Closed burrm closed 1 year ago
GloriaAnholt
commented
1 year ago dropping support for SMS is awful for your user base. Regardless of privacy, I still have to send them and you've now made your app useless as my default. I've been using signal and a monthly donor for years, this is such a betrayal. Please reconsider.
deronparker
commented
1 year ago Dropping SMS, while a more secure decision, is terrible for the wider adoption/growth of Signal.
Boaz101
commented
1 year ago If SMS support is dropped then all Signal users will have to remember which of their contacts use SMS and which contacts use Signal. Before communicating with anyone you will have to figure out which messaging app to use. However since everyone is on SMS it will be easier for users to simply use SMS for everything even though it is not secure. Unfortunately, it's likely that the extra hassle will cause many users to stop using Signal.
sb-torben
commented
1 year ago I use (used?) Signal as a nice bump to my communications' security when texting contacts who also use Signal, but while maintaining contact with my bare SMS-using contacts. Given that the number of contacts in the latter set vastly outnumber the contacts in the former set, it will be essentially pointless for me to continue using Signal after this change.
Please reconsider. I have really enjoyed Signal and will be sad to see it go, but this change really moves Signal into a niche which is outside of my use case.
LaughingJohn
commented
1 year ago The combination of SMS & Signal messages was a selling point to me, and my friends who use it. I don't 'need' the security that Signal brings, in that I'm not 007 or anything, but I really appreciate it. And I actually prefer the Signal UI over my SMS app.
I think SMS cost argument is pretty moot as it entirely depends on your location, provider and circumstances.
So I'd like to add my voice to those asking for you to keep the SMS functionality. Personally I'd be happy to pay for the app to keep it. If it does go then I'll be going back to the unsecure sms app and I suspect my friends will do the same, and that would be a shame..
One thing I would say is that I agree that the UI doesn't highlight the encrypted vs non-encrypted messages very well, but that could easily be fixed with some colour or a more obvious icon.
ashtron
commented
1 year ago Just adding my voice to the overwhelmingly negative chorus of responses to this news. Opportunistic encryption is a whole lot better than nothing, which is just what I suspect many of the friends and family members I've managed to turn onto Signal will be left with when they discover they're expected to juggle two separate apps going forward and inevitably drop Signal entirely.
ZacVawter
commented
1 year ago @burrm well stated. If Signal actually cares about securing more communication, the need to consider the first degree contacts that have converted to signal "because it can handle all communication". I have also convinced a fair number of contacts to use signal, and the convincing factor has been "it can do both secure & SMS messages" - Signal will lose those users, and I will have a lower portion of my communication secured (and the total amount of conversations secured by Siganl will be reduced).
mentalisttraceur
commented
1 year ago I think it is fair to say that the user experience of accidentally using SMS instead of Signal-protocol messages is a real problem.
Us technical users (which includes anyone who would of their own volition choose Signal or champion Signal to others) often have no sense of how normie users do things. Normies will routinely just not notice or even think to look for the little lock icons, or take the time to understand what they mean. A huge chunk of humanity operates at the level of detail and care where "I am in the Signal app" is assumed to mean "I cannot possibly be sending SMS" - especially because we live in a world where many other secure messaging apps don't support SMS.
Also, Americans are used to unlimited SMS limited data plans, but the rest of the world has taken different paths - in many markets SMS are ridiculously disproportionately expensive and metered while data or WiFi is cheaply or freely ubiquitously available.
On the other hand, I really cannot overstate how much SMS functionally in Signal is a plus for the people who consciously use it. If it's not a manpower problem, please support both - let the normal Signal app be just secure messaging and also build and release a Signal+SMS app from the same code base, with a build flag that includes the SMS code, SMS-related settings, and UI elements to distinguish them. Don't even need to emphasize or advertise the +SMS variant. Best of both worlds - normies funnel to the Signal app without SMS, and almost everyone who installs the Signal+SMS app would be someone who knowingly went out of their way to thet themselves or the person they're onboarding a UI that does SMS too.
Also, I think you guys underestimate just how good of an SMS app you made. If someone forks the Android Signal app code, and strips out everything except SMS, the result is one of the best Android SMS apps.
sanjay
commented
1 year ago I'm so livid about this that for the first time ever I've ranted against Signal on my podcast. This is after years of promoting and encouraging listeners to adopt Signal. This looks to me to be a case of engineers making technical decisions that are "best" while ignoring what users need to help the product/service thrive. If this goes through this will be a perfect case study of how to build a user base and then blow it up with one single user-unfriendly decision.
EDIT: BTW, I should not that many years ago we moved to SMSSecure when TextSecure (now Signal) dropped real encrypted SMS support. We eventually switched over but maybe now someone should revive that fork so that the service can work ubiquitously and without a central server.
