many of the same features as Signal and Wire, but is notable for being federated (ie anyone can run an instance of a Matrix complaint node/server, which is interoperable with other nods and their users) and for having "integrations" allowing you to bridge in and communicate with people on other (including proprietary, when possible) network types. It is a younger project than Signal and (I think) Wire, but it is developing nicely indeed.

There are other open source services out there depending on what users wish to do, but Signal, Wire, and Matrix / Riot seem to be solid and accessible open source and privacy/security focused alternatives to common proprietary messengers.
 
raz-0 said:
So you don't use chat apps, and think you are the arbiter of what people want in a chat app.

For things like this that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, why the hell can't people jsut sya.. hmmm not for me, moving on quietly.

You also ignore the fact that imessage brought this stuff to the table pretty early on, and is why some of the stuff is in every new chat app. These apps also focus on the fairly restrictive ecosystem that are off the shelf smart phones. HAving a way to get media between phones was very useful, especially early on in the life of imessage.

But even so, you see a funny video, sharing the link, or sharing the actual video directly and immediately is a lot more convenient and natural for most people than saying hey... go check that dropbox link I sent you or something similar.
Click to expand...

There is no need to be defensive. I'm not criticizing or making any value judgments. I'm simply asking because I am curious, and comparing it with how I use my phone.
 
Uvaman2 said:
Im with signal too wished more people would ... Why give google even more data?
Click to expand...

I liked Signal also but I could never get anyone else to use it and when I bought a new car I found that the app doesn't support external connections meaning that I couldn't send/receive txts through the media center. I'm back on Pulse for now.
 
Bankie said:
I liked Signal also but I could never get anyone else to use it and when I bought a new car I found that the app doesn't support external connections meaning that I couldn't send/receive txts through the media center. I'm back on Pulse for now.
Click to expand...
Yeah they are fairly agressive with privacy, i think none of those feature would work as they don't allow the app to be read by other apps.
 
Bankie said:
I liked Signal also but I could never get anyone else to use it and when I bought a new car I found that the app doesn't support external connections meaning that I couldn't send/receive txts through the media center. I'm back on Pulse for now.
Click to expand...

I've never had that external connections issue - I don't know how long ago it troubled you, but you may want to give it another look as Signal updates with new features every so often. I've been able to receive notifications on bluetooth connected devices (ie a smartwatch) without any trouble, but I never tried sending - though that was years ago. In the event it doesn't work for you, you may wish to go fill out an Issues entry on the Github.

It may be a design decision not to let other apps meddle with Signal itself (and a smart one at that), but common Android functions like notifications, bluetooth, and other functions (including if your car media center shows up either as a bluetooth device or a USB one etc) should work in theory as they're simply other inputs or output.
 
+1 for signal. I think I use the desktop app more than the phone one. I mostly use it to send files / links that I don't want to be freely accessible to a third party if I were to use classic email or messenger. But I also must say that I have had a hard time getting other people to install and use it.

Thanks for the information on Wire, Matrix Network, and Riot. I will have to check them out.
 
Putting your faith in "some apps encryption" to cover up your shady-ass shit in 2019 seems.................misguided.
 
HeadRusch said:
Putting your faith in "some apps encryption" to cover up your shady-ass shit in 2019 seems.................misguided.
Click to expand...


You don't have to be doing "shady ass shit" to be uncomfortable with being watched by strangers.

It's difficult to know who - if anyone - you can trust these days, but that doesn't mean we should give up and not demand more secure and encrypted features.

In the end I would prefer regulation to but an end to big data. Completely kill it. Make it illegal to collect and use data on any user, even with their consent.
 
+1 signal.

G-Corp.jpg
 
HeadRusch said:
Putting your faith in "some apps encryption" to cover up your shady-ass shit in 2019 seems.................misguided.
Click to expand...

Beats the hell out of Google reading your messages to perfect it’s algorithm of feeding you adds. That seems...................... stupid.
 
I like signal but again, having to be that guy who sends his social circle a message asking everyone to try out the next messenger is it’s fatal flaw.
 
