Finally
Now if they’d just let me run the damned client on more than one device so I can reply to messages from my tablet.
I’m running it on phone, tab (long ago), and desktop… What do you mean?
Maybe they mean how the messages don’t sync between devices
Ah, I thought that was by design.
But they do sync. They just don’t keep messaging history, which is, as you say, by design. Signal doesn’t keep copies of your messages so they cannot give you old message history if you connect your account to a new device.
That’s true, but once you trust a new device, there’s no reason the authority (your phone that has all history) couldn’t transfer the history over to the new client.
I get it would add some complexity, but it could be done in a secure and private way.
You also can’t import history from SMS. I would love to use Signal more, but it needs to support SMS properly if they want it to be linked to phone numbers the way it is.
Yup, exactly. I switch between phone and tablet during the day and signal is the only messaging client that makes me stop what I’m doing and pick up an entirely separate device to check messages and reply. A bunch of my friends ended up on telegram or matrix because the usage model just doesn’t work for people who use multiple android or iOS devices.
Take a look at Molly for your tablet!
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Still sucks you will need a phone number to use it though. Hopefully they adopt meshnet type technology similar to https://berty.tech so people can communicate even when the internet is shut off across all platforms with end to end encryption
Another day, another chat service.
omg i’m so excited for this
What is this stupid website. Cant open it because they have banned my IP. Why the fuck do they ban MullvadVPN servers?
Try a different server. I’ve never had any issues accessing bleepingcomputer with Mullvad.
Banned on my VPN, too, good to know I shouldn’t be aggravated at my service.
Some malicious users do use VPNs to send spams and many websites automatically bans these IPs. Normally switching to a different VPN server will resolve the issue.
Surprisingly it’s fine on Tor.
Is it even possible to block Tor? You could block specific exit nodes, but not all of them unless you had a way to detect when someone was using Tor.
The list of tor exit ips is publicly viewable. Some IPS block the entire list contrary to Tor Project’s request not to do exactly that.
Tor probably can’t carry enough traffic to concern them
Noice
c’mon Signal, gimme that apk & I give you some logs in return, don’t make it hard on me
They want you to do just that: https://community.signalusers.org/t/public-username-testing-staging-environment/56866 That link has instructions on how to sign up.
Why are phone numbers a requirement anyway
People are putting too much thought into this. It’s discovery. Signal is a WhatsApp alternative. You switch from WhatsApp and want to know which of your contacts you can still talk to? No action necessary, you can do it right away.
Simple as.
Try doing that without a phone number.
To validate that a user is a person. The idea is to trust the phone companies that a person who happens to possess a phone number is actually a person.
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I never said it was a good solution. There is no way to trust any validation that a user on the Internet is a person. But this way is cheap easy and most people aren’t gonna go through the effort of masking their identities.
Also one discrepancy in an audit of a phone number trusted user base sticks out enough for cops to make some progress.
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Some question to be honest. I cannot expect any privacy if I have to share my phone number.
Download and installed but it still insists on a phone number. I don’t see a way to bypass.
I believe they still require a phone number for the TESTING phase but it can be the same oje you already use for your regular Signal (if im understanding it correctly)
Im an idiot visiting from the front page. But this headline without context is wild.
This is a feature that Session had right?
You know what Session also has? Well it ain’t forward secrecy.
True but I don’t think its that bad
how so?
Session will use full onion routing and it should hide most metadata from your communications. It also uses strong encryption so it should be hard to brute force the encryption
while the following is not really my threat model, wouldn’t a person who’s being targeted, say a journalist/activist, have a higher chance of their device being compromised (possibly even physically)? If so, would Session still be a valid option for them?
Session does NOT use the tor network. They use their own, smaller, way easier to take over network.
I never said they used the Tor network. I just said they use onion routing over lokinet. Lokinet is pretty powerful and is much faster than Tor. In the future we may see other messaging apps use lokinet assuming it works well and is secure
And I did not say you said that. Thatdoes not matter though, as what I say still stands. The network they use for onion routing is incredibly weak. Even Tor is as powerful a network as most would think.
Also: Speed does not matter. Speed ≠ strength.
Session doesn’t use phone numbers at all.
Neither does Briar or SimpleX
love me some briar, but signal is a legitimately decent privacy focued app with serious mindshare, adoption and ux/ui features. I love them both, but unless the other person is a technophile, signal is my go to recommendation and briar remains my “secret club” app.
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My exact use case haha. Became invaluable when the internet was unavailable. Used my phone’s hotspot to create a wlan, then used it to communicate with those I needed to. Communicate internetlessly with your nearby groups, brought to you by Briar.
Hmm, could you elaborate on this? What was your exact use case for Briar, how did it help solve it, and what were the challenges?
We were with several other groups and had no internet, but needed to communicate through text. Briar filled the gap with its ability to communicate internetlessly through a local network (as long as the others are on the same network). Creating a hotspot with one phone and connecting the others makes a wlan with your group inside. Could you tell me what I’m missing from my explanations? I’d be happy to elaborate further if I knew.
So if Im at a music festival or something similar and I dont have phone service I can still just make a hotspot and send messages out through the hotspot signal?? Thats so awesome if Im understanding that correctly
Only if those you’re sending to are also on the same hotspot signal. Basically, you’re creating a local wifi network, and Briar works over WLAN.
True but I like where session is headed
