> I think they are not in touch with the needs of people.

Sadly, this has been true of Signal for a long time. Signal marches only to its own beat, and is quite slow to address real needs of most people.

I don't know why you're getting down-voted. It's an accurate statement that many loyal Signal users can attest to. Signal has been my primary messaging app for years now, but that's my main issue with them outside of group MMS issues still being problematic all these years. Their slow response or lack of care was especially apparent after the huge outcry over constant nag notifications for verifying PIN, setting a profile name, and asking contacts to join Signal. It's like they don't understand how badly they need better adoption for Signal to be effective. If 90% or greater of my contacts don't use Signal, then what good is that? They need to start listening to their users better.

I do think that things like emojis and the (now fixed) link previews do help with adoption. But I think there is another and more compelling adoption method given the current state of the world: privacy and security. The reason people are turning to telegram is because they think it is secure. Signal will never gain mass adoption without good groups. And honestly, they probably need channels too. If it had both those things then all these protestors would turn towards Signal. After all, isn't that why they get funding from the US government? To "enable" democracy in other countries?

I was pitching the following idea to a friend of mine yesterday:

- the UI should hide e2e/“reallyprivate” conversations by default - as in "not visible anywhere" (edit: unless the app is in the foreground and you are chatting of course)

Unless you:

- do the “add a new user/conversation" - then instead of adding mail/GUID/phone you add a whatevercanberemembered number/emoji/sentence that unlocks the private conversation you initiated long before

There should be no trace in the UI that private conversations are going on.

What does HN think ? Why hasn't it been done before ?

Edit: there could even be notifications disguised as another app (news subscriptions, medical reminders, battery low, etc.)

This doesn't give you plausible deniability if law enforcement gets their hands on your unlocked phone, as they can see that the file size of the encrypted message logs doesn't match the visible content. If the phone is jailbroken and the key for the message logs is leaked, it doesn't help at all.

Security by obscurity is never a win.

Wouldn't the solution here just be to allocate a larger disk space and encrypt that? Then when the space is filled up you expand again? I've seen this done before.

Rather I'd change the GP's solution to having a secret vault in an already encrypted chat system (so you can do the above), essentially making it two layers. Just the second layer isn't a button that says "look at me, I'm where all the real secret shit is."

I agree that security through obscurity isn't a winning solution, but it is part of the toolkit. It would just be dumb to rely on your security solely being obscurity. Encrypted steganography is still a powerful tool, hackers obscure code, and real spies use obscurity all the time. It just isn't the dominant factor.

> This doesn't give you plausible deniability if law enforcement gets their hands on your unlocked phone, as they can see that the file size of the encrypted message logs doesn't match the visible content.

Hmmm. What about from the get-go saying that the app allocates 100Mbytes of space and fills it randomly at regular time until some encrypted content is generated. That'd put a 100Mbytes log/message limit to conversations but that'd be by design and nobody could be sure those bytes are random or genuine messages.

> If the phone is jailbroken and the key for the message logs is leaked, it doesn't help at all.

Why would the key get leaked if it's never stored ?

> . We should look at why people are turning to Telegram when protesting.

Every single person I know who uses Telegram does it for either porn or piracy or both. So using what you already have for protests if they occur makes sense. Trying to get ppl to install a different app is much more complicated at this point. Sometimes may even be prevented by the regime.

That must be a generational/geolocational thing. I've never even heard either of them was available in the app.

Maybe geological but surely not generational.

What it also is here is male. I haven't met a single woman in Germany who'd have the app.

See, the lack of bidirectional deletion is one of the reasons I prefer Signal. Nobody other than me should have the ability to delete data on my device.

There are two parties in a conversation. Both 'own' the conversation. Both have a 'veto' right.

I disagree. I see my phone as an extension of my brain. If I have an in-person conversation, the other party can't force me to forget the conversation, and they shouldn't have that ability for my phone either.

What if only the other partys messages where deleted?

In telegram it is understood that 'secret chats' constitutes confidentiality. As such, both parties, I believe, ought to be able to delete everything.

I kind of see you point about non-secret chats.

But then we are back with a opt-in model for privacy.

Personally: what I tell you at the coffee machine, in confidence or not, is ephemeral. I would probably not talk to you at all if you where taperecording all conversations, as you want to do with messages... so I think both.parties.should be able to delete text conversations. And privacy should be on by default.

In Signal ALL conversations are private.

> I would probably not talk to you at all if you where taperecording all conversations

You hit the nail on the head with this one. To me deletion is a nice compromise and why the coffee shop analogy isn't a good comparator. Similarly we don't record video calls (and Moxie himself doesn't like this). So why should every text be recorded and parties do not have control over that data? I do feel that each person in the conversation has a right to control that data (if anything the sender more so) and when policy fails it should fail in the direction that has more privacy (which is the message not existing within Signal's log^). But currently people aren't given this choice and there is no consideration of failure modes.

^ Careful wording because if I don't make this added comment people think I'm unaware that screenshots exist.

> I kind of see you point about non-secret chats.

I don't really make that distinction, I think it's harmful to have E2E as optional, and only use platforms than have either mandatory E2E encryption (Signal, WhatsApp), or no E2E encryption (SMS, email).

If you have an in-person conversation with me in confidence, that doesn't grant you any additional powers to make me forget details of the conversation.

> Personally: what I tell you at the coffee machine, in confidence or not, is ephemeral. I would probably not talk to you at all if you where taperecording all conversations, as you want to do with messages...

What if I have a very good memory, and follow conversations by writing up their details in personal memos that you can't delete? (e.g. Comey's contemporary memos of conversations he had with Trump.)

> so I think both.parties.should be able to delete text conversations. And privacy should be on by default.

The problem for you is that I'm not going to agree to that - if you won't use Signal, I'm going to force a downgrade to SMS or email, and then you get even worse security and privacy.

If you want to have a conversation that can't be recorded in an automated way, you basically need to meet in a sauna.

> If you won't use Signal, I'm going to force a downgrade to SMS or email, and then you get even worse security and privacy.

Or we will set up e2e encrypted telegram. Or not talk.

> What if I have a very good memory, and follow conversations by writing up their details

You saying that you remember I said something, even took a screenshot vs you can prove I said something, is a big difference.

If I am doing a snowden, I might go to a sauna. If I am planning to overthrow my boss, I think e2e telegram is okay. Because I can delete the conversation it might even be preferable to signal.

Use cases and threat models...

Sorry, I just can't agree with your take. You're fundamentally trying to use technology to restrict rather than enable use cases, and doing so in ways that aren't actually robust to your use cases and threat models.