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Oh, Google, how the tables have turned. Back to catching up to Apple, but in a half-assed way that makes sure they can still snoop on you.
 
AltTabbins said:
Beats the hell out of Google reading your messages to perfect it’s algorithm of feeding you adds. That seems...................... stupid.
Click to expand...

I'm not really disagreeing, but let's call a duck a duck: Ain't nothing in my texts that is giving Big G anything more than they already know about me. Here's what I buy, here's what I rub one out to. Here's the diseases that plague me occasionally. and I'm convinced are killing me but really it's just a rash....etc. .........now if I was up to shady assed shit.....I'd still not put my faith in the latest and greatest messenger app to have my back, is really what I'm getting at. The app may be secure, until the powers-that-be want to get at someone using the app for no-goodery ,and then the developer isn't going to be standing firm with the EFF's public-defender-class lawyers propping him up as they kick in that person or groups door, freeze all their assets and demand encryption keys. I'm not knocking the passion, mind you, I'm just saying...hmmmm......"do not put your faith in such trinkets of deceit"....
giphy.gif
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I guess I just don't use my phone the same way you guys do.

My fiance is Brazilian, so she has WhatsApp (everyone there seems to). She is my only contact in that service. We use that to communicate on a daily basis, but it is 99% short simple text messages which would work just fine over SMS anyway. Occasionally I'll send a picture, but it is relatively rare, and when I do, I'd rather it were scaled down and kept small, than these stupid multi-megapixel images our phones produce these days.

Other than that, I'm almost 40 and have a fiance and future stepson now, so the whole going out with friends thing just doesn't exist anymore. Every couple of years an old school friend is in town, and we'll coordinate meeting up using SMS, because that's what we both have. No need for sending pictures or anything when all you are doing is sending something like "let's meet at place X, and time y".

When I recently traveled to Europe for a cousins wedding, we created a few Facebook messenger groups to coordinate our travels.

In the grand scheme of things though, I don't message a whole lot. If I exclude my household messages via WhatsApp with my Fiance, I probably only exchanged a handful of text messages over the last year. I don't think any of the features above would really make a difference to me.

For everything else I generally just email people. I feel like I have better control over email than over some chat app that tries to parse and process everything I do.

Some thoughts below:


Agreed. This is convenient. It certainly helps get everyone using the same platform. Except, you still have some people on Android, and some on iOS. I guess I would prefer an industry standard.


This is a mixed bag, If you are counting on encryption you could easily find yourself accidentally sending a message without it. In general, unless EVERYTHING is encrypted, it is of limited value.


This is convenient, though hardly unique. And I can't remember the last time I found myself anywhere where I couldn't send an SMS, or needed to pay for one.



Whats the need in a Chat app? That hardly seems the place for anything full resolution. It's a place for small abbreviated chats. There are better ways to share full resolution stuff.



I kind of feel th4e same as I do with the full res images. This is kind of wasteful in a chat app. In my 12 years of using smartphones I don't think I've ever wished I could send someone a video in a chat.



Again, in 12 years of owning smartphones, I don't think I've ever sent audio in a chat, or desired to.



I see this more as a negative. I don't want anything parsing my links for me.



Again, this is a negative to me. What if I don't want people seeing that I have seen their messages?



This is how my messages currently work in SMS?



Again, this seems like a negative to me. I don't want anyone seeing what I am or am not doing.



This is convenient, yes.



I'm not convinced I want everyone to be able to find me on every platform. That, and if I had to chose one universal constant across platforms, it probably wouldn't be my phone number. I'd be much more likely to chose my email address.
Click to expand...

I say this in the most respectful way...

You old
 
Released it backwards. Should have been called: Chit.

Then when they cancel it in a year, they present: Chat.
 
iMessage uses a server to handle and google never wanted to take on the cost, that is what I think. This could be great for Android to Android text messages if it is as well built as iMessage.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
There is no need to be defensive. I'm not criticizing or making any value judgments. I'm simply asking because I am curious, and comparing it with how I use my phone.
Click to expand...

iMessage is pretty good. Taking a full size picture directly via the messenger without needing a 3rd party application was great. You can download it to your phone directly that way as well. Less cumbersome when an image makes it so much easier to figure out what someone wants you to pick up from the store or similar.
 
