The Signal messenger and protocol.

Several countries have recently blocked Signal, leaving their residents without a trusted and safe place to communicate.

Just a little post to make you aware that a recent update that allowed synchronized deletion of messages between devices (ex: deleting a message for yourself only on your computer will delete it on your phone as well) also applies to the feature to completely delete a conversation.

This previously didn’t happen and is a bit annoying as I just accidentally deleted a few conversations from both my phone and computer because I was used to deleting conversations on my computer (as they’re pretty much stored unencrypted and I don’t like it)

So sadly I thought this change wouldn’t affect this feature but it did, so that’s annoying, I just lost a ton of messages and media

Im using Signal v7.15 on an OGSE with ios 15.8.2 Was trying to change my phone number but I keep having problems in receiving the OTP. Error message says there is an external failure but does not explain why. Possible solution to this? TIA

"Third Parties. We work with third parties to provide some of our Services. For example, our Third-Party Providers send a verification code to your phone number when you register for our Services. These providers are bound by their Privacy Policies to safeguard that information. If you use other Third-Party Services like YouTube, Spotify, Giphy, etc. in connection with our Services, their Terms and Privacy Policies govern your use of those services."

We work with third parties to provide some of our Services.

What type of Services? And do Signal use our contacts or something private like that for third-parties?

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/31431894

Here's what he said in a post on his telegram channel:

🤫 A story shared by Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, uncovered that the current leaders of Signal, an allegedly “secure” messaging app, are activists used by the US state department for regime change abroad 🥷

🥸 The US government spent $3M to build Signal’s encryption, and today the exact same encryption is implemented in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Messages and even Skype. It looks almost as if big tech in the US is not allowed to build its own encryption protocols that would be independent of government interference 🐕‍🦺

🕵️‍♂️ An alarming number of important people I’ve spoken to remarked that their “private” Signal messages had been exploited against them in US courts or media. But whenever somebody raises doubt about their encryption, Signal’s typical response is “we are open source so anyone can verify that everything is all right”. That, however, is a trick 🤡

🕵️‍♂️ Unlike Telegram, Signal doesn’t allow researchers to make sure that their GitHub code is the same code that is used in the Signal app run on users’ iPhones. Signal refused to add reproducible builds for iOS, closing a GitHub request from the community. And WhatsApp doesn’t even publish the code of its apps, so all their talk about “privacy” is an even more obvious circus trick 💤

🛡 Telegram is the only massively popular messaging service that allows everyone to make sure that all of its apps indeed use the same open source code that is published on Github. For the past ten years, Telegram Secret Chats have remained the only popular method of communication that is verifiably private 💪

Original post: https://t.me/durov/274

• Group call reactions 🎉
• Double-tap a message to edit ✍️
• Link preview images no longer show in the 'Shared Media' section 🏞️
• Improvements to missed call handling 📞
• Updated permissions popup UI 🍾

Am I the only one who has this issue? The volume in calls is way too low, even with the maximum volume set. Regular cell calls have higher volume and thus I can't fully switch a relative of mine to Signal.

There are similar issues on Signal's Github but they were all closed without real solutions.

I just installed GrapheneOS in my Pixel, but I couldn't fine Signal on F-Droid. Wäre should I go and geht it?I mean, its's FOSS, so I thought they'd provide an APK vor something somewhere...

Tldr: how do you modify a contact's name?

I've been playing around with these signal names functionality. Adding a bunch of people via names rather than phone numbers.

I can't seem to figure out how to change the name of the person, or add a note to the person, otherwise modify the contact in any way. So if a person names themselves a, and I talk to them, and then they rename themselves b. I have no way to know their name used to be a, or that I added them and talked to them as a. I only now see them as b.

Ideally I'd very much like to add notes, or modify the name of my contacts. For my own reference. IE Bob from the coffee shop etc etc

I'm on Android and use automatic backups. At the moment it runs daily starting at night. I use syncthing to sync the backups to my NAS. It works well.

Since my chat history almost weigh in at 10 GB I'd like to decrease the frequency to lessen the burden on the NAND in my phone.

Is it possible to automatically make backups less often than daily?

Hi all.

For a long long time I've been very happy with Signal, but have lately become rather annoyed that:

1. it too often bugs me about about an update and forces me to do an update before I can write to my single/only recipient, and
2. it too often bugs me about my pin code, even tho I never asked for such an annoying level of security.

These security measures are completely overkill for my/normal use, unnecessary, annoying and very aggressive. I'm an adult, and unless there's a super dangerous zeroday attack/vulnerability, I don't need constant forced updates, I don't want to retype a pin code for any reason or interval, and I certainly don't need to be told how I should run my system, when to upgrade or have software on my system that 'randomly' gets locked down for whatever reason.

Does anyone know how I can turn it off (Linux, Android) ? Is there another client fork that don't force me to follow their idea of what security level is necessary ?

Thanks, and apols for negativity..

We are getting Cloud Backups in the future! Currently, there are two tiers planned:

The free tier offers:

• 30 days of media backup
• ??? GB of storage

The paid ($3 / mo) tier offers:

• media & text backup forever
• 1TB of storage Both tiers' features and the pricing of the paid plan are still subject to change

What do you think about this?

Sources: SignalUpdateInfo

Many of us (or at least me) would probably like to see Signal getting decentralized. Here are a few thoughts I had about this recently.

First let me define three persons:

• Peter (using the official signal.org instance)
• Ted (using the example.com instance)
• Andrew (using his own instance under andrew.chat)

Couldn't we use the upcoming username feature to build a decentralized signal network? For example with a modified client or maybe just a modified libsignal library we could parse the instance from the username which would look like an email address (ted.42@example.com or andrew.62@andrew.chat). If the username doesn't have a domain part it just uses the default instance (so Peter just has the username peter.94).

Maybe we have some people here who are already familiar with the Signal codebase and willing to assist?

EDIT: Yes I know Session and Matrix exist but Session is to extreme and technical and Matrix is more focused on communities and groups which aren't even encrypted. Besides that both of them have a much smaller userbase compared to Signal.

I've been wanting to link my Android tablet to Signal for ages now and recently came across Molly as an alternative app to use, which allows this possibility.

To import a backup from Signal you must use a matching or newer version of Molly, though, and where Molly is 6.41.3-2, Signal is 6.43.2, so I'll have to wait a bit before I can switch, I suppose. Looking at the open issues on Github though, it seems linked devices aren't all that stable yet.

How are your experiences with Molly, if you have them?

(I came across this disclaimer too: "unofficial forks are not supposed to use Signal’s infrastructure so Molly violates Signal’s TOS".)

Tl;Dr: Beeper has rolled out a new app, Beeper Mini, just for iMessage. It claims that the new app is a privacy improvement over the standard Beeper app (now called "Beeper Cloud")

The claims:

All messages are end-to-end encrypted before being sent. Beeper (and Apple) cannot see your messages.

Encryption keys never leave your device.

Beeper Mini connects directly to Apple servers. There is no Mac server relay, like other apps.

No Apple ID is required. Beeper does not have access to your Apple account.

Your contact list never leaves your device.

In another post, Beeper says they plan to add Signal to Beeper Mini.

I currently use Beeper, but I do not give it access to my Signal messages.

If these new claims about Beeper Mini are true, though, and if Signal is ever supported in Beeper Mini.... I might actually consider bringing it in. I would love to have fewer chat apps!