Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
379 points by quentinus95 on Oct 19, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 251 comments
Here is their answer:

Hi,

Thank you for your thoughts on the announced SMS removal. The blog post describes all of the biggest factors in making this decision, but I know this is a change that is difficult to adjust to, so I wanted to chime in with some additional info that might give some more context.

1. RCS (Rich Communications Services) 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 cannot add RCS support because there’s no RCS API on Android. Honestly, the days of any third-party SMS app are numbered.

2. Proper SMS/MMS support is hard. Signal has to support thousands of devices running dozens of versions of Android. Now multiply that by the hundreds of cell carriers running an inherently bad/buggy protocol, and you’ll start to understand the weird MMS bugs we can run into. And any time spent trying to fix them is time invested in an insecure protocol.

3. SMS/MMS has plenty of its own bugs. Remember that incident a few years ago in which everyone got old Valentine’s SMS messages delivered 9 months later? It was an SMS protocol bug for which some users blamed Signal. Other weird bugs like temporarily-split MMS groups, bad image quality, and the general inability to leave MMS groups are flaws in MMS that also get attributed to us.

4. Spam. My goodness, SMS spam is a real thing, and many people who use Signal cannot tell the difference between SMS spam and Signal messages if both come through Signal. They think we’re responsible for the spam.

5. Finally, Signal having SMS support gives a lot of people the wrong impression of SMS. They think that because SMS is being sent through Signal, it’s actually secure or as secure as an encrypted Signal-to-Signal message, and that’s just not true. We can add unlocked padlock icons to each SMS message, and we can label the message compose box as “insecure”, but the misunderstanding would continue. The only thing we can do is store the SMS messages encrypted on the device, but in my opinion that matters very little when anyone who wants your SMS messages can just get them all from your cell carrier.

In short, SMS is on its way out in general, and in a world where Signal supports SMS, all of SMS shortcomings are often attributed to Signal itself, all while confusing people into thinking their SMS messages are secure.

In my opinion, a secure SMS app does not exist. Just choose the one with the best layout or usability, and preferably one that supports RCS (which I believe at this point are Google and Samsung Messages), because at least then there’s some chance that they might end up being encrypted in the future.

I hope that helps give some more context. And please know that I understand this is difficult to adjust to. I can relate. I’ve used Signal as my SMS app for over 6 years, but I truly think it’s for the best.




I think you're forgetting the main reason: the group of people using it to communicate is really small and shrinking every year.

The only large group of people who still primarily use SMS to communicate person-to-person is Android users in the USA.

Every other country has settled on either Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp or FB Messenger, or other niche apps. These apps work on both iOS and Android and often also Windows. I haven't sent an SMS in probably 12 years. I don't know anyone who has.

It's only in the US that iMessage is so prevalent that Android users have to use SMS, the only other way of messaging iOS devices. And the US is quickly becoming a de-facto iOS only country. It already has more than 50% market share, even 80% among young people.

With the US going (almost) full iMessage and the rest of the world having already settled on another app there simply no point to supporting SMS.


SMS is still rather common here in Europe. Even if a ton of people use whatsapp and such SMS is often a safe option to initiate with or something trough which you get certain kinds of automated messages like appointment reminders or verification codes.


I think that differs very much per country. The last time I have received an SMS from a human in NL must have been a decade ago. In many European countries, sending SMS was quite expensive, leading to early and very wide adoption of WhatsApp.


It's definitely in use in Europe, but it depends. I and my wife use SMS extensively, that's simply because we both use very cheap phone plans without a built-in data plan - i.e. no internet unless we have wi-fi (the pro side of that is that the yearly phone expenses is in the (equivalent of) low tens of dollars, not hundreds of dollars). When we're networked we use Line messaging.

My wife's boss communicates with all her employees by SMS (mass SMS - works like group communication, both ways).

AddEdit: Airlines send their notifications and links to boarding passes etc. via SMS. Dentist and doctor appointments, other public office appointments (e.g. my upcoming passport renewal), document notifications (from pension fund insurance companies for example), public warnings ("Toxic fire nearby - close your windows"), and more, are via SMS where I live.


Huh, how cheap is that? I’m almost always in wifi range, so I got the cheapest plan I could find in Germany (4€/month, so 48€/year), and even that still includes 1 GB of data (I do need the data, to sync my shopping list for example, but I’m curious how low one can go :D).