RanceJustice said:
I've never had that external connections issue - I don't know how long ago it troubled you, but you may want to give it another look as Signal updates with new features every so often. I've been able to receive notifications on bluetooth connected devices (ie a smartwatch) without any trouble, but I never tried sending - though that was years ago. In the event it doesn't work for you, you may wish to go fill out an Issues entry on the Github.

It may be a design decision not to let other apps meddle with Signal itself (and a smart one at that), but common Android functions like notifications, bluetooth, and other functions (including if your car media center shows up either as a bluetooth device or a USB one etc) should work in theory as they're simply other inputs or output.
Click to expand...
So ultimately, couldn't Google/Android just get updated to be the top level, middle man of sorts, for any user / external action? Google could interpret all of these notifications and interactions, capture then and submit back to homebase and carry on with business as usual ?

I feel a slap coming from someone more knowledgeable, ROM builders for instance...

But back few years ago, we all had carrierIQ, they gone, but it's like a slap on the hand, they got caught, oops let's make sure that doesnt happen again. Fix that, bake it into the OS, invisible.
 
MrkXCeL said:
So ultimately, couldn't Google/Android just get updated to be the top level, middle man of sorts, for any user / external action? Google could interpret all of these notifications and interactions, capture then and submit back to homebase and carry on with business as usual ?

I feel a slap coming from someone more knowledgeable, ROM builders for instance...

But back few years ago, we all had carrierIQ, they gone, but it's like a slap on the hand, they got caught, oops let's make sure that doesnt happen again. Fix that, bake it into the OS, invisible.
Click to expand...


I don't think any of this has to do with what can be done, it has everything to do with negotiable power. IE the phone carriers don't want to lose control of messaging. Everything they can control is another item that they can use to keep people with them. Imagine if you decided it was perfectly acceptable to do everything through Facebook, which honestly it is, you can call, video chat and send pictures and text. The phone company becomes obsolete suddenly any internet connection will do. So what stops that from happening? The answer is the phone number and the fact that not everyone is on facebook but almost everyone has a phone number. The text message and phone call via the phone number is the ONLY thing keeping the large carriers in the power position they are in now. Every item that google and apple take away from them puts them in a weaker negotiation stance.

Remember the ONLY reason Google and Android exists is that Verizon realized that Apple was literally going to take over everything if they didn't push a competitor so Verizon pushed the droid brand to fight that. So behind the scenes, I would bet that for some reason Google believes that their negotiable power is not strong enough to take over text messaging. If Google felt they could take over they would have done it already and every phone would ship with messages or hangouts by default on every carrier and they would love all that data.
 
Those touting signal; It's also not secure. The server source code is private.
The privacy rapist feds got to Signal last year and apparently the only things left on the server were messages without a timeout. Allegedly.
Another option is telegram but same shit different govt.
I'm personally waiting for retroshare to be viable on android then I'll move to that with my close friends.

rudy said:
I don't think any of this has to do with what can be done, it has everything to do with negotiable power. IE the phone carriers don't want to lose control of messaging. Everything they can control is another item that they can use to keep people with them. Imagine if you decided it was perfectly acceptable to do everything through Facebook, which honestly it is, you can call, video chat and send pictures and text. The phone company becomes obsolete suddenly any internet connection will do. So what stops that from happening? The answer is the phone number and the fact that not everyone is on facebook but almost everyone has a phone number. The text message and phone call via the phone number is the ONLY thing keeping the large carriers in the power position they are in now. Every item that google and apple take away from them puts them in a weaker negotiation stance.

Remember the ONLY reason Google and Android exists is that Verizon realized that Apple was literally going to take over everything if they didn't push a competitor so Verizon pushed the droid brand to fight that. So behind the scenes, I would bet that for some reason Google believes that their negotiable power is not strong enough to take over text messaging. If Google felt they could take over they would have done it already and every phone would ship with messages or hangouts by default on every carrier and they would love all that data.
Click to expand...
I already do this. And it is the future, wifi is so ubiquitous now you only need mobile data if out in middle of nowhere. I just borrow a hotspot for that recently. In past I just stay offline. You can still receive texts without a plan being active also.

