News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by gtsop on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @05:41AM (#26709922)
Funny comments, but jokes aside, I think we're missing a very obvious reason why he has signal. Mark most likely has contacts that are super high up in governments and coorporations who use signal since they can't trust any other app. People who say that he just tested out competition, I think you guys underestimate his technological knowledge and his resources waaay too much. If he wanted to do that he could have easily ordered someone to get him a clean phone with a sim card not linked to his name and let that device sit on his desk for testing.
Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by wunderflix on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @06:52AM (#26710355)
Maybe. And maybe he’s there because he is a smart lad who knows which products to monitor closely.

After all he bought Instagram and WhatsApp for peanuts, and copied the best features of SnapChat.

Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by JeremyNT on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @08:11AM (#26710846)
He wouldn't need to use his real number/name just to do product research though. It would just needlessly confuse any contacts who have his actual number and use signal.

Signal also has nothing he can emulate. Its most meaningful selling point is that it doesn't have an association or integration with a scummy social media company, and people using it for that reason are already lost to Facebook. This is a feature he cannot ever hope to copy.

Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by Closi on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @09:17AM (#26711392)
> Signal also has nothing he can emulate. Its most meaningful selling point is that it doesn't have an association or integration with a scummy social media company, and people using it for that reason are already lost to Facebook. This is a feature he cannot ever hope to copy.

Even if there is nothing to emulate, downloading the app at least gives him a feel for how close it is to WhatsApp's capabilities and would help him understand if it is a major competitive threat or not.

Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by thrwyoilarticle on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @10:45AM (#26712392)
>Signal also has nothing he can emulate.

Both of them now have some variation on encrypted chats.

Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by christophilus on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @07:59AM (#26710776)
To me, this is the obvious answer.
Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by OminousWeapons on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @10:57AM (#26712577)
An even more obvious answer is he doesn't want his employees or his competitors to be able to monitor his private conversations which they would be able to do if he were to use most commercial messaging systems.
Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by koheripbal on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @11:07AM (#26712704)
...and an even more obvious reason is that he just wanted to see what his competition looked like.

I bet the CEO of McDonalds has been to Burger King at least once to check out the customer experience. It really doesn't mean anything.

Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by ViViDboarder on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @11:07AM (#26712702)
They allegedly can’t monitor WhatsApp. That’s why this is news. Of WA is so secure (supposedly implementing the Signal protocol), then what use does ZuckerB have for Signal?
Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by tinus_hn on Thursday April 08, 2021 @05:24PM (#26743941)
The ability to contact people who are not on WhatsApp but are on Signal?
Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by bvaldivielso on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @08:25AM (#26710938)
Maybe you're right, but considering how easy it is to set up a signal account (<5 minutes) vs messaging your assistant to provision a phone and a sim card (or a couple of them, just so that he could text someone), I'm not so sure about it.

Assuming that his threat model is "my phone number will not be leaked", signing up on signal with his personal number seems fine.

Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by specialist on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @10:12AM (#26711968)
Yes, and, just a guess: Were I on Team Zuck, I'd have every competing messaging app installed, just to see what everyone's doing. eg I'm certain everyone touching Instagram also uses Snap.

Further: LAN Manager era Microsoft had a Novell Netware group, Microsoft also continued to use (Windows port) of sendmail while selling Exchange, had an entire Macintosh enthused business group.

TLDR: Of course Zuck has a Signal account.

Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by afpx on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @10:59AM (#26725897)
People I know only use Signal for drugs. ymmv
Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by memorysafety on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @04:21PM (#26730642)
... which should be taken as a sign of Signal's technical excellence.

Just consider: if you're looking for privacy-respecting, actually secure, reviewed, audited and tested to bone tech -- short of replicating the work yourself, who's assessment can you trust? Perhaps paradoxically, you should foremost trust the unspoken opinions of criminals. Because those people are likely betting their lives and freedoms on the tech choice. Barely any other group will approach such a choice with more vigor.

So, morals aside, that a technology is being used by criminals is actually a compliment to that technology.

Re:Leaked phone number of Mark Zuckerberg reveals he is on S... by reasonabl_human on Thursday April 08, 2021 @10:44AM (#26739335)
A number of my friends and I use it for cross-platform group chats since we have a mix of android and iOS users. It’s a convenient messaging app, the privacy is a bonus for most of them...