This is not true. Signal does not have this capability.
All user data lives in the clients. The server only moves blobs around. So it would be difficult for the server to access, alter or censor the data. The clients are open source, so they would be easily forked (like Molly has done) if they ever make changes the community disagrees with. They have countermeasures if the service is blocked, so anyone can keep accessing it.
The only risk is if they suddenly changed their priorities or how they operate, that weâd have to move to forked clients, and if they start blocking access to the service from forked clients, we would have to look for alternative servers (which are also open source). But being a non for profit, itâs more difficult and less likely for that to happen.
The same way licensing the source with GPL is a Ulysses pact to not being able to make the project closed source, no matter how tempting, making the organisation a non for profit is also a Ulysses pact. They wouldnât be able to sell the company for a profit, no matter how tempting.
I can understand the hesitation because of the network effect of the service. That it would be difficult to move services if Signal foundation went haywire. But the same way it would be difficult to move protocols if for example the matrix.org foundation started making changes to the protocol the community doesnât agree with. Which I see as a more likely scenario. Still unlikely, but more likely. Unlike Signal, the reference client implementations of the matrix protocol, element, are implemented by the for profit New Vector Ltd company, which is tightly coupled with the Matrix foundation. So I could see how a greedy and powerful person that sits in both boards could try to dumb down the protocol and servers in favour of more features and power in the clients, so that more people feel forced to use Element as their client, which is the main product of their for profit company. Sort of like what Google did to AOSP with the Play Services etc.
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I think their EMS matrix hosting services are their main productâŚ
This. People really underestimate the power of non-profits.
EMS is their main source of income, but their Element clients have more users and greater influence on how the matrix protocol is used, so Iâd consider that their main product. But thatâs just semantics.
The point I was trying to make is that because the reference client implementation is done by a for profit company, the incentives are there to enshitify it. And thatâs worsen by the close ties between the for profit company and the non for profit foundation. If Matrix were to gain traction outside the tech savvy, privacy conscious and control conscious people, element could switch the default registration service from matrix.org to an Element-controled service, claiming that itâs to ease the load on the service run by the foundation. And once their service becomes the most popular one, start analysing all the metadata that travels through their services and selling their results to advertisers and data brokers. And because of how metadata spreads across services in the Matrix protocol, if their service had more than half of the users, theyâd probably have metadata on most of the Matrix users.
Again, Iâm not saying they will, but Iâm pointing out that the incentive structure is there. Signal being a non-profit organisation, and their open source clients encrypting all data and most metadata, doesnât have those same incentives, and would have a way harder path if it wanted to do the same, despite them being a centralised service.
Yes, they can only be merged or dismantled, which are also some problems if you ask me. The second part of my message about the government is what should add some cautions in Signal case I think. Not sure if holds some authenticity but here is some reading Why not Signal? | essays
Sorry upfront if I may spread misinformation with the link here but trying to improve myself learning if there are things to be discussed
Sorry, but the article is a bit trash. First of all, Signalâs power does not come only from its open source code, but it is also court proven that it does not collect additional data.
Signal has a lot of mitigations for different attack vectors, whereas Element has recently implemented forward secrecy feature.
Suggesting Element as a better alternative is a kind of a joke. Btw, they also work with governments for funding, so does it make Element/Matrix to be absorbed by the governments? For briar, it only works on Android. For simplex, itâs a good app, but good luck finding ppl using in in their daily life.
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Canât wait to try it. WaitingâŚ
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Is the strategy to get an easy to remember username like FirstLast69 or to pick something completely random that is not connected to you?
I think the idea is to use different ones each time you connect with different people (as mentioned above).
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Yeah, I think the only reason youâd want a single username is if youâre like a journalist or something and want to post a tip line on your profiles. Since the usernames never show up again after connecting with someone, it makes more sense for pretty much everyone else to just create a username every time they want to share their profile with a new person, and delete their username and have nothing the rest of the time.
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Signal Desktop 7.0 is out of beta now !
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Is anyone able to get a username without adding a number to the end?
Nope, I think thatâs by design.
thanks. i guess that makes sense
Signal iOS 7.0 is out of beta and in stable. Signal Android 7.0 is still in beta and is testing version 7.0.2
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I see there are some bugs in how the profile names are handled while using the phone number privacy features.
Currently if you change your profile name and then enter a public group , signal still shows a notification in the group that you had changed your display name from âxâ to âyâ , even if you did that before joining the group.
I am sure that someone would have already reported this to signal and is being worked upon.
But just gave a heads up to others in meantime.
Also after you leave a group , the message âx left the groupâ leaves a permanent link to your account. On which any user can click on and dm you.
Though those message should also disappear with the disappearing messages timer set.
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