Over 15 years ago I told customers 'one cable to rule them all' when holding an RJ45 and that turned out true.
 
N4CR said:
Those touting signal; It's also not secure. The server source code is private.
The privacy rapist feds got to Signal last year and apparently the only things left on the server were messages without a timeout. Allegedly.
Another option is telegram but same shit different govt.
I'm personally waiting for retroshare to be viable on android then I'll move to that with my close friends.


I already do this. And it is the future, wifi is so ubiquitous now you only need mobile data if out in middle of nowhere. I just borrow a hotspot for that recently. In past I just stay offline. You can still receive texts without a plan being active also.

Over 15 years ago I told customers 'one cable to rule them all' when holding an RJ45 and that turned out true.
Click to expand...

The server source for Signal is open and has been for quite some time throughout different iterations. It was even briefly federated during when CyanogenOS shipped on devices and they ran a separate server instance that was federated with the "main" one; an experience which apparently turned off the lead devs from federating with others because it became a clusterfuck. However, you can still run your own Signal server if you really wish. Find it on GitHub here - https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server - though there haven't been any compiled and ready to go releases for a couple of years, the code is still updated and if you want to compile it yourself it should be good. The updates only a month or two ago show it is not a deprecated version, as it includes Websockets support which was a relatively recent update allowing Signal to be used entirely divorced from Google services without any feature limitations.

Not that any software is perfect or bug free, but Signal has been investigated by "both sides" far more than pretty much anything else phone number linked and is one of the most secure thanks to not just good crypto, but design that limits metadata leaking and whatnot. The content on the server is relatively minimal considering data and metadata alike are end to end encrypted and stored on clients, with very sparse server info retained even before any log cleaning or dumping. I consider this very different from Telegram which has been much "friendlier" with the Russian gov't, uses homebrew crypto (a huge foul up in and of itself, and analysis highlights weaknesses in it. Crypto is something you want to leave to those who are educated and dedicated to its development. The best crypto in the world is open source/spec and widely analyzed, not obscure) and has varied settings regarding which messages may be encrypted at all. Not to mention that Telegram has a lot more proprietary software involved on both server and client side, though.

Retroshare is certainly good software, but I consider it more in the lineage of closed-friend-network-peer-to-peer like DC++ (those around their early 30s may recall how universities would have private on campus DC++ hubs for ultra-fast access to..."shared content"...at the time, versus slower forms of peer to peer from off campus. There was a time when universities had just plain excessive speeds compared to what most students could have at home with any affordability, circa early 2000's) . Its great for communicating with specific people you already know, within a closed network. This is far different from the other messengers discussed here for wider use.
 
Commander Shepard said:
I prefer messaging on Android because I can send/receive from any of my computers.
Click to expand...
Can do that on ANY Apple device. Even two different phones (different carrier and number). And it's seamless to the other user, they don't know which device you are sending it from. Standard feature. Obviously requires to own an Apple computer/tablet/phone, but that comes down to personal preference...

What service are you using on PC to do this?
 
westrock2000 said:
Can do that on ANY Apple device. Even two different phones (different carrier and number). And it's seamless to the other user, they don't know which device you are sending it from. Standard feature. Obviously requires to own an Apple computer/tablet/phone, but that comes down to personal preference...

What service are you using on PC to do this?
Click to expand...
I don't own an iPhone or Mac and am not likely to in the near or distant future. They don't appeal to me anymore. Mighty Text Pro for Android lets you message from any PC to any device. I also can message from my iPad Pro through MTP's web portal.
 
RanceJustice said:
The server source for Signal is open and has been for quite some time throughout different iterations. It was even briefly federated during when CyanogenOS shipped on devices and they ran a separate server instance that was federated with the "main" one; an experience which apparently turned off the lead devs from federating with others because it became a clusterfuck. However, you can still run your own Signal server if you really wish. Find it on GitHub here - https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server - though there haven't been any compiled and ready to go releases for a couple of years, the code is still updated and if you want to compile it yourself it should be good. The updates only a month or two ago show it is not a deprecated version, as it includes Websockets support which was a relatively recent update allowing Signal to be used entirely divorced from Google services without any feature limitations.

