JWZ weighs in on Signal again

Man, I haven't seen a goat.se in years
- That's probably the only reason I clicked it. Honestly, kinda regret that I did because the author just seems like a dude yelling at the sky because he's wildly critical of the smallest things but doesn't offer up any solutions.
  
  So you're disappoint it wasn't a rickroll of the original image?
- Not trying to be pedantic, but the original was goatse.cx
  
  Yeah everyone likes to call it "Goat-see" or "Goat-say", but it was originally supposed to be "goat-secx" i.e. "goat sex".
- Is this a random thought or should I not click the link?!?
  Edit: oeuf. There it is. Nice.

okay

The fact that there are no interoperable third-party implementations, or even third-party builds/distributions of the Signal app
that's not true, Molly is perfectly fine

Who is this clown "jwz" and why does his opinion matter?
- He's someone that was a developer for Netscape and Firefox. I used to follow him but stopped doing so and now I find him quite annoying, haha
  I agree with him in many things but he's always replying people like he's better than everyone which makes me think he must be a very shitty boss considering he's the owner of a club.
  
  "Right about a lot of things but fucking insufferable" is an apt summary of JWZ
  
  "Insufferable ass" doesn't begin to summarize my experiences with him. But he's been right about a lot of things.
  
  This was exactly my experience.
  
  Also got the same impression back when I used XScreenSaver from jwz. I looked in to customizing the logo shown on the login dialog and some of the screensavers, only to find a rather preachy write-up on the advantages of XScreenSaver and a very stubborn affirmation that the logo is hard-coded and should not be changed because it is the identity of the program or something.
- Kids these days...

Hard to take them seriously, if they can't even use a search engine to realize most of this is complete bullshit. What is this? A Twitter post?
- What is this? A Twitter post?
  Just about. JWZ is known for his cynical hot takes on tech in general.
  I don't think any of his complaints are invalid, though his conclusions are uncharitable at best. Making a communication tool that's both reasonably secure and sufficiently palatable to people who don't know how to use computers to achieve broad adoption is a hard problem with no perfect solutions. If he has a better idea, well... he's a skilled and somewhat famous programmer; he's better equipped than most to implement it.
  
  There are some fairly good solutions tho. Matrix is still kinda half-baked (specifically thinking about 2.0 and Element X) and Conversations has limited capabilities, but they are fairly easy to use
  Edit: Although I would really wish Matrix had a 'normie-mode', with secure and reasonably easy to handle defaults

~~most~~ some of the stuff on that list isn't even true (at least not anymore) lol
- What specifically isn't true?
  
  4/5, and partially 1 bc mobcoin doesn't use pow or pos.
  disclaimer: I don't fw signal or cryptocurrency of any kind
- There are six bullet points. Which ones are no longer true?
  The only one I know of is point 4, in that you can now choose not to share your phone number. But, IIUC, the app uses the dark pattern of forever nagging you to share it, hoping you’ll eventually accidentally click the wrong choice.
  
  Point 2 is mostly not true, in that Molly exists and you can do reproducible builds with either implementation.
  
  I use the Signal a lot and have never been nagged to share my phone number.
  
  4 and 5, from what I remember you have to opt into being discoverable by number even if you give it your contacts. that said I don't fw signal for the other reasons stated, it's basically just the easiest secure alternative to texting.
  
  2 is probably wrong. Molly exists. Trademark cannot be used to prevent other implementations, just the use of the name or other dress. What may not be open is the server side code and federation is not supported.

Is there a better alternative? I don't see anything conclusive in the link on that front
- It’s like a politician, “Look how bad the others are” and then not proposing anything better (because at this moment, there isn’t).
- I sure don’t know. SimpleX is suggested, among others: https://dessalines.github.io/essays/why_not_signal.html#good-alternatives
  
  Could you explain/elaborate to a know-nothing (me) on the following from your link?:
  Caveats of federation: Metadata leaking
  When using federation, Matrix’s room states (containing a lot of Metadata) get replicated and stored indefinitely on every homeserver any user connects with or connects to. While this is a feature for enabling distributed chat rooms, it comes at a serious privacy cost.
  To avoid this, you can either disable federation, or make sure that your users signed up with no linkable identifiers other than their user names.
  
  That could work, it looks like it was a lot of features like reacts and video calls. How easy it is to setup and 'plug-and-play' will determine whether I'll be able to convince people to use it
- matrix if you want cloud storage for conversations
  jami or briar if you're okay with p2p
  simplex for the most secure cryptography and "just works" better than p2p
  
  Why do you claim simplex has the "most secure" crypto? Why is it more secure than the standard double ratchet everyone else uses?
  
  Last time I tried SimpleX, you had to scan a QR code to go from Desktop to mobile and vice versa, any chance of them changing that? Otherwise it did look promising.
- Conversations is very simple

The big upside of signal is that it is better then SMS, and has more adoption then any of the other reasonable options. Adoption is still not enough to make it that useful when compared with Messenger and SMS and even with this addressbook thing your complaining about trying to drive it.
Big downsides abound too including needing a phone number, and being tied to a phone.
- I thought they changed the phone number requirement? Or was that a fever dream I had?
  
  No, it still requires a phone number, but you can hide your phone numbers from other users now.
  
  You can share a name or handle now but I think you still need the phone number otherwise though you no longer have to share it.

Every interaction I’ve had with that person is insane. Who even are they?
- Among many other things, the person who created Mozilla/Firefox.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla#History
  
  Thanks! I only knew them as yelling, cursing, and attacking others on mastodon person
  
  More like one of many developers

- A Beehaw user using slurs, not something you see everyday....
  (I was under the impression Beehaw was "Aspiring to bee a safe, friendly and diverse place")
  
  They could just be older than 30, it's predominantly considered a slur by the young.
  
  What did he say
  
  sorry, sometimes I can't hold it back anymore. maybe I should just stay silent sometimes

Sorry but in this house we avoid jwz's opinions on things like the plague
He's like the Morrissey of foss