LegsAJimbo
commented
1 year ago Came here to say exactly this. The selling point of Signal for me was as a unified messaging app, secure messaging where possible, without having to figure out who is using what, much like iMessage. If SMS support is dropped I'll reluctantly switch back to Textra and WhatsApp. Having 3 apps, Signal, Textra and WhatsApp is too much for me.
PS, yes, WhatsApp is the devil's work, but unfortunately I know too many people still using it. I have converted a few from WhatsApp to Signal and the easiest selling point was having the unified platform for SMS too, not having to worry about who uses what.
AllanBlanchard
commented
1 year ago From a non-technical user (most users) perspective, without this feature, Signal is just yet another application for messages.
You should really consider this question: among all the users of Signal, how many of them really care about the fact of using Signal in particular? Why do they use Signal and not another application?
I believe that this decision is not only a problem for current users but also for the future of secured/private messaging. A lot of casual users will be particularly angry after this decision. We have convinced them to use Signal at least partially because they could continue using SMS with people that do not use Signal. Now they can't? Ok, I can give you the future answer to all our arguments to make them switch to such an app: "NEVER AGAIN".
Now, just my own point of view: if Signal removes this feature, I can only use it to talk to other Signal users. So basically noone. Signal is just yet another WhatsApp, Messenger, ... Yet another fragment in an already far too fragmented environment. Yet another application I do not need.
kienner-philippe
commented
1 year ago Please reconsider.
mbethke
commented
1 year ago This is a terrible idea. I don't think I'd have convinced any of the non-technical folks in my family if it wasn't for the "look, it's not yet another messenger, it just replaces your SMS app and it does all the same things but more and it's automatically secure where it can" argument.
Angelinsky7
commented
1 year ago +1
zerojay
commented
1 year ago It's awesome being forced to spend my weekend removing Signal from my family members' phones to ensure I'll still be able to communicate with them at all. Goodbye, Signal.
mentalisttraceur
commented
1 year ago There's a great lesson here actually - if you make a widely used app like Signal,
then when you get the idea to remove a feature,
instead of just silently implementing it until you can have the app tell users "hey this feature is going away" and give a convenient exit ramp (which I bet is already causing users to put Signal down in droves... I sent one Signal message yesterday after exporting my messages, but dozens of SMS, and I am the kind of small minority user that knows to come to GitHub and has an account here and cares enough to speak up)
you could first implement announcing that you are considering removing the feature, through the app, and give people a way to quickly and easily give a good/fine/bad/I-would-leave reaction.
0xquad
commented
1 year ago Beautfifully said in the report, this is a terrible decision for the application and will effectively reduce the general adoption of secure messaging throughout the user base rather than increasing it. Interoperability with bare SMS is needed in order to retain the user base.
I myself work in information and computer security and value security more than the average person, but if Signal is removing this critical feature I will be forced to revert back to the built-in SMS app on my mobile, after more than 10 years using Signal as the default SMS app.
Frankly, I'm struggling to understand the rationale behind the decision, even after reading the reasons on Signal's blog. Please don't do this, for the sake of security and usability.
AllanBlanchard
commented
1 year ago Oh by the way, about the "hey, that's easy, you just have to get two different applications and remember who is available on each one".
monoxgas
commented
1 year ago Voicing my opinion to reconsider this decision. Prioritize better training in the app to explain the differences between message types. Even a feature toggle would be a much better idea than this.
You are alienating a huge portion of your user base that prioritize usability. I'm almost convinced nobody in the conversations about this change actually uses Signal in the real world with mixed contacts.
riggtravis
commented
1 year ago Impacting the user base in this way is likely to cause more, not less, messaging to go over carrier SMS networks
Dropping SMS, while a more secure decision, is terrible for the wider adoption/growth of Signal.
If SMS support is dropped then all Signal users will have to remember which of their contacts use SMS and which contacts use Signal
These are all reasons that Signal will do less to promote secure messaging by taking this path. As a DevOps engineer, I'm always promoting the idea that we should pipeline people to the right thing to do. We should assume that in the broad set of everything someone can do, someone will commit every permutation possible, but we should make doing the best thing the easiest thing. Removing SMS from Signal means everyone will need to use two apps to access those features. Signal is the more secure, and by pipelining users to signal messaging, users are more likely to accidentally send secure messages if they use the app than they are to accidentally send an SMS (which is an argument that seems to be under discussion here).
I don't think this is a good idea. I understand that I haven't been an active contributor to the community since my college days six years ago, but this seems like a decision made without considering how the average end-user operates.
avarsava
commented
1 year ago +1 on requesting that Signal reconsider this decision. All of the people I've converted to Signal, have been with the argument that it's a better SMS client and if anyone else they know is on Signal it'll seamlessly secure the conversation. It's been a great experience and with this change I am more likely to stop using Signal than juggle multiple messaging apps on my phone.
