I saw some threads here about Telegram and piracy stuff being banned. So, as an experimental alternative, I created a public Signal group for piracy.
Maybe it’ll be useful?
Before joining
Signal supports usernames and hiding telephone numbers. Here’s a blog entry on how to do so. You might want to:
- set a username
- change your profile name (these are two separate things!)
- hide your phone number
Keybase is better than Signal. You may not like it’s current owners but it still works, still functions, and can be used to chat privately. It’s entirely OSS on the client side; and server-side software isn’t provided; but with an open Client; it’s likely trivial to reverse and re-implement your own. (Keybase itself doesn’t provide their server code; it’s private due to abuse constraints)
Keybase is End to End Encrypted. It may not be as “feature rich” but all features are private.
I’m not sure if it’s indev anymore though; and it does allow you to be as public or as private as you’d like to be about your identity.
Yes, let’s talk piracy behind some stupid walled garden. As if public conversations are not fragmented enough as it is
how is it not?
- the worst kind of opensource, where you are not allowed to run the software yourself (or even fork it)
- not indexable
- requires signup with personal informations
- forever tied to a single identity
- not exportable to other services
- no open formats for its storage
it’s a shitty service, by a shitty person. I know Moxie personally, and he is basically Elon Musk if he didn’t make it
Thanks for doing this
I thought signing up for Signal required a phone number and phone app – and all phones have IMEI besides many other nightmare anti-features.
For the normies it’s fine but tbh I’m not sure it’s as advertised.
What ever happened to that odd old app called tox?
Honestly I could see a version of DeltaChat + GPG make some gains in popularity but I would argue the email relay servers and spam lists are rigged for max surveillance.
Are we at the point where tech from 20 years ago may be the way lmao.
XMPP, IRC, ICQ /s
Matrix is probably the best bet but some of their apps and clients seem like dogshit. And I am saying that as someone who uses them daily. And the whole “server” thing is a PITA, or it used to be at least.
I guess we’ll just have to use carrier pidgin and cypherto encrypt the cat gifs /s
Yeah, for me personally I’m sticking to simplex. I can get an anonymous sim card, but none of the people I’d be talking to would do that. I don’t want this relationship/network map out there at all if I can avoid it.
What makes you think Signal is maintaining relationship maps, and secondly, even if it is, is there any evidence they’re included in LEO subpoenas?
There is no evidence. safety is about staying multiple steps ahead and risk mitigation when possible.
Centralized servers are a single point of failure that could be compromised in the future.
My contact’s devices they use signal on are insecure and could be easily compromised in the future.
SMS/Cell network in general are insecure as hell and I avoid it as much as possible.
Why would I expose all that sensitive data when there’s literally no need to? Simplex works great for me.
They pinky promise they don’t maintain these relationships. Maybe even they really don’t. But they have the ability to, if they were to change their mind, and that’s the problem.
Use secure protocols which don’t give anyone that ability.
You might try a Matrix group instead. Doesn’t require a phone number and supports more than 1000 users unlike Signal. Search is bad though unfortunately.
Why not use SimpleX Chat? If you use Matrix for that you will likely get reported and get banned
It still requires a phone number to sign up, but you don’t need to share it to chat with someone