The cheapest (as in 0€/month) plan would probably be a SIM from Netzclub, but that's financed via advertisements. And then there was Congstar's "Prepaid wie ich will" (the 1st generation), which offered a "free messaging option" (1 GB / month, but only 32 kb/s) you could book every month. You just had to keep the SIM alive by topping up your credit by 15€ every 15 months (iirc). The unthrottled data options for this plan were expensive though.


I use discotel for years now, it is basically a prepaid with automated recharge from bank invoice on O2/Eplus. Thanks to being a prepaid you always got the option to switch you setup via packets every 30 days or 4 weeks (have to check that again, it was a fixed day amount and not based on calander months anymore).

So if I'm not traveling I stay with the cheapest data option for my occasionally otg stuff and on heavy travel months I choose larger packages, because I found myself using more often, for example as access point to notebook.

I also have an Kaufland (Telekom) Prepaid card, that said it would provide basic, very slow internet, for free so that text messages over chat works, bur I don't know if I got the wrong APN settings, it has problems in my second slot or it only works if you top it up regularly, but that internet and rest never really worked, even the account management over the website doesn't really work for me.


Most European countries have had unlimited SMS way before messaging apps where a thing


Not true at all. Most european countries are still pay per message.


Maybe on prepaid (pay per use) SIM cards.

Even cheapest monthly subscriptions have at least 500 messages per month bundled, with more typical monthly plans (~$15/mo) having unlimited calls, SMS/MMS messages and around 30 GB of 4G/5G data.


As far as I know Belgium, France, Germany, the UK, Greece and I think Spain and Italy have very popular unlimited sms phone plans.


Damn


That was ages ago. Most people have unlimited text messages these days (SMS, not MMS).


Yes, but the point is that in some countries this happened so late that everyone already switched to Whatsapp before SMS became effectively free. And once everyone is on Whatsapp there's no point in switching back to SMS.


Not in most countries I've been...

It became common to get atleast 1000 sms in your plan, combined with maybe 100mb of data back them, then unlimited sms with 1gb of data, and then slowly data went upwards while sms can't go up from "unlimited". 100MB is not enough to leave "the internet" running 24/7 on your phone, so internet-based chat services were unusable for general reachability back then (we're talking about early symbian and stuff like msn messenger era), and you just sent an SMS (becase 1000 is enough for everyone... except teenage girls back then(.


Definitely not per country: I regularly use SMS from NL.


> In many European countries, sending SMS was quite expensive, leading to early and very wide adoption of WhatsApp.

Yes, but data tariffs were also expensive, while you can send SMS with regular (no-data) tariff.


NL is rather small sample to, say, larger countries like Poland that use SMS quite frequently. And depending on carrier, SMS texting most likely will be completely free with most of the current plans.

Signal's rationale is just Signal's own reluctance to build an umbrella messenger. And given they do drop SMS, still won't introduce usernames it's very hard to actually sell it as a WhatsApp replacement.

And now, with WhatsApp supporting password protected cloud backups and up to 2Gb attachments, I'd say Signal will loose the userbase it acquired during the hype and Musk tweet.

In fact, during 2020 Belarus protests, Signal did nothing to support it's own operations during internet semi-blackout in the country, while Telegram tweaked their server side to provide at least some possibility to know what was happening in big cities. So what are the values of Signal — I don't even know. But they sure did support pillagers and rioters in the USA.

To be even more brazen, Signal is not Apple. They stopped innovating. And they don't have enough political power to convince people do things the new way. Even their zero knowledge server is worthless. Check out the story on FBI cracking down on the leader of some right wing proud boys type of armed group. They tracked him and then compelled to give up access to Signal.

Their innovation stopped at providing solid cryptography that was adopted by most decent messengers already. And they aren't visionaries with cancelling SMS.

UPD: the funniest part is that the service that drops the SMS support still relies on SMS to provide account registration.

This is just an unprecedented level of sarcasm.


Being such a small operation, I think they're making a great decision by focusing on what matters most. "Most startups die by lack of focus". I very much believe this is their first public step towards breaking up with phone number based identity.


>Being such a small operation, I think they're making a great decision by focusing on what matters most.

Currently, it looks like they are focusing on social networking features: stories, emoji stuff, better link previews. Basically everything that competition already did. The roadmap is not public, so I wouldn't take guesses as what may come next. But...

..."dropping support of X as a feature" is some kind of new transcendent approach to product development incomprehensible to common earthlings.


You seem very frustrated personally for the lack of SMS support on Signal.