Not that any software is perfect or bug free, but Signal has been investigated by "both sides" far more than pretty much anything else phone number linked and is one of the most secure thanks to not just good crypto, but design that limits metadata leaking and whatnot. The content on the server is relatively minimal considering data and metadata alike are end to end encrypted and stored on clients, with very sparse server info retained even before any log cleaning or dumping. I consider this very different from Telegram which has been much "friendlier" with the Russian gov't, uses homebrew crypto (a huge foul up in and of itself, and analysis highlights weaknesses in it. Crypto is something you want to leave to those who are educated and dedicated to its development. The best crypto in the world is open source/spec and widely analyzed, not obscure) and has varied settings regarding which messages may be encrypted at all. Not to mention that Telegram has a lot more proprietary software involved on both server and client side, though.

Retroshare is certainly good software, but I consider it more in the lineage of closed-friend-network-peer-to-peer like DC++ (those around their early 30s may recall how universities would have private on campus DC++ hubs for ultra-fast access to..."shared content"...at the time, versus slower forms of peer to peer from off campus. There was a time when universities had just plain excessive speeds compared to what most students could have at home with any affordability, circa early 2000's) . Its great for communicating with specific people you already know, within a closed network. This is far different from the other messengers discussed here for wider use.
Click to expand...

Nice writeup thanks. I'd heard from multiple people that Signal was not secure on server side so will now have to dig with your info presented thank you very much.
I do prefer RS above all of them but yes closed network and hard to invite people who don't use it etc.. signal is best for this.. for now.
 
N4CR said:
Nice writeup thanks. I'd heard from multiple people that Signal was not secure on server side so will now have to dig with your info presented thank you very much.
I do prefer RS above all of them but yes closed network and hard to invite people who don't use it etc.. signal is best for this.. for now.
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Happy to help! I know that some feel that way given that the "main" Signal server is run by the developers in a centralized fashion, especially given the server is USA hosted (I think, not sure if this is still the case or not. Then again, the time the feds came with a court order they found it useless as the server retains very little metadata and thanks to end-to-end no real data). This combined with a few items that have come up over the years despite being well explained and addressed (ie. The server source wasn't available at one point, but it was released. The encryption confirmations where kinda hard to read and many people could be fooled into accepting false ones early on, so they redid things. They used Google Cloud Messaging by default as it was the best, battery and time friendly push notification setup at the time, but they soon added options to disable GCM entirely at the cost of either more battery or later notifications and eventually added a websockets implementation to completely handle it without GCM without loss of features etc..), cause some to regard it with suspicion. Likewise, the presence of phone numbers as identifiers (though VOIP numbers work of course) and the plain popularity of Signal made some wary (ie Snowden himself namedropped , but this is actually a reason why their security elements have to be impeccable as that kind of exposure is going to get everyone up to nation level actors interested; thankfully they have real cryptographers on the team ).

As far as I know (admittedly I've not looked into anything specific as of late on it), if you understand and trust Signal's code and setup, there's no major vulnerability in the way things are handled. It is important to recall that Signal is designed (lead devs have talked about this a lot) to be secure and private but also seamlessly usable. Its meant to easily allow people to adopt better security and privacy in their mobile communications and I think it does this very well, but that's its threat model. For those willing to add some degree of complexity or inconvenience there are theoretically "better" options - Wire removes the phone number requirement and Matrix (Riot) does that and more by being completely federated. There are other, more focused/limited options too, such as Ricochet which is text only and routs messages through Tor in a dynamic fashion, Briar does some sort of decentralized thing too but is Android only, Jami is a DHT powered Skype replacement yet was unstable last I used it.. etc. I think that within its "sphere of influence" of mobile focused modern messengers Signal seems to be one of the best from a technical and security perspective. However, each person has to choose the right tool for their needs and what they wish to support.
 
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