this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2025
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What's the deal with Signal? (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

I don't know if I'm opening a can of worms here, and I'm still trying to backtrack a lot of history where I was tuning everything out. I keep seeing random swipes at Signal (or the representatives (?)), and I was wondering whether they are founded or just lies.Is it another situation like Lemmy where we just "take the technology and move on"? Thanks!

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Handling SMS and handling secure/encrypted messages could've made people think they communicate securely while relying on text messages instead.
Not handling SMS fixes this source of confusion and I applaud their decision.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 23 hours ago

There were ways to make it clear that it was insecure that didn't alienate an arguable majority of their casual userbase.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The problem is that most people don't want multiple text apps, they just want one. I had gotten a number of people using signal, and it was secure when we talked, but when signal dropped SMS, almost every one of them stopped using it, so then none of their conversations were secure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, the never-ending weighting between convenience and security.
But are you going to tell me that those people don't have Whatsapp, Threema, Telegram or any other IM installed and just use plain SMS instead?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Yep, just the default messaging app on their phone.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

I think the number of people who care deeply about privacy and cannot tell the difference between an sms or signal message is minimal. There were plenty of ways signal could have highlighted DANGER UNSECURE CHANNEL if they had wanted to, or made it an off-by-default option, rather than drop SMS entirely. For myself and many other people it meant that family members dropped Signal rather than have an extra messaging app, and so I'm still stuck with WhatsApp on my phone...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

If only the was some indicator for unsecure messages, such as a grey send button and an open padlock. 🙄

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think having an unlocked symbol for standard SMS would've helped that...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And you seriously think most people would look at and act on such an icon instead of just ignoring it?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Or just accept that not everyone will be having a secure conversation every time at first, but more will be secured as more and more people like me convince our family members to use it and eventually we transition everyone away from SMS?

No, of course not, why would we build a critical mass of users like that?

Since they removed SMS support almost my entire family and my friends uninstalled signal, except a few who keep it to talk to me, and my half dozen friends privacy-conscious enough to care. Dozens of people, down to eight if you don't count me, in my circles alone. Objectively, removing SMS support harmed Signal's popularity and made everyone less secure. The argument for why they did it was at best myopic and also, in my opinion, utter bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago

This feels so weird to me. I don't know anyone who has used SMS for communication in many years.