Who told you to not use Signal, and what reasons did they give? I'm very curious.
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2025
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Privacy
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For normal end user average usage signal is the best option available, specially for family since they may already be used to the flow and UX of it. Simple and straight forward. All the "bad" things you read are about nerds being annoying and not liking a very particular specific thing and thinking that specific thing should be the only focus.
So just make people use signal. It's the best and simplest way with the most common features for individuals and small groups. A simple download, in a common known place on a store without confusing people with differences between a protocol and a client and with and onboarding experience most are already familiar and ok using.
Even so you still need to make sure that the app does not have battery optimizations turned on, but that applies to all apps used for communication that are not blessed in specific phones (like facebook and whatsapp already having that setting by default because vendors make it so).
I have made so many people use Signal now. I sell it as, "I'm on Android. Signal gives us all of the features of iMessage and facetime" no need to mention the privacy concerns unless they are the kind of person who cares.
Great for now. Much better than doomers here who do nothing but cope.
But this teaches nothing to protect them from new scams, new anti-libre software.
Probably yes, it depends on your threat model.
If you are using E2EE on a matrix.org account then your message content, attachments (images) and most other traffic isn't accessible to anyone but the people in the chat. However Matrix isn't the most private option, it has a number of leaks such as reactions and chat topics (these are being worked on but aren't close to happening).
For most people Matrix is a very private and secure option and the fact that it is federated is a huge plus. If you want something more secure you are probably looking at Signal (which you don't want to use and isn't federated) or Simplex Chat (which doesn't have multi-device support).
Unfortunately even with E2EE, the admins of a homeserver can still impersonate you or take over your channel.
Of course you could run your own instance, or maybe none of this is part of your threat model, but I felt like bringing it up either way.
even with E2EE, the admins of a homeserver can still impersonate you
No, they cannot. Your homeserver admin could create an impostor login session on your account, but it would be pointless with E2EE, because it would be flagged with an obviously visible warning. You and all of your contacts would see that the impostor session was not verified as you (this typically shows up as a bright red icon on the impostor and another one on the room they're in). Also, the impostor would be unable to read your communications.
What do you have to say about this then?
In an encrypted room even with fully verified members, a compromised or hostile home server can still take over the room by impersonating an admin. That admin (or even a newly minted user) can then send events or listen on the conversations.
Perhaps we have a different definition of "impersonate"... not everyone will pay attention to unverified warnings, and afaik they can still communicate with people (just maybe not read old messages)... but I would love to be proven wrong.
a compromised or hostile home server can still take over the room
A compromised server could affect a denial of service attack against its users, of course. The attacker could do the same thing by simply turning off the server. That's true on all platforms that use servers. A reasonable response would be to switch to a different server.
That admin (or even a newly minted user) can then send events
Exactly what events do you think would be dangerous?
or listen on the conversations.
No. End-to-end encryption ensures that only the intended endpoints can read the messages. Older Matrix clients have a setting to block the user from sending messages to unverified devices/sessions, in case they somehow don't understand the meaning of a bright red warning icon. I think newer ones (e.g. Element X) enforce that mode; if you're concerned about this, you could check for yourself, but...
not everyone will pay attention to unverified warnings
...unfortunately, there are no guarantees when trying to fix human behavior. If you need a messaging app to make it hard for your contacts to do something obviously foolish, then I suggest waiting until Matrix 2.0 is officially released and implemented in the clients. The beta versions of Element X, for example, look like everything is locked down to avoid human mistakes like the one you're describing.
End-to-end encryption ensures that only the intended endpoints can read the messages
But who/what gets to decide who the intended recipients are? Can't the homeserver admin just join the channel and then the other members would exchange keys automatically and now they can see what people say?
But who/what gets to decide who the intended recipients are?
The sender, of course.
Can’t the homeserver admin just join the channel and then the other members would exchange keys automatically and now they can see what people say?
No. Verification prevents that.
I don't understand. How would the sender prevent messages from going to the admin user that joined the room? It sounds like you're implying new users simply can't join a room? That makes no sense to me... I've certainly never experienced that. I see new users join encrypted rooms all the time and they can talk just fine... so what's the deal? And isn't verification off by default?
How would the sender prevent messages from going to the admin user that joined the room?
It wouldn't matter if a rogue admin eavesdropped on an E2EE room, because they would see encrypted blobs where the message content would be. That's what E2EE is for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_encryption
How would the sender prevent messages from going to the admin user that joined the room?
You're conflating multiple things. Merely joining a room does not grant access to message decryption keys.
I respect your curiosity, but I think you're going to have to familiarize yourself with the software and concepts to get a detailed understanding of how all this stuff works. If you're technically inclined, I suggest reading the protocol spec, or at least the parts that interest you. You could also drop in to the public chat room and ask more questions there: #matrix:matrix.org
I have read the spec, used the service and also implemented my own clients before, that is why I'm so confused by what you're saying, because this has not been my experience at all. If a user joins a channel, whether they are an admin or not, whether it is encrypted or not, then unless the channel is explicitly setup to only allow verified users to talk (not the default), my understanding is there is nothing preventing that new user from seeing all new messages in the chat.
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Why would Matrix be the only option? XMPP is significantly better. You can either sign up on a public server or pay a small sum to have your own private server for you and your family for example on https://snikket.org/ or I think https://jmp.chat/ also includes optionally a small server in the subscription.
simplex is good as an alternative
SimpleX has some interesting ideas, but also some shortcomings for people who want a practical messaging service. For example:
- It is funded by venture capital, which calls into question its longevity, and even if it does manage to stick around, suggests that it will be leveraged to exploit people once the user base is large enough.
- Its queue servers delete messages if they are not delivered within a certain time frame (21 days by default). Good luck if you take a vacation off-grid for a few weeks.
- No multi-device support. (This means a single account accessed concurrently from multiple independent devices.) The closest it comes is locally tethering a mobile device to a computer.
- Establishing new contacts requires sharing a large link or QR code, which is not always convenient.
- No support for group calls.
I would not recommend it for talking to family members and people in general, which is what OP requested.
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Yeah, sure. But Matrix is decentralized and federated. So you can pretty much join any instance and be able to talk with anyone on any instance. So why not select another instance ~~or maybe even self host one yourself?~~
edit: didn't read the text till the end