Signal already does a fine job of communicating that SMS is insecure. However, it's really not going anywhere, and this decision seems more likely to funnel people back to using it exclusively. The perfect future where I convince everyone I know to become a Signal user is unrealistic.
Particpant
commented
1 year ago Being able to use the app as the primary messaging app massively increases the number of secure messages that get sent. Elderly relatives, non-tech people are easily converted to signal users via that ability to act as the default messaging app. Removing SMS support is disastrous, particularly when notifications, even for incoming calls, are so unreliable when Signal is not the primary messaging app. This will be the problem many users who only receive Signal messages or calls from one or two contacts will encounter, default behavior in modern android will result in notifications being suppressed or arriving late. This is anti-user and anti-adoption.
mrinterestfull
commented
1 year ago Hello This will be unfortunate ending of signal. One reason the company was able to corner the market is because it merged the two worlds. (Sms for non-member + encrypted internal for members) . As user i can securely talk to my wife and communicate with other non signal users from one app. Now, going back to two apps means two things can happen.
a) signal will become just like others (Viber) and slowly degrade. It can't compete with video quality of facetime video call, and can't compete with Viber MMS data limit when sending full quality videos. (I can send full quality videos of kids only on Viber. Signal limits the amount of data that can be sent) b) an opportunity is born for a new app to take over signals spot and fill the whole that signal has been doing so well. (Sms for non-member + encrypted internal for members) maybe Beeper.
I think the reasons given for sms removal are weak. If i was the part of the team in think i would suggest:
The choice is tough, but i think removing sms puts signal backward rather then advancing forward. I want Signal to succeed.
Thank you Lucas
hmumm
commented
1 year ago I understand that in other countries than then the US unlimited SMS is not free. Why don't you just have an option to disable SMS and do it by default for those users?
This decision really doesn't make any sense to me, it's pretty easy to do that and I can't imagine your SMS code is difficult to maintain SMS doesn't change.
Please reconsider.
Ammako
commented
1 year ago This decision really doesn't make any sense to me, it's pretty easy to do that and I can't imagine your SMS code is difficult to maintain SMS doesn't change.
It does, actually.
RCS is coming, and it doesn’t play well with Signal. I once had a situation when I was sending SMS to one of my friends via Signal, but I wasn’t seeing any of their responses – this was because their app was automatically responding via RCS, which wasn’t delivered to Signal. This is going to continue to get worse, and Signal can’t add RCS support because there’s no RCS API on Android. Honestly, the days of any third-party SMS app are numbered.
I think, if we can somehow convince Google to open up RCS API so that apps can use it properly, Signal might be more likely to consider maintaining support for it.
Cjsy3c
commented
1 year ago The points on their blog are all BS - if they want to stop people thinking that all messages are secure then they need to stop saying that all messages are secure on their web site and appstore. If they want to falsely market it to customers, then use that as justification to remove a widely used feature, then I can't wrap my head around how this company can claim to be any better than their competition.
"Privacy isn’t an optional mode — it’s just the way that Signal works. Every message, every call, every time."
There have been plenty of people on the forum offering alternatives that would improve those issues with people accidentally using SMS (why did they enable it?) or not knowing it was insecure. It seems like the developers just think that their non-techie userbase are the stupidest people in the world. The stupidest people that would be willing/able to now use multiple messaging apps and determine the correct contacts for each app without just throwing up their hands and getting rid of signal altogether.
The 2 other points mentioned on the forum were
1) MMS is hard to support because many device/telecom pairs function differently with MMS messages. They mention SMS is hard, but that code is rarely touched; the MMS stuff is the problem
I can't dispute this because I haven't dug through the MMS code. If it is consuming so much time that you can't do anything else then maybe its time to reduce support for it, or restructure the code for it. That is a much better use of time than alt coins, stickers, or stories.
2) RCS is upcoming to replace SMS
RCS is a new standard that google is pushing, but the problem is that Apple has already publicly stated they will not support it. So we're down to just walled gardens - Android to Android could communicate with RCS in the future when it is mature and implementations are available (which they aren't now, still in limited beta). Apple to Apple can already do this with iMessage, but it downgrades to SMS when talking to Android. Sounds like every other messaging app, convince all of your friends to join the same app or else you don't get to use any of our cool features.
Why can't Signal keep SMS / MMS and become the go to for cross platform secure communication? Its already been getting more popular with android users that can take advantage of the opportunistic encryption as they convert more of their contacts. We're in a position that we can do what Apple and Google refuse to do, we can make a single app that communicate with both Apple and Android devices with rich text.
I guess to me it comes down to what the goal is for the app and company.
