Let's hope they'll be able to continue to use it. It (and all other messengers with proper E2EE) is already on track to be outlawed in Sweden and France, and the new government in Germany will be pro mass-surveillance, too.
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Moral of the story? Use ~~selfhostable~~ decentralized messaging instead.
Milk is getting more expensive. Moral of the story: Buy a cow.
I really wish people would stop being so delusional about the average person’s technological abilities. jUsT TeLL grAn To sPin Up a mATrIx SErvEr.. stfu
"Everyone should be hosting a server" was NOT my point, sorry if I got misunderstood. My mother could in no way host an XMPP server on her own - but I could register her an account on mine.
Rather, I meant: a) if you can host it, suggest your friends and family to use your server; b) if you can't - that is still better: with multiple public servers available, there is no single point of failure, you can choose a server in whatever jurisdiction you want, or even an onion/i2p one.
Sorry for being harsh at the end. I just see this notion too often.
But still, your option b) is not self hosted. Maybe a better word to use would be decentralized then?
Selfhost able. But yeah, "decentralized" would be indeed a more fitting term.
That's just pedantry. 'Selfhosted' never meant that every single user has to host it themselves.
It’s not pedantry, it’s using the right terminology.
And yes, self hosted means hosted by yourself. It’s in the name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hosting_(web_services)
The promise of self hosting is that you own your data which may be better for privacy/security if you know what you are doing. The same doesn’t apply if you have to trust a third party, even if it is a friend/family member who provides you with a service they host. They become a service provider to you.
self hosted means hosted by yourself
A lot of selfhosters share with family. I'm not gonna make my wife spin up her own servers when she can use mine.
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i rather talk to my grand parents over ham radio than giving them a smartphone
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No way in hell my relatives are going to use a messenger I selfhosted. My brother doesn't even use Signal for whatever reason, even though even my grandmother has it.
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true but this is not yet easy enough for normal humans. selfhosting anything is not yet easy enough
And is potentially even less secure if someone who has no idea about managing a server at all tries to spin up an online service.
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We have never come across one that is as easy to use as Signal and has no problems with encryption, either that it can have its encryption turned off, it breaks easily or that it makes dubious claims with few-no audits to back them up.
Plus the common person enjoys the fun features of Signal or other easy messengers, most decentralised messages do not have these features, are indefinitely working on them or make them not as easy to use, leading to most being uninterested in those messengers.
We have tried most if not all of them, than most and they are definitely lacking as much as we wish they were not. Decentralised encrypted (or partially encrypted) messengers always seem to have problems whether it's with their encryption, moderation tools, connectivity or the lack of other features.
My dad just said in the WhatsApp group, why not move to signal. I tried moving friends and family before, but now that there has been anti meta media reports in some news sources. But especially reports on signal in almost every major newspaper and news source.
It seems not only a push because of privacy, but even more a anti big tech(especially us tech) and buy/use eu stuff push.
I don't mind the push I'm just curious if people stay on signal. Previous time there was a push to signal (during whatsapp technical difficulties and privacy push) people quickly want back to whatsapp.
Now my volunteer work, 1 friend and a family chat already moved to signal. The only thing I did was some explaining that you can just send images and so on. (That it's not something scary)
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Why? Because the Dutch national broadcasters keep plugging it as an alternative to Whatsapp.
Aside... Two apps keep getting mentioned as alternatives, Signal and Element/Matrix, but in MHRO both are not viable as replacements.
Signal: still a US app, CIA funded, provides their encryption backbone to Whatsapp, recommended by governments & FBI. Matrix/Element: Developed in Israel, with ties to IDF, preferred by NATO (NI2CE)
IDGAF who funds it or who develops it.
- E2E encrypted
- security review by independent party I trust which says there are no holes or bugs
- open source
Those three things are all that matters.
Just FYI:
If you want to say "both are not", you can instead use "neither".
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Signal is funded by the CIA now ? And I thought Element is in the UK?
Signal does seem to have some ties to the CIA
There seems to be a completely different Israeli company called matrix. I can't find any link between the two.
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A lot of VPN servers in Netherlands may have something to do with it.....
Fuck signal. No "privacy" focused messenger should need a phone number to register...at that point u basically handing the agencys meta data on a platter
I know it's not the best, but it is great when you want someone to shift from other popular proprietary app like WhatsApp.
Replacing one phone number based system with another may not be a wise choise.
Wrong again. Please research before you start shouting.
WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol. The difference is, it being owned by Meta, it also logs all the metadata it can alongside your real phone number.
Signal messenger uses the Signal protocol. Contrary to WhatsApp, it does not store any metadata. Your phone number is used by the Signal protocol merely as a cryptographic hash. That means, it's impossible to know who is communicating with whom.
It is not replacing "one system" with "another system". It essence, signal is WhatsApp, but with all the added spying features stripped, none added.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Getting people off of proprietary stuff is the first step. Whatever else is the next step.
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You know that your phone number is never saved anywhere? Signal only uses a cryptographic hash of your phone number.
at that point u basically handing the agencys meta data on a platter
Can you explain what you mean? I'm not sure I understand how that would work.
Well in many nation you can only get a phone number by showing ID, hence the number itself isnt anonymized. So if there is a legal request to signal they hand over the number and u already de anonymized. If you dont use your own number you have to relock signal every week (manual) so the number cant be used for account takeover....why is that lock even on a timer? That just sounds like a trap.
But lets assume u used your own number, and it gets found out. With that number it would be easy af for a state actor to send u a zero day SMS to take over your phone...there are so many reasons why a phone number is just bad to use as a identifier in a privacy focused app. The technical hurdles to allow account creation without phone number or like just to have number as optional, are very low. The official reason for the numbers is spam protection....but there are a lot of privacy messengers out there that dont use numbers and dont have a spam problem.
would be easy af for a state actor to send u a zero day SMS to take over your phone.
Two problema with this logic
- do you think a state actor needs to leak the phone number from signal to find out your number?
- 0-click SMS exploits are possibile, but extremely rare and extremely expensive. Someone with such an exploit won't burn it for random Joe.
Edit: In any case, if your security depends on malicious actors not discovering your phone number, a generally public piece of information, your have no security to begin with.
there are a lot of privacy messengers out there that dont use numbers and dont have a spam problem.
Because they have not users either. You are talking about niches in a niche segment of a niche market.
Using a phone number that is used only for account creation is a non-issue overblown by a lot of people. Your phone number is likely in the contact list of tens or hundreds of people, already comfortably associated with your name and conveniently shared with many applications that your contacts use. The association between phone number and identity is something that telco companies can already (and do) provide to authorities. The only bit of metadata that is added is that "person X uses signal" which in itself is an irrelevant piece of data.
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I would have rather seen Element but hey, it's a step in the right direction.
Why? Matrix sucks as an instant messenger app, it's better as a Slack/Discord alternative.
Only because I'm not aware of other decentralised Signal alternatives. That's on me.
XMPP
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Isn't Element based of Matrix? From what I've read, Matrix is a bit mid (not exactly mid, but I can't think of any other word).
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