Signal Is More Than Encrypted Messaging. Under Meredith Whittaker, It’s Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong

www.wired.com Under Meredith Whittaker, Signal Is Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong

On its 10th anniversary, Signal’s president wants to remind you that the world’s most secure communications platform is a nonprofit. It’s free. It doesn’t track you or serve you ads. It pays its engineers very well. And it’s a go-to app for hundreds of millions of people.

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/0QgXq

You're viewing a single thread.

271 comments

Signal's hostility to third party clients is a huge red flag.
They also refuse to distance themselves from Google's app store.
- That's outdated information:
  Molly ~5 years in development
  gurk-rs ~4 years in development
  signal-cli ~9 years in development
  Flare
  Beeper
  Go forth and contribute, fork, or create your own.
  They also refuse to distance themselves from Google’s app store.
  This link has existed forever at this point if we count in internet years: https://signal.org/android/apk/ - getting an app directly from the developer with no middleman is about as distant as you can get from Google's app store.
  
  Those clients exist despite Signal Foundation, not because they encourage community development. They are doing everything they can to discourage third party app development.
  
  They are doing everything they can to discourage third party app development.
  I'd say you're moving the goalpost. Other than the hostility the founder showed towards LibreSignal nearly 10 years ago now, can you source any evidence to support your claim?
  
  Lots of red flags here in Github: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9044
  
  That link, and I could be missing it, has nothing to do with what I claimed. Mind editing your post and quoting a red flag linked at the source you provided?
  
  Some of my favourite red flags:
  Signal's dependence on Google libraries: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9044#issuecomment-535194837
  Signal dev bullshitting a non-answer and then hilariously refuting his non-answer: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9044#issuecomment-534340623
  Signal hiding its serverside source code for many months: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/11101
  You can find many more examples.
  The last one about server side code, together with Signal's funding sources and their obsession with phone numbers code leads me to suspect that Signal is just a honeypot by US intelligence.
  
  Those clients exist despite Signal Foundation, not because they encourage community development. They are doing everything they can to discourage third party app development.
  That was your original claim. None of the sources you provided back up your original claim. We can talk about Google libraries or the delay in server side code if you want to go down that path, but that's a completely different discussion. Why are you pivoting to other topics? Will you concede your original point or do you have evidence to back it up?
  
  I wish they had Signal on F-droid but at the end of the day at least it is possible to use Molly Foss.
  
  Signal actually has a rule on not using third party clients on its servers. These clients existing do not prove the point you intend.
  
  can you post a link to this rule?
- Yeah, I would like to use it from f-droid instead of google store or apk
  
  https://molly.im/ Especially the FOSS version. Need to manually add the repository though.
  
  This is the way.
  
  Or use Accrescent
- What? How is this a red flag? Having third party clients is not good for security.
  
  Having third party clients is not good for security.
  If the first party provider told you this, you should always second guess them.
  Moreover, providing an option that informed users can choose doesn't hurt security. This idea the user can't be trusted to use the appropriate type of messaging if provided options needs to die.
  
  Is there any merit to this comment?
  
  When you use a client, you are relying on the client's crypto implementation to be correct. This is only one part of it and there's a lot more to it when it comes to hardening the program. Signal focuses on their desktop and mobile clients and they hire actual security professionals and cryptographers (unlike the charlatans in this thread) to implement it correctly.
  Having third party clients would not definitively mean the client is bad, but it most likely would break the security model. Just take a look at Matrix's clients.
  
  When you use a client, you are relying on the client's crypto implementation to be correct.
  Nothing prevents this other client from using the same as the original app. When the alt client is just a fork, it's even easier to check if they kept it intact or not.
  This is only one part of it and there's a lot more to it when it comes to hardening the program.
  Something at which even the original Signal fails. It has received criticism multiple times (1, 2) for not being verifiable whether it's been tampered with by the app's distributor, and also for having included properietary google services dependencies which dynamically load further code from the phone which is also a security issue. Worthy forks solve both of these.
  Signal focuses on their desktop and mobile clients and they hire actual security professionals and cryptographers (unlike the charlatans in this thread) to implement it correctly.
  Last I heard (a month or so ago) the desktop client had serious unfixed issues.
  I think it further erodes your point that Signal is not just hostile in terms of not wanting it, but Moxie for instance has been very, very verbal about this.
  