If the goal is security and privacy at all costs, then SMS is a hindrance and so are those pesky users that don't fear for their lives everyday. Afraid of people finding out who they talk to and what they say. I think the equivalent would be if TOR decided they were only going to support onion sites from now on and they were going to kill their exit nodes. That would kill the TOR network for most users and they could make the same argument - exit nodes are the weakest point in TOR and by cutting support they would be improving the network security and privacy. Except they would also cut down traffic to just those individuals that need the security and put a giant red flag on anyone using TOR.
If the goal is to build a communications platform that will allow users to gradually improve their privacy and security, one day at a time. If the end goal is to get encrypted and private communications out to everyone in the world, then we need to be able to get that foot in the door. We need to be able to say if you use this app you can still communicate with non-signal users and whenever they add the app your communications will automatically be upgraded. For those users that can't have stray SMS messages going out for cost or security, we could just default the setting to off and make sure they are aware of what turning it on means.
SMS is not going away as it is the only standard that every cellular device still supports for this kind of messaging.
denisemauldin
commented
1 year ago When signal removes SMS android support I will be uninstalling signal and moving to some other unified messaging application. The analysis to remove SMS support is flawed. If you want to force most users to only use the secure messaging then add a Setting that disables the SMS support and have it checked by default.
jarq6c
commented
1 year ago As a user, losing this feature would be a huge detriment. Compatibility with SMS is one of the ways I've been able to convince others to migrate to Signal for all their messaging needs. I understand the reluctance to cause confusion about secure and insecure messages, but I felt like the app did a good job of highlighting that with the "Unsecured SMS" text in the message box.
I wonder if the devs would consider an opt-in option that enables the Unsecured SMS feature. That way instead of removing the the SMS feature, it's disabled by default but still available. I believe other messaging apps also raise a warning about costs when enabling MMS. Signal could raise a similar warning when enabling SMS/MMS.
000MDK
commented
1 year ago Signal-devs better be really sure about this - when the userbase is gone, it's gone. I sure will be. What a joke
cmonster42
commented
1 year ago One more person here registering my feeling that this is a TERRIBLE and very dissapointing move. I chose signal for encryption and was able to convince a very few people of how important it is to make messages secure. They were largely willing when I also said, "And it can also deliver you messages that are from people who won't switch so it's easy!" Of course, groups are impossible and most people won't switch to Signal cause they don't think encryption matters. So I have my most contacted people on Signal happily, and I can still chat with everyone else there. Until now. Lame. I'm not going to keep using Signal because neither will the other people I chat with on it. It's not worth it. I already have to use WhatsApp for one group and then something else for everything else. So bye bye encryption. Unless you change your mind Signal.
lanz
commented
1 year ago I was able to convince many friends and family members to set Signal as their default messaging application since it handled SMS. This grew Signal's network and increased the amount of people that you could send secure encrypted messages to. Removing SMS support now removes the one feature that set Signal apart from Threema, Wire, and Wickr. Signal no longer offers any added value proposition over the competitors.
SMS is still ubiquitous. It's used for 2FA, appointment notifications, etc. so it doesn't make sense that Signal would remove SMS support. Removing SMS support is like removing HTTP support before HTTPS became the norm.
I know what I write here isn't going to change Signal's mind, but I just want to let everyone know that I've lost confidence and trust in Signal's leadership. I no longer believe they're acting in the best interest of their users. For this reason, I'm switching to Threema even though it doesn't support SMS. Threema hasn't done anything to destroy the trust and goodwill of their users.
I find it odd that Signal's new president, Meredith Whittaker, who worked at Google for 13 years, joins Signal and immediately starts making decisions that benefit Google. The removal of SMS from Signal means that most people will be setting Google Messages as their default messenger, thus driving RCS adoption, exactly what Google wants.
burrm
commented
1 year ago A lot of good individual points have been raised here and elsewhere as well, for example https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/yfwia4/sms_removal_megathread/. Most of the highly upvoted posts seem to skeptical of the change while a small, but vocal minority are supportive of removing SMS. Similar viewpoints are presented on various comment sections of blog posts and articles covering the change.
For others who are saying not to support SMS because RCS can't currently be supported, this seems to me illegitimate because it confuses compatibility with a general messaging protocol available on virtually all carriers/networks with compatibility with a vendor's proprietary protocol. The Signal Foundation could develop the necessary partnership with Google to support it, as many OEM vendors and others already have, and could therefore support both (https://jibe.google.com/partners/messaging-partners/).
For those who think removing SMS will drive stronger Signal adoption, I'll refer you to the immense graveyard of companies and projects who thought that they would be the killers of email or other widely adopted standards like SMS, https://xkcd.com/1810/. I'll also introduce you to everyone's non-technical, tech-disinterested, and potentially older relatives who like to "text" and would not make the necessary effort for multiple applications.
