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Signal - Increasing Popularity


alt3rn1ty

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Signal - https://signal.org/en/

Github - https://github.com/signalapp

For Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thoughtcrime.securesms&hl=en_GB&gl=US

For IOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/signal-private-messenger/id874139669

Signal Community - https://community.signalusers.org/

Reddit Signal - https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/

 

Signal seems to be on the way up at last!.
Source - https://www.wired.com/story/signal-encrypted-messaging-features-mainstream/

Facebook / WhatsApp recently has had a change to T&C's, which has resulted in an upward trend of people downloading Signal or Telegraph instead.
Source - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55634139

Facebook have <very> quickly provided a statement to try and allay public fears of Privacy mission creep ..

.. But I think the fast response from facebook is a bit too late, the horse is through the gate and is but a speck of dust on the horizon.

 

I would have preferred to use Signal ages ago (sometime after when Steve Gibson gave it some good reviews), but by that time most of the family / friends were using the more popular WhatsApp, so I have been holding out for a "told you so" moment :).

When news spread about the change to T&Cs, me and the immediate family discussed it, and while we were giving the vote on a group chat to migrate to Signal, I got a few messages from the rest of the family and Friends who had already been discussing Signal as an option - Everyone is now migrating.

Fingers crossed that Signal remains forever more my preferred messaging app, and doesn't get pressured from American Law / Gov to break it's encryption.

Being donation based, Signal may not have as much financial clout as Whatsapp / Facebook when it comes to legal pressure challenges :
"Signal is an independent nonprofit. We're not tied to any major tech companies, and we can never be acquired by one either. Development is supported by grants and donations from people like you."
Personally its rare for me to donate anything, but in this case for such an important and very well developed app, I donated. https://signal.org/en/

The situation with WhatsApp is worse than I thought initially, time to say bye bye to whatsapp .. Security Now! podcast #801 Show notes ..

https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-801-Notes.pdf

Quote

That was then. The news that the respect for the privacy of WhatsApp's user metadata is being lost has triggered a mass exodus from Facebook's in-house communications platform over to Signal, where NO user metadata is ever collected. Back in 2016, WhatsApp gave users a one-time ability to opt out of having account data turned over to Facebook. But now their updated privacy policy, taking effect next month on February 8th, is changing that. One month from now, users will no longer have that choice. Some of the data that WhatsApp collects includes:

● User phone numbers

● Other people’s phone numbers stored in address books

● Profile names

● Profile pictures

● Location Information

● Transactions And Payments Data

● Device And Connection Information

● Status messages including when a user was last online

● Diagnostic data collected from app logs

Yeah... they may not see what you’re saying, but they have and will shortly be using every other last scrap of metadata. Under the new terms, Facebook reserves the right to share collected data across its family of companies. And in some cases, such as when someone uses WhatsApp to interact with third-party businesses, Facebook may also share information with those outside entities. This privacy agreement update is a 180 compared with last year's privacy policy whose enforcement began in July. It states that users are able to choose not to have their WhatsApp account info shared with Facebook to improve the company's ads and products. But under the changes to the policy, users will now be forced to accept sharing their data with Facebook to continue using their account or, as an alternative, delete their accounts.

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PS If anyone is wondering wth Signal is, its the original Open Source which Whatsapp was based on. It's more advanced than WA in development and features, respects your Privacy and apparently is regarded as the gold standard in encrypted communications. Works the same as WA, just with a probably less cool name ( though personally I think Signal has always been cooler :P )

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007320391-Is-it-private-Can-I-trust-it-

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Just appended Reddit Signal to the OP

Signal apparently is now #1 App in quite a lot of countries, second post in the following topic :

https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/kse744/megathread_many_are_now_migrating_to_signal_as_a/

 

I wonder if Facebook are regretting the strategy of buying WhatsApp for circa 19 billion (can't remember), getting everyone sucked in, and then going for the T&C change to start monetising more metadata and whatever promise slippage / settings obfuscation would follow after that.

At the moment of the first signs, everyone has just said Foxtrot Oscar :)

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  • 3 months later...

I'd long held out and avoided upgrading my old CDMA flip phone. (I'd consulted for Qualcomm on Internet over CDMA in '93-95, and was a principal author of CDMA IS-99.) But Verizon stopped supporting it, so I'd finally had to change. Based on recommendations by friends, bought a Pixel.

The first (and so far only) thing that I've downloaded is Signal. Some of my collaborators (Phil Karn, Perry Metzger, Niels Provos) had insisted on it. Once I'd installed it, discovered that nearly everybody in my existing contact list already was using Signal.

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