  Something at which even the original Signal fails. It has received criticism multiple times (1, 2) for not being verifiable whether it’s been tampered with by the app’s distributor, and also for having included properietary google services dependencies which dynamically load further code from the phone which is also a security issue. Worthy forks solve both of these.
  That's unfortunate. I do hope that these forks don't go and start making extensive changes though, because that's where it becomes a problem.
  
  No, if your system can't support 3rd party clients properly, it is inherently insecure, especially in an e2ee context where you supposedly don't have to trust the server/vendor. If a system claims to be e2ee, but tightly controls both clients and servers (for example WhatsApp), that means they can rug-pull that e2ee at any point in time and even selectively target people with custom updates to break that e2ee for them only. The only way to realistically protect yourself from that is using a 3rd party client (and yes, I know, in case of Signal also theoretically reviewing every code change and using reproducible builds, but that's not very realistic).
  Now admittedly, Signal has started to be less hostile to 3rd party clients like Molly, so it's not as bad anymore as it used to be.
  
  Appreciate the link. I still believe in Matrix, even if the client ecosystem isn't there yet. There HAS to be something to replace discord, the enshitification has already begun.
  
  I wouldn't call it a discord alternative. It is closer to fancy IRC/live forms.
  Then again I don't really use Discord
  
  Excellent point! If I'm sending someone information that could get me killed if it were intercepted by the state, I'd sure as hell want some guarantees about how the other side is handling my data. Disallowing third party clients gives me at least one such guarantee.
  
  You have absolutely zero guarantees, with or without their policy on third party apps. You can not send sensitive information to someone else's phone and tell yourself it couldn't possibly have been intercepted, or that someone couldn't get ahold of that phone, or that the person you're sending it to won't take a screenshot and save it to their cloud.
  A lot of software nowadays is doing a real disservice to their users by continuing to lie to them like this by selling them the notion that they can control their information after it has been sent. It's really making people forget basic information hygiene. No app can guarantee that message won't be intercepted or mishandled. They can only give you tools to hopefully prevent that, but there are no guarantees.
  Moreover, this policy does not exclude them from including third-party functionality and warning the user when they are communicating with somebody that isn't using encryption.
  Too many of these apps and services are getting away with the "security" excuse for what is effectively just creating a walled garden to lock users in. Ask yourself how you can get your own data out of these services when you decide to quit them, and it becomes more apparent what they're doing.
  
  A lot of software nowadays is doing a real disservice to their users by continuing to lie to them like this by selling them the notion that they can control their information after it has been sent. It’s really making people forget basic information hygiene. No app can guarantee that message won’t be intercepted or mishandled. They can only give you tools to hopefully prevent that, but there are no guarantees.
  Oh, yes. These "deleted messages", or these "hidden likes", or whatever else.
  I mean, there are fundamental things and algorithms allowing to create such a system, with blinded keys, ghost keys and what not, only these disgusting cheats have a centralized service where any employee can see everything, yet pretend that they have "a security feature".
  
  Of course, I fully agree! My point was just that you can eliminate the risk of poorly implemented cryptography at the endpoints. Obviously there's a thousand and one other ways things could go wrong. But we do the best we can with security.
  Anyway apparently third party clients are allowed after all? So it's a moot point.
  
  Signal doesn't disallow third party clients, you should always understand the risk when messaging anyone on any platform. See my post here: https://lemmy.ml/post/19672991/13312234
  
  You have no control on the receiving end. Zero.
  
  You do if third party clients aren't possible? You have control over what client the receiving end is using.
  But apparently third party clients are possible, so it's moot.
  
  Signal third party clients base off the Signal code base. They just add patches and remove certain dependencies. Also they are often more secure. You logic is from the Apple PR department.
  
