- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
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Yawn. Signal is still the easiest option to setup and perfectly fine opsec for the majority of people. For a centralized service, it is both open source and has a long history of malicious compliance with court orders. On top of that, it’s maintained by a nonprofit foundation, the best possible steward for a centralized service.
If you’re an activist or engaged in activism, use SimpleX or something similar. If you’re just trying to chat with your aunt and don’t want prying eyes seeing what you chat about, Signal is sufficient.
What’s wrong with using signal as an activist? Lots of folks use it.
Or are you saying that activists may be targeted by governments using attacks that target signal’s ui?
I’m saying that if who you talk to matters for your threat model just as much as what you say, you should pick a platform that’s more anonymous. Signal knows the IP addresses of where your messages go, and that might be enough to uncover who is talking to whom. Certain governments might find that enough cause to abuse someone they don’t like.
Signal says that you can use a VPN to hide that information even from them, but IMO, it’s better if nobody has it in the first place, if it can be avoided.
Blah blah blah. Signal is the best consumer-grade encryption messenger out there. If you think you’re going to get kidnapped and have your device stolen and be compelled to open it and don’t have another PIN on your Signal, etc., ad nauseum, rinsus washus repitus, then you’re just crying in the rain.
Get another cause. There are so many with much more important significance than this silly-assed, tired argument.
I’m guessing that JWZ isn’t a fan based on the goatse image, lol
Who is this dude and why should I care about his opinion? He seems to be annoyed about signal, but I don’t see him making any better suggestions.
Just an old FOSS coder who spews way too much vitriol about how nobody gets it except him.
He mostly wrote xscreensaver and once built a timebomb into it because he didn’t like Debian’s release policy.
And look at that article: he only links back to his own previous blog posts. Everything he writes is “I’ve been saying it for years, see how right I am?”
And I’m not even going into how dubious his timing is with yet another attack on Signal. I mean there’s nothing new in that article except “now even Trump agrees with me”?!
JWZ has had nothing but arrogant takes on a lot of things over the
yearsdecades. Mostly shitting on his fellow coders when xscreensaver really isn’t any better. He is the embodiment of FOSS meritocracy-fueled sociopathy.I don’t have a phone number.
Even my phone itself is set up as a tablet and cannot make or receive calls or texts.
No signal for me!
There are ways to game that. Use Google voice or a free voip line to do the initial setup, then just use the app and delete the voip.
It’s risky since once the voip is done, that line will be wiped, but then you’re pretty much a signal ghost.
What do you use your phone for? Do you have a separate phone for calls? Bit confused. :D
What are calls?
Signal is OK as a beginner privacy tool. Like with all gateway drugs or gateway animes or gateway videogames, you gotta start somewhere.
But it does is certainly a platform at-risk. Storage is US-centered, connectivity can be cut at any moment, and it’s quite centralized to the point of forbidding 3p clients from interacting with the main Signal “network”.
I come from the 90s. XMPP / Jabber is so much better.
FUCKING LOL that Goatse signal
