Spoken like a real android user. All my iPhone friends (and especially family) refuse to download any other app, they just complain that I physically can't download iChat.

[–] hector@sh.itjust.works 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

As an iPhone user, iChat is mid. I think it’s only in the Us that it is widely used.

Embrace the beauty of Signal now

[–] JohnDoe@lemmy.myserv.one 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I use signal as well, might be worth looking into these two links to better manage expectations.

First here and second here.

Related post by Matrix here

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Kind of ironic considering that with Matrix...

Forward secrecy is kinda hosed
they store metadata permanently on their servers by design
A ton of stuff that would otherwise be invisible and signal is visible in your Matrix homeserver, including permanent history of all group membership
Your data does not belong to you, and that's how the server is built to treat it, e.g.
GDPR deletion is nonexistent (it won't delete your username or your messages, making it less effective than on Discord, let alone Signal)

... Etc.

Ironically, older federated messaging systems like XMPP might be better by coincidence. Message archiving was an optional addition and some servers, such as the popular Riseup one, do not implement it.

[–] JohnDoe@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, fair. It can't delete your messages to the extent a centralized system, and that's an indication of the lack of centralized control? It's a different threat model I think many find satisfying (though perhaps not most).

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

All those points are about how one server communicates with itself. Federation doesn't factor into it

[–] JohnDoe@lemmy.myserv.one 1 points 8 months ago

huh, yeah that's fair i did not actually notice that :/

[–] toastal@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Meanwhile Matrix was built & funded by Israeli Intelligence (to which I’m sure there are anonymous donors today). It’s expensive replication model means only those with the deepest of pockets can run a server leading many to flock to the mother instance of Matrix.org centralizing, replicating the data to a single node (being decentralized in theory, not so much is practice). It’s funny to see them call out Signal, but luckily there are private, free alternatives to both.

[–] JohnDoe@lemmy.myserv.one 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Huh, would it be possible to provide a source? I might be bad at searching, I'm not finding anything...

EDIT: Ok I found one with some search operators. I can provide links, most were less trustworthy, I'd reserve judgement.

An organization which was initially responsible for Matrix, AMDOCS, is allegedly (I say allegedly since I didn't confirm it to a reasonable extent) an organization based in Israel which appears to have products related to surveillance
By association, Matrix is tainted, perhaps it has sophisticated backdoors along with the other myriad of issues mentioned by other commenters

To give an alternative explanation with plausible hypotheses

An organization linked to intelligence surveillance, created and discarded software, which occurs with most software, and I would imagine occurs with software developed at an organization linked with surveillance as well (if it's publicly funded, i.e. by a government, I'd lean into this)
Though suspect in origin, the amount of time the software has been independent, and with its open codebase, means any backdoors or other nefarious artifacts can be reasonably said not to exist
An organization linked to an intelligence agency would perhaps be the one to expect to have a secure messaging platform, one could imagine said organization would develop a solution in-house as even with software audits, they may not be certain of any external software which may itself be compromised by an antagonist or have vulnerabilities which they could not control

Some food for thought. I'm not one to jump to conclusions, I think claims require proportional evidence, and obviously my judgement isn't the same as a security researcher or clandestine operator, so settling on what 'appears' to be true without proper investigation isn't something I do.

Thanks for the info though!!

[–] aidan@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't have time to respond to everything, so I'll just respond to the first one- which is that it's tankie copium. I don't deny the Signal Foundation might be taking money from government groups- I believe it is. But looking at the groups its pretty clear what it is, Radio Free Asia, as in the Asia branch of Radio Free Europe. Aka, their goal is to make people living in US adversaries rebel. The US does not censor private communication, it would be very quickly found out if I sent a text to my friend and they couldn't receive it, or I was sent to jail for the content of that speech.(That's not to say its not spied on though.) However, in many(most?) US adversaries there is active censorship of opposition communication, the US generally(although not always) supports the opposition by nature of them being the opposition- this is why(if you believe the narrative that everything is a cabal of the powerful) US tech companies supported the Arab Spring. This is why Radio Free Europe broadcast in support of Dubček and the Prague Spring, why they also supported the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. All that is just to say the US can follow the narrative of being 100% power seeking while still supporting open communication platforms. (After all, the US government also either directly created or contributed to SHA-2, Tor, and Ghidra too) And, Signal is open source, read the code and network traffic yourself, they won't remove encryption for US allies.

That doesn't mean they're immune to criticism, they may be able to explain it, but I personally probably wouldn't donate to an organization that has the money to pay part time developers $450,000 according to their Form 990, but its not my money so not my place to judge how its spent.

[–] JohnDoe@lemmy.myserv.one 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I think most of your criticism makes sense.

The part about "not reading private messages" I think is mistaken, or rather, maybe amiss. I mean I don't have evidence, so this is all conjecture. The sophistication of data surveillance and data gathering makes the content of the message rather meaningless in my view.

EDIT: Oh, I don't think any adversaries of US, even if working together, make any meaningful threat towards it. It's really hard to imagine, esp. considering the US has a bunch of successful coups & stuff under their belt.

[–] aidan@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I wasn't saying the US doesn't spy on private messages, I was saying Signal is open source so it would be hard to hide a back door. So I don't see how any other E2E encrypted messages could be more secret then Signal. I guess obfuscating the messaging servers.

The sophistication of data surveillance and data gathering makes the content of the message rather meaningless in my view.

That's a fair point but I don't know if there's any other good solution to that.

[–] JohnDoe@lemmy.myserv.one 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

yeah i'm rethinking some stuff too, even in some utopia i think some information related to me might make life inconvenient, so the best way to protect that (e.g. not disclosing it digitally) maybe needs outta the box solutions.

related, does anyone even bother to look at physical mail for stuff? like if i put a cipher in a letter with no return address, using that pen ink that you can erase (which comes back if you put it in a freezer) and only i and my contact have the key to the cipher which we exchanged in-person; could anyone reasonably know it?

it seems digital stuff might be a carrot for surveillance people, maybe it can be made into a honeypot and physical or analog means can make a return.

[–] aidan@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

I think finding novel ways to communicate with a specific person and not be monitored is easy. The difficulty is opening a new line of communication on an already monitored one, communicating to new people, and one of those new people not blabbing.

After all, if you play on a private Minecraft server and spell out text with dirt blocks, I don't think anyone's going to bother writing code to analyze your Minecraft network traffic.