I don't agree with your take or arguments, and you seem to keep branching off pejorative comments on their organization and product instead of actually discussing the points. I think the conversation would be more productive if we focus on the same point, i.e.:

  * Focusing on what matters most is a good idea, as nobody serious about secure messaging uses SMS

    * Your argument: irony-covered "dropping features is not a good product development approach". 

      * My counter-argument: it **is** a valid approach, why support a feature that was useful in the past, but it is now dying/not aligned with your core value proposition?

    * Your other argument: their focus is on social networking, and some disdainful comment that "the competition already did it". 

      * My argument: how is catching up with well-established user behaviors across other messaging platforms a bad thing?
I remember when I didn't have a smart phone (I don't come from a privileged background, and this was 2009) and I used twitter over SMS. I really wouldn't care if they dropped support for it now, but back then, I would have churned.

(edited for formatting)


I'm not frustrated personally, but I know a lot of people who lost their faith in what the organization does.

No one is branching off, but a pretext that your personal take on things must comply with some sort of argumentation protocol that is the only valid blueprint for discussion isn't convincing. Moreover you've managed to somehow unwrap you single comment into a fully fledged dialog while ignoring that their roadmap (the big picture) is not exposed to the public. Given we can only judge isolated decisions, they seem what they are — rather not aligned with the expectations of the userbase.

Personally, I see a pattern of Signal making news in rather negative connotation rather than positive lately.

When it got traction, I felt like it's a new day and the future is bright. But since then, they went with a series of rather ambiguous decisions that sidetracked from previous claims.

EOS for SMS is again one of controversial decisions, I mean, we're in a thread started by a person that went above to clarify reasoning behind the press release. And before it was a year of server side repos without any commits, and then the public got a feature no one asked for — MobileCoin integration. And echoes of intent about it are still heard across the table.


Enlighten me please, how can you register with a username and without a phone number in WhatsApp?


Completely agree with your assessment.


Probably per person than per country.


I really hope SMS keeps on going - it's as a solid of a protocol as email is - no matter where you are, as long as there is a mobile network, you can send a text message.


It's also not secure (e.g., https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/03/can-we-stop-pretending-s...).


I second this. SMS is still great for rural areas where mobile internet is non existent


Not sure that can be said as a blanket statement for the whole of Europe. In the UK SMS isn't common at all anymore.


Not common isn't quite right. Ofcom's report shows that SMS use is shrinking, but it is still an average of 51 messages per user per month.

Source https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/222401/...

SMS decline is probably inevitable though.


That seems really high based on my UK experience. The link says "the average mobile connection sent 51 messages per month". What does it mean for a "connection" to send messages? Could that include messages sent to the user? If so, this number would make sense (OTPs and spam).


It's the only comment in a long and pointless Europe-does-this/no-it-doesn't that has found any statistics at all, so I think it's reasonable to accept it, unless much more detailed statistics can be found.


I absolutely accept that the statistic is probably a true number of something, it's just unclear from the wording what the something is.


Wow, 51 messages _sent_ per user per month, so it's not even about receiving verification SMS.

> The average mobile connection sent 51 messages per month in 2020, 17 fewer than in 2019.

I'd love to know the median, I assume there's a number of power users that drives up the average. Or bots that are sending out thousands of messages a day.


"Wow"? That's two messages per day. Or just one single long conversation with somoenoe per month, like organizing a dinner and going back and forth around a subject a few times.

Wow, it's really dead.


Granted, I'm not in the UK, but Germany's market is somewhat similar regarding pricing etc. Not even my mother uses SMS, most people use either WhatsApp or Telegram, with some Threema and Signal mixed in.

Apparently Germany has ~8bn SMS for 160m contracts (don't ask me why there's an average of two contracts per person), which is like 50 a year. Edit: that number seems to include automated messages.


Apparently, after removing M2M-SIMs (smart-home, card-terminals, etc.) you end up with 107m active SIM cards.

That seems reasonable: Company-issued phones, LTE-Routers, some undercounting of M2M, and gerneral churn (I changed provider so I had 2 SIM-cards this year).


"average person sends 51 sms a month" factoid is actually just statistical error...


51 messages per month in 2020.


Does anything let you configure 2fa via WhatsApp yet? I know there are logistics companies starting to offer it as an email alternative for notifications, but for most automated comms and for contact initiation, SMS is still the standard.

