Comment on What If: Signal Was Part of the Fediverse?

• sarsaparilyptus@discuss.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Was that the punch in the face, or was it all the morons intentionally misinterpreting this argument and saying “but why would u want to send nonsecure messages are you aware SMS isn’t secure it’s like so insecure to send SMS bro it’s not secure it’s like literally a security risk bro SMS isn’t secure at all and also are you aware SMS security is poor”

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  • dismalnow@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Not doubting that pushy idiots are going to pushy idiot, but I think you've strawmanned the actual reason hard enough.

    Most people who want it back don't need, want, or understand why secure messaging exists.

    Here's the simple facts:

    SMS is not secure, or private.
    Signal is for secure, private comms.[

    As mildly inconvenient as it is, Signal explained their reasoning in great detail](https://signal.org/blog/sms-removal-android/), and I happen to agree: There should never have been an insecure option on a secure messaging app.

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    • ebc@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Well, I happen to disagree. I’m a privacy-conscious person, but I’m not an activist. Most of my contacts in real life (i.e the people I need a messaging app to talk to) are non-technical, and not really privacy-conscious. They’re not going to install a different app just to talk to me. The big draw of TextSecure (before it became Signal) was that they could just set that as their default SMS app, and it’d magically start to send encrypted messages if the other end was also using TextSecure, and they had to change exactly 0 of their habits.

      I guess it depends on how you view it:

      1. Move as many people as possible over to encrypted comms with the least friction possible, or
      2. Provide a niche secure messaging platform for niche activists with niche needs.

      I thought the goal was 1, but turns out it was 2. All my contacts are now back to Facebook Messenger…

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      • poop@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        It sounds like you’re slightly mis-remembering this oft-cited Hacker News comment from Moxie from 2015. I’m going to quote the main bit here because honestly a lot of people in this thread could stand to think about it:

        If we were going to rank our priorities, they would be in this order:

        1. Make mass surveillance impossible.

        2. Stop targeted attacks against crypto nerds.

        It’s not that we don’t find #2 laudable, but optimizing for #1 takes precedence when we’re making decisions.

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    • sarsaparilyptus@discuss.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Question: are you missing the point deliberately, or is it genuine obliviousness?

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      • effingjoe@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        You literally made up an argument no one made in this thread.

        The fact of the matter is that it is unwise to have both secure and insecure messaging side-by-side. Depending on where you live, this could translate to a simple mistake resulting in imprisonment or worse. It's very important that a "secure messaging app" only allow secure messaging.

        You, like myself, probably live in an area where accidentally sending a message critical of the government over an insecure message would not have any tangible consequences, so perhaps you're weighing the convenience as more important due to lack of perspective.

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    • ChaosSauce@wizanons.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Totally agree. Good opsec is all about building good habits. Having 1 app for secure and a different app for normal creates a healthy compartmentalization in the mind for ease of building and maintaining habits.

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      • dismalnow@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Indeed.

        It's a very basic trade that it seems few understand. You MUST trade a bit of convenience to increase your security, or mistakes will happen.

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• Encode1307@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Same here. It’s pretty frustrating.

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• brill@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  My family still uses it vs texting. We like the video calls as well. :)

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