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Signal is just a company selling privacy (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 1 year ago by gthutbwdy@lemmy.sdf.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Signal is a centralized app, run by a company. If they are offered enough money or legal threat they will sell out or close.

I am sure people will make an argument that its FOSS and people will just fork it if it goes bad, but a new fork will have 0 users and Signal will still have all of your old contacts. Why not make a switch now? Before it is even more popular and you have more reasons to stay? Why fork it if there are already decentralized apps that use same encryption, like XMPP apps?

Sure you can find flaws in every app, including XMPP implementations, but if we will have to write code for a new Signal fork, why not just fix whatever is that bugs you in XMPP clients?

If you want to use Matrix, that is fine as well, we can always bridge the two open protocols. But you cant bridge Signal if their company doesn't allow it.

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[–] gthutbwdy@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I dont know why I cant reply to any of you in this thread. EDIT: I will do it here:

That’s a terrible line of thinking. Why not just use it till the end, if it ever comes?

It is perfectly reasonable to sail on a solid boat instead of jumping from one sinking ship to another.

I get that you want to promote XMPP but accusing others of corruption is not how to do it, unless you have solid proof of it. Do you have any sources suggesting Signal has sold data?

I never mentioned in my main post that Signal is selling data and I also clarified in this post what I was exactly referring to. It is unreasonable to put words in my mouth

Either you have some centralization to help facilitate its ease-of-use for customers, or it becomes more difficult to setup and use. Much like the rest of life, there are trade-offs.

I disagree. There are many decentralized apps that are easier to use than centralized apps, including Signal. It is simpler to create an account on a P2P app like Briar then a centralized app that requires a phone number like Signal.

See the difference is, you need to convince non-technical people to use xmpp. Most of my non-technical friends already have Signal, no convincing required.

Every XMPP server gets as much as data from your private messages as Signal does and since XMPP clients have an option for using Tor, unlike Signal, it requires even less trust with data.

The benefits of decentralized network compared to centralized are very significant and worth trying to convince your friends. There is no single point of failure. If Signal closes due to government pressure, you will need to convince them to another app anyway and at that time there might be another popular centralized app that will again close after certain amount of pressure. The only way out of this is by pushing decentralized apps and pushing them now, rather then latter.

Signal launched in 2014 and is open source. It is literally impossible for them to “sell out”. If the main developers want to stop developing it, it will simply be forked. Do you even understand what open source software is?

I understand what open source is and I fully understand the dangers of centralized apps as well. I have addressed these arguments in my main post already. If it gets forked we will need to again develop a new app and grow the userbase from scratch. It is far more reasonable to make a switch now to decentralized services. I am simply trying to explain to people the dangers of centralized apps, just like I did for reddit (which was also open source centralized app until 2017 and here we are on decentralized lemmy now). Seeing people fighting for decentralization, out of no possible personal goal, while defending centralized system run by small group of people that gain funding for it, should never sicken you. You should encourage people like me that try to warn you in time and let you know about alternatives instead of booing me off, like people did lemmy advocates on reddit before this recent scandal.

As you can see I spent a lot of time trying to teach people about this stuff to make an actual social change that will benefit us all, so please read about XMPP and think about it. Spread the word, because I can't possibly reach everybody.