Episode 080 - I don't trust Elon Musk
Added 2022-11-24 14:35:00 +0000 UTCMain article: https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/21/23472174/twitter-dms-encrypted-elon-musk-voice-video-calling
Read more metadata resistance on Cwtch FAQ: https://cwtch.im/
Comments
You painted Signal as a villan(your word) and claim they're not protecting metadata. In addition to sealed sender, Signal also has private groups - https://signal.org/blog/signal-private-group-system/, which protects group name, membership, and admin lists. Signal has been working on username support and has made several announcements this year. In August, they posted a blog about a new contact discovery system which will underlie usernames - https://signal.org/blog/building-faster-oram/. In September, their new president, Meredith Whittaker, said that usernames are coming next year - https://community.signalusers.org/t/usernames-in-signal/9157/624. It appears that you will have to register with a phone number, but can hide your phone number and present a username to others. There has been code written to support this, with a lengthy discussion in the Signal community forum, for example - https://community.signalusers.org/t/usernames-in-signal/9157/562. There are good reasons for requiring a phone number. It is a very easy way to bootstrap the network. It makes contact discovery very easy, which is important for a minority platform. I understand that this harms anonymity, but Signal does not claim to provide anonymity. It's one of the reasons I am very skeptical that Session, Briar, Cwtch, and similar messengers will gain popularity -- it's just too hard to find other people on those platforms (by design). This does not mean that they are bad technologies; just that they serve a different use case (whistleblowers communicating with journalists, for example). The phone number requirement also makes impersonation harder and cuts down on spam. Signal does not collect metadata about their users, contrary to your claims (at the 14 minute mark). Signal has received multiple subpoenas and has not been able to produce contact lists, call durations, etc.
Derek Morr
2022-12-03 16:47:23 +0000 UTCOh?
The Hated One
2022-12-02 18:05:06 +0000 UTCIt is absolutely not true to say that Signal knows who you talk to, how long, how often, or that Signal does nothing to protect your privacy beyond Sealed Sender.
Derek Morr
2022-11-25 13:06:03 +0000 UTC