Post SMS removal, Signal's user base will likely recede to the following:
Having Android Signal users drop use of the application will also harm adoption and current users on Apple iOS and other platforms because they will have fewer people to "signal" with. As mentioned elsewhere, most of this traffic will revert to carrier SMS or Apple/Google walled-garden chat protocols. For other Android users, promoting adoption with iOS users is already a struggle because of the way Apple walls off messages/default apps.
As mentioned by @Cjsy3c, I agree that there is a risk that by reducing the user base, it does increase the (unwarranted) suspicion for remaining users, even when their uses are otherwise legitimate and law abiding (this applies to the whole "If you have nothing to hide, then..." crowd). With a smaller number of security oriented users, usage of the app becomes a signal within itself that it may be worth targeting these users/devices by the presence of the application on the device or communication with Signal's servers.
If Signal were to pick up the reputation that "only spies and criminals use it", then new users would not adopt it and others without due process protections would likely avoid using it because they could be categorized with "spies and other criminals" and persecuted as such. @Cjsy3c's Tor analogy here is apt and people already have to overcome these biases when introducing privacy conscious communications with first/second degree contacts. It remains in the best interests of security and privacy of the general population to maximize the user base, and providing users with a wide range of deniability from someone conjecturing evidence of illegal activity, but for the use of signal, (ex. an overseas user might say "It offers a really good SMS interface and I 'don't really' use it for encrypted messages") helps in this space. I also thought @AllanBlanchard's pointer to a potential new vulnerability, Insufficient Psychological Acceptability, https://cwe.mitre.org/data/definitions/655.html, was apt as well because we do now have to keep track of which contacts use which applications, and what will happen to those of us who delete the app, but not the account tied to phone number, and are then contacted over Signal without any ability to receive the message or fall back to SMS? User de-adoption will likely be filled with these types of issues.
If we look at other somewhat questionable choices made by the foundation, such as the Stories feature, Signal may be signaling a shift to the social media world away from the secure or unified communications worlds. If this is the case, it may be better that we find out this way, rather than a gradual degradation in the platform with unnecessary social-media oriented features, which add potential new places for things to break, potentially in security-critical areas.
bovineblitzkrieg
commented
1 year ago Literally everyone I know who has Signal is looking for a new app to use. The conversation is basically "why would I want to use a less popular WhatsApp that's tied to my phone number, the whole selling point was all my messages in one app" over and over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
I will be interested to look back at this in a few years, I don't understand both collapsing userbase by removing SMS and also adding features like "stories". It seems directionless to me. Best of luck I guess.
burrm
commented
1 year ago A living example of a de-adoption issue many of us are likely to face: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/12565
krm01
commented
1 year ago This is tragic news. It's such a silly decision I have to believe the team already knows this is a mistake, but are being pressured by the powers that be to do it anyway. I have been using Signal since it was TextSecure, and advocating for it for the better part of a decade, and soon I will have to give it up. The people in my social circles will never use multiple messaging apps, so I'll be forced to ditch Signal and use something else as well. I am heartbroken, feels like the last 10 years advocating for messaging privacy was for nothing. back to square 1.
GrapeJamMan
commented
1 year ago Pretty obvious what's going on here. The Spooks are mad Signal doesn't give governments a back door, so they've dropped the cash to buy off the right people to make Signal less easy to use and less useful for regular people, so those regular people can instead be pushed into completely insecure communications.
This decision is not made for practical or technical reasons, it's only intended to get it's user base onto platforms that will play ball. All it takes is one person not being able to send an SMS via Signal to uninstall it, and suddenly that Signal user will never pick up your messages unless you also drop back to SMS. Why would they do this if it were not the outright goal?
I'm looking forward to people that are unfortunately in my life tapdancing over this with "lol you should have used Whatsapp instead like I told you to."
lanz
commented
1 year ago Meredith Whittaker worked at Google for 13 years. Immediately upon joining Signal she starts making decisions that benefit Google. Dropping SMS support forces most users back to Google Messages, thus driving the adoption of RCS technology, Google's replacement for SMS. Really makes you think. 🤔
ooterness
commented
1 year ago I cannot understand why Signal is making such a huge mistake. The whole reason I'm able to convince friends and family to use Signal is that it's a painless, completely drop-in replacement for SMS. i.e., If you have someone's phone number, you can contact them, full stop. If they also have Signal, it's encrypted. This is the must-have feature that elevates Signal above every other alternative. I cannot emphasize enough how critical this is in both conversion and retention.
riggtravis
commented
1 year ago I cannot understand why Signal is making such a huge mistake.
My impression is that the decision-makers exist in an echo chamber. Their contact circle has nearly complete penetration for the app, so they don't see the value in the SMS feature. In contrast, most of us don't work for an encrypted messaging service organization, have friends and family who are wary of being on a watch list, and possibly don't see the value in putting any effort into privacy. I see some people talking about this being primarily a malicious decision, and I do think some of the decision-makers had malicious intent. Still, I posit that most of those who advocated for this didn't understand who uses their app and how most end users relate to privacy and security.
bovineblitzkrieg
commented
1 year ago I cannot understand why Signal is making such a huge mistake.
