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0 pointsintegralid8mo ago0 comments

"Can I contact you on signal? Just wait for a few minutes while I type this 64 character long hex string".

I know you can work around this with QRs, but that's poor UX, has many failure scenarios and takes a long time. In comparison, you can just tell someone your phone number, even without neither of you having a phone nearby - you just need a piece of paper and a pen.

Signal brought security and privacy for the masses, because it - correctly - prioritized ease of use over tech-nerd paranoia.

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godelski8mo ago

  > but that's poor UX, has many failure scenarios and takes a long time.

And requires you to build your social graph from scratch. That alone is killer to the average person.

Is signal the right tool for those hyper concerned with both security and privacy? No. But is it the right tool for the average person to securely communicate and get some good privacy? Absolutely.

People forget the GPG days. GPG had a huge flaw back then: you can't send GPG encrypted emails if no one was going to read them. It didn't become viable until that part was hidden in the background.

SchemaLoad8mo ago

It's even easier than that since you already have the phone numbers in your contact list, they will just show up as soon as you sign up.

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