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A comment on Signal Desktop. Parent comment

Re:Signal Desktop by dTal on Wednesday December 02, 2015 @07:09PM (#10666846)
I would argue that the removal of SMS encryption is a worse failing. Accepting all key changes without question renders you vulnerable to active attacks, but you remain safe from mere passive collection (the most common case). On the other hand, whatever Whisper Systems would have you believe, people really do still use SMS. A lot.

I will never convince my friends to use an internet-based messenger - I might as well try and get them to use Pidgin+OTR if that's the ball game. I have, however, switched a few of them over to SMSSecure, the SMS-only TextSecure fork, which is a perfectly serviceable SMS client.

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Re:Signal Desktop by caf on Thursday December 03, 2015 @12:02AM (#10667850)
Why do your friends care about the underlying transport?

I too think SMS transport should have been maintained, but I believe it only really matters when you're stuck without mobile data access (for example, when I was on a cruise ship earlier this year I had roaming SMS/voice but not data).

As long as you _do_ have mobile data access at both ends, then a message to another TextSecure user will be sent encrypted over the data connection; and a message to a non-TextSecure user wouldn't have been encrypted anyhow.

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Re:Signal Desktop by toothbrush on Thursday December 03, 2015 @07:45AM (#10669256)
I am farting in a thunderstorm, since this argument has been had a million times. Nevertheless, i will explain why i personally worry about the transport. Perhaps the other commenter has different reasons, i don't know.

I currently pay €2 per month for my mobile bill. That is very little money. Notably, that includes no internet/data, but it does include unlimited text messages. Can you see why SMSSecure is something i would want?

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Re:Signal Desktop by dTal on Monday December 07, 2015 @11:46AM (#10690568)
Because most people I know keep their data switched off most of the time, which will always be the case as long as apps are abusive about phoning home.
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