The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts

Re:The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts by higherpurpose on Friday July 10, 2015 @01:39AM (#9862458)

Moxie, the progress on TextSecure/Signal integration seems to have slowed down quite a bit (at least as seen from the outside). I think it's been almost a year since Signal for iOS came out - yet still no word on Signal for Android.

What is taking so long, if you don't mind me asking? Is there some sort of Signal 3.0 overhaul planned for all the platforms along with a big launch?

Also, I think you've been quite retreated in the past year or so, I assume so you can focus on working. But I believe you should personally get more involved in promoting your apps (as you do in this piece here). Go on more TV shows, podcasts and so on. Look how much Telegram has grown, not because it's any better than Signal (far from it), but because they've actively promoted themselves and took a more pro-active role in building a community.

More mainstream users need to know that "Skype is not secure, but Signal is" - which reminds me - I hope Signal will eventually get encrypted video-chat support as well, to make it a true alternative to Skype (and of course a desktop app, but I know your team has been working on that).

To monetize the apps have you considered trying to get Signal into enterprise, as a much more secure alternative to what enterprise customers are currently using, and then get paid for support? Or do you believe that would complicate things too much and make the apps worse off in the end?

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Re:The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts by hlru on Friday July 10, 2015 @02:17AM (#9862531)

I used to be a "fan" of TextSecure, but have become disillusioned lately. The development have always been slow. Very few people use it, even among my geek friends. Convincing people to use it is hard as well. Confusion over what it does, having to give out their phone number and no desktop client doesn't help. When I'm actually in need of encryption it doesn't even work, since Google Play services are blocked in China. I personally agree with the team behind hemlis, it's to late to become mainstream. Not that I expect most people to care. TextSecure fulfills it role as a political and technical wank.

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Re:The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts by rhblake on Friday July 10, 2015 @08:18AM (#9863466)

I've used TextSecure since sometime last year and my impression is that development has been speeding up in the past few months. [0] Seems like there's a new version every week. Most recent update brought a nicer UI, week before that "quick reply" from notifications, .. it really is very slick these days, and it works so well as a drop-in replacement that I've had no problem making my whole family (and various friends) use it. Not much explaining needed: you send texts just like before, but if the other person also uses TextSecure it's - well - secure (and free) and you don't have to think about it.

[0] https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/commits/master

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Re:The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts by NotSammyHagar on Saturday July 11, 2015 @01:06AM (#9868605)

There are too many different encrypted texting apps and no market winner. How does text secure compare to Bleep by the bitorrent people, for example?

For there to be enough users, we need public proclamations of support from Bruce Schneier or and maybe Moxie, celebs like that. Maybe interoperability.

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Re:The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts by wtbob on Friday July 10, 2015 @08:29AM (#9863512)

This. I used to recommend TextSecure to all my friends, but it didn't interact well with other services, and then IIRC it stopped working with SMSes entirely.

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Re:The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts by snikeris on Friday July 10, 2015 @10:07AM (#9864015)

TextSecure handles SMSes well. It doesn't support encrypted SMS anymore, but that's not a big deal.

I've been using TextSecure for awhile now even though I only communicate w/ one other person that uses it.

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Re:The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts by wtbob on Saturday July 11, 2015 @01:49PM (#9870801)

> It doesn't support encrypted SMS anymore, but that's not a big deal.

Well, it's kinda a big deal if that was the entire reason one was using it…

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Re:The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts by Joeboy on Friday July 10, 2015 @05:46AM (#9863044)

> To monetize the apps have you considered trying to get Signal into enterprise

I agree with this bit. It seems weird that people with clear requirements for privacy, like doctors, lawyers, insurers etc, remain totally clueless about encryption.

While we might have more personal sympathy / affinity with political activists and nerds, they don't seem to be very good at proliferating encryption technology.

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Re:The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts by tedks on Friday July 10, 2015 @12:40PM (#9865036)

>yet still no word on Signal for Android.

Just in case you're not aware. RedPhone for android does encrypted calling, and TextSecure for android does encrypted messaging, so there doesn't seem to be a reason for Signal on Android aside from the brand unification.

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