  Again, having third party clients would not definitively mean the client is bad. Obviously, if it's a simple fork with hopefully small patches that are just UI changes, it's probably not going to harm the security model.
  I should have phrased this better in my original post. When I was thinking about third party clients, Matrix and XMPP immediately came to my mind. Not very simple forks. So I'll phrase this better: "Having non-trivial third party clients is not good for security." What non-trivial means is left to interpretation though, I suppose.
  
  Why do you think so? I see it as a strength in diversity and a great driving force for a proper server api
- Do you hate Signal or do you hate the west? There legitimate reasons to not like Signal but calling them hostile toward third party clients is untrue. Last time I checked Signal wasn't proprietary.
  
  They have demonstrated history of asking third party clients to not use the signal name, and not use the signal network. The client that currently exists that do this do it against the wishes of the signal foundation
  
  They have demonstrated history of asking third party clients to not use the signal name, and not use the signal network.
  The lead developer, nearly 10 years ago now, specifically asked LibreSignal to stop. A single event does not make a demonstrated history.
  Molly ~5 years in development
  gurk-rs ~4 years in development
  signal-cli ~9 years in development
  Flare ~2 years in development
  Beeper
  The client that currently exists that do this do it against the wishes of the signal foundation
  If you have evidence to back this claim, I would like to see it so I can stop spreading misinformation.
  
  In the Libra signal issue that you linked to, they made it clear they don't want third-party clients talking to signal servers
  You're free to use our source code for whatever you would like under the terms of the license, but you're not entitled to use our name or the service that we run.
  If you think running servers is difficult and expensive (you're right), ask yourself why you feel entitled for us to run them for your product.
  
  He was specifically talking to that developer. The "You" and "You're" in that quote was specifically targeted at the LibreSignal developer.
  I recall the gurk-rs developer specifically mentioned that his client reports to Signal's servers as a non-official app. The Signal admins can see the client name and version - just like websites can tell what browser you're using - and could easily block third party clients if they wanted to but they don't.
  If Signal wanted to block third party clients, they would have blocked them already.
  
  Moxie made it incredibly clear, he does not want third party is talking to the signal servers.
  Libra signal took him at his word and turn themselves off
  The other developers, like Molly, take a stronger road.
  Is signal currently banning third party clients? No. But they've made it clear they don't like them. They didn't actually ban Libra signal, they just asked them to stop. Could they ban the clients in the future? Yes
  
  I'll reiterate my statement as you didn't address it.
  If Signal wanted to block third party clients, they would have blocked them already.
  
  I respectfully disagree. They could be waiting until it becomes a big issue. Right now that would just cost them good PR, but if somebody was using the signal network and their client became very popular they absolutely have expressed the desire, intent, and as you indicated the capability to do so.
  
  They could be waiting until it becomes a big issue
  I guess I don't see that as a problem if its causing a big issue.
  Let me throw it back to you: If you were providing a service and a third party client was using your resources and causing a "big issue" like you stated, would you not want to remediate the problem? Lets say you introduced a new feature, but it doesn't work for 15% of your user base because they're using an outdated third party client that may not get fixed for another year or two - if ever. What would you do?
  Here's another example, lets say someone develops a client that lets you upload significantly bigger files and has an aggressive retry rate that as more people start using your client, it starts increasing the hardware requirements for your infrastructure. Do you just say "oh well", suck it up and deal with having to stand up more infrastructure due to the third party client doing things you didn't expect? Is that reasonable?
  
  https://hackertalks.com/comment/4806772
  They have demonstrated history of asking third party clients to not use the signal name, and not use the signal network. The client that currently exists that do this do it against the wishes of the signal foundation
  you keep moving the goal posts, Ive justified my position in the original comment.
  By all means, use signal, I do. But let's not deny the realities. I think we've covered all that we need to cover in this discussion thread. We don't have to agree and that's okay, and I wish you a good day, but I'm not going to respond anymore
  
  The servers should absolutely not trust the client. Likewise, the client should not trust the server. When that is the case it is impossible for the third client to have more functionality than the mainstream client.
  
  If you have a backdoored client, then you would naturally object to third party clients :)
  
  I haven't seen evidence to back up your claims

271 comments