pine64 because freedom.

You’re right! I don’t know either.

The facts remain, though.

Bruce Schneier is also probably just a conspiracy theorist, when he writes in 2014:

“By the way, the Register noted that Whisper Systems (along with Tor and several other privacy projects) received $450,000 from Radio Free Asia – which is pretty much an official State Department / CIA propaganda organ, isn’t it? How exactly does this work as a coherent national security strategy, when State is funding ‘privacy’ while NSA is funding eavesdropping? https://www.opentechfund.org/sites/default/files/attachments/otf2013annualreportfinal.pdf”

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/11/whatsapp_is_now.html

oh and that linked annual report of the OTF, like the following ones, doesn’t seem to be online anymore… :))

what a joke

well before 2013 it wasnt “Signal” but some proprietary software. After 2016 it wasn’t anymore “the initial phase”

Funny how you don’t seem to be wanting to see 2013-2016, but it’s OK. facts speak for themselves :)

“Between 2013 and 2016, Open Whisper Systems received grants from the Shuttleworth Foundation,[49] the Knight Foundation,[50] and the Open Technology Fund.[51]”

“Marlinspike launched Open Whisper Systems’ website in January 2013.[2][1]”

(from the page you linked)

How is that not the OTF (100% funded by Radio Free Asia) since its inception? how is it not its initial conception phase?

US government: “Make us an app that people can use so we are the only ones accessing their meta-data.” Developer: makes Signal US Government: 👍

yet it’s fair to say that:

• Signal was incepted by US gov funds
• During most of it’s initial conception phase it was US gov funded
• therefore some of the characteristics its users still suffer today (like reliance on strong selectors, pinky-promise of non-retaining metadata, centralized architecture based on the same “cloud” as the one of the CIA and other decisions hostile to free/libre software users and ethics) originate from that era.

am glad that https://simplex.chat doesn’t even need to touch sensitive personal data strong selectors such as phone numbers or email addresses!

also now that i think of it:

2. there is now a discovery mechanism of some sort… but otherwise it’s a feature and not a bug that you can only identify people whom you had an initial exchange with. much preferable than something that Signal that without asking (and without opting out?) will by default access all your contacts and match them through the use of a strong selector (phone number) also:
3. i think with the minimal knowledge the server has of its users (and the no-identity concept) this really limits risk. Also it means that for the most tight of security models, one can use their own server (which is not feasible with most other chat protocols)

so all in all: go simplex! :)

1. was apparently fixed with latest version.

simplex seems to check all boxes for respecting privacy. it doesnt rely on using any identity (no strong selectors like email addresses or phone number). seems very forward-thinking in its concepts.

sure. but you and OP are maybe not “a lot of people” anyways ;)

I have been daily-driving one for more than three years now, and totally happy with it. (with some caveats, some work and nerve-wracking moments, but that’s the exciting lot of the continous learning of free/libre computing…)

PInephone! A bit of work, requiring to not being shy opening the hood of a linux system. but totally worth it, the reward is freedom and its continuous cycle of collective learning…

(although the Pinephone is not really a “smartphone” in the sense most people use that word: a restricted computer that allows to run wallgarden applications… a pinephone doesnt natively run “smartphone apps” and is more like a full-blown, general purpose computer running GNU/linux that also contains a modem enabling calls, sms and data…)

Fine. Then Signal for the English-native-speaking dudes who think herpes is funny bro, lol…

Simplex for the rest of us, who truly value our privacy, aonymity, and not having to trust Amazon for the safety of our meta-data, lol dude

What an uneducated red herring! Simplex is not named “Herpes”… in “Herpes simplex”, “Simplex” is an adjective…

“Dude! why would you name a messaging app after a latin adjective dude!”…

Now can we resume talking about messaging protocols, and why Simplex is one of the most promising, way much better than Signal when it comes to privacy, as it enables communications without disclosing identity?

I beg to disagree: the global interception capacities of the NSA in 2012 (as showed in the very few 2013 documents from Ed. Snowden that were made public) clearly were enough to routinely de-anonymize tor. By owning a certain percentage of the global internet traffic, you de facto own tor (can very precisely correlate what comes in and what goes out, and do that retrospectively when needed).

and that was 10+ years aog…

Association with spooks is a red flag, for the multiple, endless ways they have been doing their shitfuckery, endangering the general public, the exceptional US citizens, and information/communication security at large… by weakening standards, by corrupting corporations to introduce (or leave open) some bugs, by infiltrating development teams, by pressuring operators to grant full access, by breaking and entering, etc…

Anyone who doesnt see that as a problem has to be considered as part of it. Simple, basic rule.

what does it have to do with Google’s business model being mass-surveillance, and/or them being caught several times collaborating with the NSA, the US army, etc.?

I agree that the NSA backdooring stuff is a problem too… (or even a different facet of the same problem…) Yet, one doesn’t invalidate the other…

android is spyware

The thing I find hard to convey is that FLOSS software is superior to proprietary software for many reasons, most of which are non-technical: FLOSS software is superior to proprietary software if it isn’t spying on you, if it’s governance is collective, if it’s not build to make you pay for things that should be free, if it lets you decide where your data goes, etc…

we’re often missing the point when we attempt at side-by-side comparison of FLOSS and proprietary software… It’s usually one-dimentional, and playing on our opponent’s field: these companies racketing their users based on rent-based exploitative business models will always have more resources than independant developpers to improve “UX/UI”… so I think this must not be the only prism through which reading these things.