I've been a user and supporter of Signal for years. I've disagreed with various design decisions, but there has always been sensible reasoning behind their decisions based on facts and logic. I only used to disagree on certain priorities and had faith in them. No longer the case.
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I'm well aware of that. It doesn't address anything that I've talked about. My thread was posted with the full awareness that they are making PINs optional. I suggest reading twitter.com/DanielMicay/st, my other earlier posts and this thread.
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Replying to @chrisrohlf @signalapp and @moxie
Hopefully as a toggle so that it's still possible to have a registration lock PIN without contact syncing, as it was before this was introduced. Most people are going to use the defaults so that's what really matters, and a user-generated PIN + SGX is not a secure approach.
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This feature was previously only a registration lock PIN. It should be possible to set a registration lock PIN as before without it enabling remote backup / sync with it used to derive an encryption key. It also matters that users are encouraged to use a weak PIN for remote sync.
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Needing to work around dark patterns to use the app securely does not fit Signal. It's supposed to be about bringing privacy/security to the masses. Most users are going to use the app as intended. It guides people to set a weak PIN and then does remote backup / sync using it.
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Recommended steps before hitting delete on signal app would be very much appreciated.
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Use the option to set a strong alphanumeric passphrase and store it in a password manager with end-to-end encryption so you don't lose it. You CAN use a strong passphrase so that this uses strong encryption. It's also only syncing contacts, profile, etc. at the moment.
The main issue is I've lost the trust that I had in them to do a good job and look out for the interests of users. I can't understand how they approached this. I don't have a recommendation for another messaging app. They mostly have much more serious issues than this.
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I'm not saying that Signal isn't the overall best option for most people anymore. I'm just extremely disappointed in it and I'm going to have a hard time recommending an app when I don't really trust the developers anymore. They've had missteps before, but this is different IMO.
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