@codewiz First, the chart you link cherry-picks features that make Element look the most favorable, and is extremely dishonest and deceptive. Second, I wouldn't base my point on usability if I were you -- Signal is download the app, put in your number, and that's essentially it. Element on the other hand, you have to pick a home server, download the client,
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signup and login with email and password (which people are more likely to use bad passwords, therefore making communications less safe), verify devices, etc. Not even to mention that Matrix leaks significantly more metadata than Signal. Decentralization hardly fixes any problems, too. You can't use a different homeserver on Matrix/Element without making a new account, meaning you have to signup to a new home server, new username and password,
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@ThreeBadgersInATrenchcoat I use Signal daily with a dozen of contacts, and I use Matrix only for a few rooms bridged from IRC or from Telegram.
I don't want to take down Signal, but I'm dissatisfied with it for 3 reasons:
1. My identity is still bound to a US number, but now I'm a resident of Japan and currently in Thailand. I no longer want to pay for the US number, but Signal does not support migrating (Telegram does).
2. Lack of a web interface. All the other IMs have one, including WhatsApp which uses the SignalProtocol for e2ee. Element is a 1st class web interface for Matrix, although it's cluttered and buggy at the moment.
3. I have two phones, and I can only use Signal on one of them. There's a desktop client, and you can link iPads... so why not another phone?
Oh, and Moxie using #Signal to push his scam coin was a wakeup call that they had spare engineering resources... they're just not prioritizing user needs over monetization.
@codewiz @ThreeBadgersInATrenchcoat Users have been begging for username support for so long. I’ve seen a couple of posts on the forum asking about the possibility of supporting payments but for the most part I think everyone was shocked by this and you see it all over the place: signal’s forum, social media, the press, you name it. I really hope #signal takes notice and rolls back this joke.
I just finished reading this:
https://yorple.medium.com/in-defense-of-signal-45dd3395ba51
Each point is well argued and, not knowing much about MobileCoin's design, I'd be inclined to take the author's word for it.
I'd also be inclined to give Moxie and the MobileCoin's CEO the benefit of doubt until we see solid evidence of wrongdoing.
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However... this long article conspicuously avoids the most controversial point in yesterday's HN AMA: that MobileCoin is 85% pre-mined.
Which entity owns these coins?
Who will receive the sale proceeds?
This looks like a deliberate omission, and it casts a *huge* shadow on the intellectual honesty of the author.
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@ThreeBadgersInATrenchcoat @codewiz Yeah I agree with the author that #signal ‘s heart is probably in the right place with this move but they caught everyone by surprise and aren’t giving much of an explanation to appease people’s concerns. Hopefully we’ll get answers soon.
@ilyess @ThreeBadgersInATrenchcoat The most concerning part is lack of communication from Whisper Systems, Signal Technology Foundation, or whatever they're called today.
Users and journalists kept asking them why they were no longer releasing the server source code, and today we still haven't received an answer.
This isn't the right way to manage an opensource project, and definitely not the way to manage a non-profit funded by user donations.
@codewiz @ThreeBadgersInATrenchcoat Totally! Although #signal ‘s security and privacy is enforced by the client so no access to server code shouldn’t really be concerning, as long as published client code is kept up to date. Plus we can’t be sure what’s on GitHub is what’s running on production anyway. However, like you said it is supposed to be #opensource so the code is expected to be released on a regular basis.
@codewiz @ThreeBadgersInATrenchcoat Maybe they didn’t want to reveal their plans of adding crypto payment support so they paused server code updates until they were ready to make the announcement? Who knows? I’m just trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here 😅
#signal you turned us all to full time speculators. Speak up!
Instead of assuming bad faith, I asked the author directly 😇
There were no other comments on the article, so I assumed that comments were disabled. But it seems I'm just the first to ask!
@ThreeBadgersInATrenchcoat @codewiz Good idea! Please report back if you get a reply :)
get everyone to message you on that new account, reverify all of your devices, resign everyone you communicate with, etc. It's a nightmare. Everyone just uses the ever-bloated matrix.org home server anyway. This isn't all to say that I hate Matrix, I use it, I'm just saying don't baselessly attempt to bring down Signal in order to try to get people to use Matrix, the benefits are few and far between and for the general public Matrix is *not* the way to go.
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