Re:Keep your phone number private with Signal usernames
by numeri on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @03:56PM
(#39446795)
I believe what the grandparent comment meant was that you can't run a server that participates in the public network, not that you can't run a private server. That was my prior understanding, at least.
I might very well be wrong, and if so, someone please correct me.
Re:Keep your phone number private with Signal usernames
by godelski on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @05:14PM
(#39447708)
That is correct. I should have been clearer in my distinction. You can run your own server but that server won't connect to the official Signal network. You're completely fine to run your own[0]. FWIW I've seen other software roll their own servers and use the Signal protocol. I mean WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol but I think they've diverged a lot since.
[0] There's always talk about the big deal breaker for Signal being that it isn't federated. So I've always wondered why this passion isn't used to generate a federated Signal network and is more focused on Matrix (who only recently started being E2EE). I don't know how these things work, I'm not that kind of programmer, but I can't see why you couldn't modify the server code to work in a federated fashion and edit the app code to be able to connect to both? I'm actually interested to know why if someone actually has an answer.
Why can't you run your own? Sounds like it is not entirely open. (Never looked into it, so would be interesting to understand what is missing.)
> But you can compile the app and desktop clients yourself.
This has been talked at length here in HN before, they prohibit any clients other than their proprietary binary distribution.
If that has changed, I'd be thrilled. Can anyone point at it having changed?