Re:Signal Desktop
by devit on Thursday December 03, 2015 @03:48AM
(#10668579)
Why not both?
#1 is essential, but you really need to cater to #2 as well because "crypto nerds" are likely those who will eagerly adopt the software and advertise and praise it to others.
Here is a simple non-exhaustive list of changes to better achieve #2:
1. If the phone number starts with +xx where xx is a reserved/invalid country code, the rest is the client's base10 public key. Verification happens by signing a challenge or simply successfully performing a DH handshake instead of by SMS.
2. Provide a "pull" notification socket in the Signal server, use it if GCM is not available
3. Package the mobile-sync Chrome app with node-webkit or simply as a standalone server that auto-opens your browser to localhost:port
4. Use libtextsecure-java to make a simple standalone desktop client that could either have a command line interface or a localhost web interface (please don't use the C library, since C is not suitable for secure software)
Obviously these changes could be done by third parties, not necessarily by Open Whisper Systems.
#1 is essential, but you really need to cater to #2 as well because "crypto nerds" are likely those who will eagerly adopt the software and advertise and praise it to others.
Here is a simple non-exhaustive list of changes to better achieve #2:
1. If the phone number starts with +xx where xx is a reserved/invalid country code, the rest is the client's base10 public key. Verification happens by signing a challenge or simply successfully performing a DH handshake instead of by SMS.
2. Provide a "pull" notification socket in the Signal server, use it if GCM is not available
3. Package the mobile-sync Chrome app with node-webkit or simply as a standalone server that auto-opens your browser to localhost:port
4. Use libtextsecure-java to make a simple standalone desktop client that could either have a command line interface or a localhost web interface (please don't use the C library, since C is not suitable for secure software)
Obviously these changes could be done by third parties, not necessarily by Open Whisper Systems.