Still, I posit that most of those who advocated for this didn't understand who uses their app and how most end users relate to privacy and security.
That's generous of you. This entire event has afforded me the opportunity to catch up on Signal's recent history, including hiding commits for a year, integrating a 'privacy' shitcoin that seeks approval from authorities, and possibly a hostile takeover by one of the biggest corporations on earth. I suppose it could be incompetence or insular social circles, but there's already demonstrated ulterior motives and obfuscation in the recent past.
I was skeptical of the idea that it's getting purposely run into the ground at first as well but the more I read and think about all of it, the less skeptical I am.
benrr101
commented
1 year ago Already sent my lengthy comment in via the feedback form, but I'll repeat it here to boost the ... heh ... signal. Basically, I can't convince my normie friends to install one more app just to talk to me. The whole selling point for signal on android is that you can send sms with it as well, and it easily becomes your default messaging app. In fact one of the reasons I haven't switched to iphone despite a deep distrust of google is because signal can't be my default messaging app on iphone. Removing this sms on android is going to be a massive inconvenience. I'll probably tolerate it, but I know many people won't tolerate it and simply stop using signal.
What's worse, the discussion from The Foundation seems to show a complete disregard for users. I understand it is [current year] and to expect any organization to care about its users is a pipe dream, but I hold open source organizations to higher standards. This throws the trust I had in signal in the bin and makes me believe at best The Foundation has no idea who their users are and at worst have ulterior motives driving this decision.
dekiesel
commented
1 year ago Please reconsider. This is a substantial blow to signals userbase.
Ammako
commented
1 year ago This throws the trust I had in signal in the bin and makes me believe at best The Foundation has no idea who their users are and at worst have ulterior motives driving this decision.
By design, they don't. Signal lacks telemetry on purpose.
riggtravis
commented
1 year ago This throws the trust I had in signal in the bin and makes me believe at best The Foundation has no idea who their users are and at worst have ulterior motives driving this decision.
By design, they don't. Signal lacks telemetry on purpose.
They could try listening, or they could try seeking community feedback before taking drastic action. Over the weekend I found out this decision was being made, by which point the decision had already been made. Open Source projects that aren't just freemium trial products for paid systems live and die based on finding out what their users want. Signal is not looking like a well-run 501(c)(3) organization right now
burrm
commented
1 year ago It might be worth noting that Android has a little over 70% market share on the mobile device market (https://www.statista.com/statistics/272698/global-market-share-held-by-mobile-operating-systems-since-2009/).
Even without specific data, unless we identify why Apple users would install it in higher proportions than Android users, it would not be unreasonable to start with a base assumption that 70% of Signal users are Android users. The foundation would have to refute this with some other source of data (say Google Play/Apple Store installations in lieu of better telemetry information).
Based on these assumptions, Signal is risking alienating up to 70% of their user base directly, plus the proportion of iOS users who communicate predominately with Android users who also use SMS who will revert to SMS after the feature is removed.
Ammako
commented
1 year ago They could try listening, or they could try seeking community feedback before taking drastic action.
Do you think community feedback can accurately represent 100M+ active users? People who are upset will write about it, those who are happy will just silently continue using the app.
I'm not discrediting that there are people who are being negatively affected by this. It sucks when functionality that you rely on gets taken away, and I think that SMS support was an excellent stepping stone towards adoption. Ultimately I believe that pulling support is the right move though, given how problematic SMS support has been, but it probably wouldn't have hurt much to keep it for a little while longer, until they could maybe just switch to RCS.
At the end of the day though, I don't expect that most here would be willing to accept this type of nuanced thinking, but I'll leave you with this:
https://teddit.adminforge.de/r/signal/comments/yfwia4/sms_removal_megathread/iu9t7pl/
Contrary to what the first reply says, it's actually totally fine for forks to use Signal's servers. Moxie was strongly against it, but with him gone, Signal doesn't really mind forks using their servers as long as you don't do anything disruptive and that you don't use their trademark. There is one user in that comment thread who's willing to put forward $5k to anyone who's willing to maintain a fork with SMS support. Spread the word and find capable people willing to do this, and perhaps more people willing to contribute financially. If Signal won't maintain SMS support (understandable in my eyes), then surely somebody else can? It's a matter of spreading the word and making it happen.
Or I guess everyone could just complain and do nothing, but we all know that's never going to lead anywhere, so why not put that energy towards making a fork happen?
Good luck
jarq6c
commented
1 year ago Do you think community feedback can accurately represent 100M+ active users? People who are upset will write about it, those who are happy will just silently continue using the app.
