CLOSED: [2016-11-26 Sat 12:20] SCHEDULED: <2016-11-26 Sat>
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:CREATED: [2016-11-26 Sat 11:54]
:ID: 2016-11-26-recommending-signal
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:LOGBOOK:
- State "DONE"       from "STARTED"    [2016-11-26 Sat 12:20]
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[[https://sandervenema.ch/about-sander-venema/][Sander Venema]] has published [[https://sandervenema.ch/2016/11/why-i-wont-recommend-signal-anymore/][a cool article on why he won't recommend
Signal anymore]].

#+CAPTION: Tweet by VenemaSander.
#+ATTR_HTML: :alt My article on why I won't recommend #Signal anymore: https://sandervenema.ch/2016/11/why-i-wont-recommend-signal-anymore/
#+ATTR_HTML: :align center :width 586
[[tsfile:2016-11-05T15.19 Twitter.com - VenemaSander - My article on why I won't recommend Signal anymore -- screenshots publicvoit.png][https://twitter.com/VenemaSander/status/794937272697294852]]

Very interesting read for anybody with basic tech background and who
is interested in having a reliable infrastructure which is prone to
mass-surveillance.

For this blog post, I now assume you've read the article.

Sander is absolutely right about the disadvantages of Signal:

- Lack of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_%28information_technology%29][federation]]
- Dependency on Google Cloud Messaging
- Your contact list is not private
- The RedPhone server is not open-source

Although I totally copy Sander's arguments, I still recommend using
[[https://whispersystems.org/][Signal]]. I strongly do.

I also would like to see [[https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard][an alternative]] that offers the same level of
security and usability while being federated, independent of any
central instance and is (also) open source to verify those things.

Unfortunately, I don't see such an alternative yet for the average
user.

Please, do work on alternative solutions. Please, do think of
federated or at least [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralization#Technological_decentralization][decentralized]] services.

But: until there *is* a viable alternative, I will continue
recommending Signal to people. In my opinion, it's the best of the
very few solutions we have so far. [[https://whispersystems.org/][Switch to Signal now]], in case you
are still using insecure messengers such as simple text messaging,
WhatsApp, SnapChat, iMessage, AIM, facebook, or most others.