There is an additional possibility. Ostensibly, all active users have received the SMS feature removal notice. Some will silently discontinue using the app.
The vocal users concerned about this change may be from community members with some investment in Signal, either through long-time use, spreading awareness, or actual donations. Telling the concerned to take their money and leave seems dismissive when some of us would rather donate it to a proven application like Signal.
benrr101
commented
1 year ago This throws the trust I had in signal in the bin and makes me believe at best The Foundation has no idea who their users are and at worst have ulterior motives driving this decision.
By design, they don't. Signal lacks telemetry on purpose.
I don't mean literally ... you can still listen to your community and develop in a direction that addresses their needs/concerns without tracking their every move on your application.
riggtravis
commented
1 year ago Do you think community feedback can accurately represent 100M+ active users?
100% accurate? No. But the notice to those users was a blog post almost none of them were going to read two weeks before sending a notification through the app. Signal could have sent a survey using the same process. No, there won't be 100% responses on the survey, but you will get feedback from active users, and a more accurate canvassing than what they did (effectively decide without any input in the first place).
Or I guess everyone could just complain and do nothing, but we all know that's never going to lead anywhere, so why not put that energy towards making a fork happen?
I agree that we can fork the signal app, and there's a decent chance that will happen. Still, any time that happens, we have a race against time in the open-source community to all consolidate to a single point of continued development and support, as well as needing to onboard new developers unfamiliar with the code base to maintain the fork and pull in the upstream commits from the mainline project. For an example of what happens in the best case, look at atom-community; this fork had a much better head start on any signal fork we can come up with because GitHub gave developers a one-year heads-up about the cessation of support. Signal though? Pretty dead drop.
At least with a canvassing of community support for moving on from SMS, people would have more ability to plan for this feature going away and to try to develop an alternative. I'm not trying to say that the signal organization isn't within its right to cease support for features they no longer wish to build and maintain; I'm just trying to say that the handling of this was very anti-user.
lanz
commented
1 year ago https://teddit.adminforge.de/r/signal/comments/yfwia4/sms_removal_megathread/iu9t7pl/
That r/signal subreddit is an absolute joke. Any useful criticism of Signal results in an instant permaban. Go to r/SignalUncensored to see real criticism.
Bug description
Signal has notified users of removing SMS support for Android. This doesn't follow logically, and therefore I am submitting the in-app notifications as the bug to be fixed (by keeping SMS and removing the notifications).
Steps to reproduce
Open the application and receive notification that SMS is being discontinued
Device info
Android (all supported versions) Signal (future supported versions within months)
More information
Re: Removing SMS Capability in Signal Background:
The Signal Foundation has recently announced a decision to remove SMS support for Android through its blog on October 12, 2022 and through in-app notifications.
I, and many others, on Android use Signal as the primary messaging application on our devices. I communicate with a number of Signal and non-Signal users alike.
The two primary reasons that I use Signal are secure messaging with contacts who can be convinced that secure messaging is important and interoperability with users who use SMS/MMS based messaging. Both of these are jointly necessary and sufficient to keep using Signal. Without interoperability, I suspect that many of my first degree contacts will stop using the application, which will in turn cause me to abandon use of the application too.
In adopting Signal as a primary messaging application, I’ve had reasonable success with encouraging roughly 80% of my main first degree contacts, with whom I likely share 99% of my messaging, to use Signal. The crucial, sine non qua, feature of this, is actually SMS interoperability even though the vast majority of my messages are Signal messages. The remaining 20% of first degree contacts haven’t been, and reasonably can’t be, convinced at the current time to use Signal, primarily due to issues with second/third degree contact adoption, general user expertise/capability, not wanting a “second application”, and different devices in use (ex. Apple). Security alone, while desirable, is not sufficient for user adoption/maintenance.
Analysis:
Signal presents flawed arguments for terminating SMS support. I will address each of these, in turn, from Signal’s blog post: Signal’s first stated reason, “The most important reason for us to remove SMS support from Android is that plaintext SMS messages are inherently insecure. They leak sensitive metadata and place your data in the hands of telecommunications companies. With privacy and security at the heart of what we do, letting a deeply insecure messaging protocol have a place in the Signal interface is inconsistent with our values and with what people expect when they open Signal.”
As an experienced developer/IT professional I appreciate technological security more than most laypeople. Willingly or unwillingly, I am in a position of having to support all of the “family devices” and frequently get contacted about technological issues by second and third degree contacts. For my contacts where I have recommended Signal (most of them at this point, with around 80% adoption for first degree contacts), the sole feature to overcome skepticism of trying a new app has been “you can use this for all of your contacts and it will be secure for others who use the application too”. Without this, I estimate that only one or two first degree contacts would have been willing to make the change, and estimate that they would not have used the application for more than a month before reverting back to a default SMS application on their devices.
Impacting the user base in this way is likely to cause more, not less, messaging to go over carrier SMS networks, working against the Signal Foundation’s stated goal of keeping data away from telecommunications companies and other counterparties. Signal’s second stated reason, “Back when we started supporting plaintext SMS messaging things were different. Data plans were much more expensive generally, and were totally inaccessible in many parts of the world. Now, data plans are cheaper and far more ubiquitous than they were nearly a decade ago. In a reversal, the cost of sending SMS is now prohibitively high in many parts of the world. This brings us to our second reason: we’ve heard repeatedly from people who’ve been hit with high messaging fees after assuming that the SMS messages they were sending were Signal messages, only to find out that they were using SMS, and being charged by their telecom provider. This is a terrible experience with real consequences.”
The Signal foundation proposing removing a key feature due to users incurring costs is tenuous, at best. I suspect that an analogous case of users being charged high fees for data use has occurred as well, but that’s not a meaningful argument to say that Signal must abandon data based messaging and only use carrier SMS. Users that I am familiar with typically have capped data plans, but unlimited messaging, therefore using Signal calls, video calls, and data based messages are likely to incur high fees for these users, or at least higher than the use of carrier SMS/MMS and voice calls. In any case, Signal should not be concerned with the specifics of a user’s SMS/data plan, any more so than their identity or the content of their messages.
Additionally, presenting the removal of a key feature of the software because users incur fees is akin to saying the following: but for the use of Signal with SMS, users would not have incurred these fees. Users would have likely still incurred these fees, if not through Signal, then through another messaging application utilizing SMS (other users using SMS instead of signal is a necessary condition of using SMS in Signal). Users have access to many data based messaging applications (ex. WhatsApp, Telegram, etc), so they could have chosen a data based application if that was what they were inclined to do and what their first and second degree contacts use.
Signal’s third stated reason, “Third, there are serious UX and design implications to inviting SMS messages to live beside Signal messages in the Signal interface. It’s important that people don’t mistake SMS messages sent or received via the Signal interface as secure and private when in fact they are not. And while we flag the difference between them in the app, we can only do so much on the design side to prevent such misunderstandings.”
I think that Signal has already struck a good middle ground here, and users need to apply a healthy degree of “caveat emptor” with regard to whether they are communicating securely and whether the content of their message interlinks the security level of their communication medium and the people involved. The “secure by default” approach is the right one, but prohibiting SMS will likely cause a reversion in security for many users. Instead of using Signal, or another secure communications application, they will simply revert to their phone’s built in messaging, likely utilizing SMS. This will result in less security, not more, for Signal’s users.
Conclusion:
The Signal foundation has provided, at best, flawed reasoning for discontinuing SMS support. Signal’s gamble here is on overcoming inertia with built in SMS messaging applications by compensating with Signal’s other features. Politely, I don’t think that the other features available are sufficient for users to use this application over SMS unless most of their other first and second degree contacts are already using it and will continue using it with SMS removed, or if backward support with SMS is maintained. Removing SMS is likely to cause users to incur messaging fees, where applicable, by using other SMS applications (to talk to SMS users) because they incurred these features by communicating with non-Signal users while using Signal. Finally, designing user experiences is always hard, and some users will inevitably mess up. A critical aspect of software development being difficult does not overcome the necessity of doing so. Sacrificing the user base for the sake of solely allowing secure messaging seems like an ideologically motivated decision, not a pragmatically motivated decision, and is likely going to work against the ideal of providing secure messaging for the largest number of people possible.
There may be a sufficient condition for ending Signal support for SMS, but it has not been stated by the Signal Foundation in its communications to date. If Signal replaced SMS support with support for Google’s and Apple’s encrypted chat based protocols that “feel” like SMS and are present in devices' default messaging apps, then this might meet the desire to end unencrypted messaging support while still providing users the ability to communicate with first and second degree contacts who are not Signal users. However, there would still be a case for needing to at least receive SMS messaging, as the protocol is likely not going away anytime soon and is used for many 2 factor authentication messages, among other cases where it is necessary to receive, but not send, SMS messages.
The second degree contact issue is a key issue for me to use the application. Removing SMS support will cause most of my first degree contacts using Signal to stop using the application, and in turn, cause me to stop using it in all but the most infrequent cases. Signal should weigh the concrete instance of users warning Signal about loss of users against the theoretical, tenuous, reasons placed forth by the foundation in removing this key feature.
In conclusion, I would respectfully ask the Signal Foundation to very carefully reconsider the need to remove SMS support and keep it if in any way possible. Without it, most of my and my first degree contacts’ communications will revert to carrier SMS and Google’s/Apple’s “chat” capabilities through our devices’ built-in messaging applications.