I think it would be more accurate to say that ongoing communication via SMS messages isn't common at all any more. They're like a protocol negotiation handshake.


I suspect if you book a health appointment in the UK if your mobile number is listen increasingly you will get a SMS notification via Accurx[0].

I do still occasionally get work conversation initiated via SMS rather than WhatsApp especially if that comes from a phone which is associated with a task or job. Like the out of hours mobile phone which is moved between people.

[0] https://www.accurx.com/


Same in Eastern Europe, where even mobile calls are giving way to WhatsApp, Viber, etc. This is also a common way to call many businesses


I concur, SMS is DEFINITELY still common in Europe. Removing support for SMS would mean all of family will stop using the app now, this is completely silly and US-centric...


Automated messages are pretty much the only thing I get via SMS. Other than the occasional message from my mum who likes to randomly flip between WhatsApp and SMS depending on which way the wind blows.


It's still used in that sense but it's very rarely used for actually sending texts between people.

Basically, SMS used to be a big revenue driver for operators. That business has dried up almost completely. The notion of paying per message is just completely gone. So, operators stopped caring about SMS a long time ago. In the same way, call minutes are increasingly less relevant. It's all about 4G and internet now.


> The notion of paying per message is just completely gone.

Not in Hungary, you still have to pay per message here unless you choose the most expensive plan.


And do people still do that or do they use whatsapp instead? This used to be a multi billion dollar business for operators. Not anymore.


I can only offer a personal anecdote. In Sweden the only SMS messages I receive are marketing spam and appointments from various places (from my hairdresser to dental appointments). Everyone else is either on various messaging apps (FB Messenger, Telegram) or chat apps (Slack, Discord)


What country do live in? I haven’t received an SMS from a human in probably ten years; I live in Europe and everyone uses Signal/WhatsApp


Which countries? It has zero use in the UK (apart from for stuff like parcel deliveries and 2FA). We're 100% WhatsApp.


No we're not.

There's a lot of people here claiming that their personal use is representative of their country, or of Europe as a whole. I get SMS from a lot of people. You don't, probably because a lot of the people you know are on Facebook/Whatsapp and it's more convenient for them to stay with that platform. That doesn't mean that they don't use SMS for anyone else. It just means that you are bubbled.


My experience of mobile messaging the UK is different to yours as might be expected in a country of 60+ million.

The stats show a significant drop as mobile data became cheaper and richer services became available, but still quite a lot of traffic.

I suspect that the people I see using Nokia and Samsung dumb phones will continue to use SMS, so traffic will fall to a sustained tail.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271561/number-of-sent-sm...


2FA, NHS, gov.uk reminders, a large %age of my social group...

WhatsApp is a closed protocol owned by Facebook. It has its uses but relying on it is a mistake.


It's down from the peak, but 40 billion SMSes were sent in the UK in 2021. I would be staggered if this number was majority B2C/2FA.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271561/number-of-sent-sm...


I would be staggered if it wasn't majority spam, OTPs, and automated reminders.


Born & raised in the EU, have had a phone for 25ish years. Have never encountered SMS spam. Most I've had is 3 or 4 cases of SMS phishing attempts (which isn't spam).


I send maybe one SMS per year, not every year, when I think a person could be offline or in low signal areas. SMSes get where data don't.

I receive dozens of SMSes from banks with one time passwords for 2FA and payments notifications, from delivery companies to notify me about progresses in my orders plus some spam. It's easier for them to use SMS than anything else because every phone receives SMS right out of the box.


A bit weird for the "I don't use it so who cares" view to take a firm hold here.

SMS is:

1. not controlled by a single company

2. a different network than the internet

3. a fail safe for people who don't use apps or are unable to at a given time for some reason (inc 2fa)

4. a fail safe for a "small group of people" who are suffering the consequences of a natural disaster.

Though perhaps not economically feasible for certain companies, supporting redunancy is as much an honorable goal as privacy.


And totally readable and accessible by any third party


I tried to imply that redundancy instead of privacy would be the reason to support SMS in my last sentence.

Is this the comment you would give when someone says they intend to take a notebook with them when travelling in addition to their phone?


Can you please explain how you or any other third party (beyond my phone provider) can read my SMS at will?


and? If you want encryption you can add it yourself. GPG should work for example. And there was some apps that encrypt messages over whatsapp and co, there should work for SMS too.


I'm from Europe and use SMS only, I don't get it how having a dozen of messaging apps and remembering who uses what is better than a simple SMS that I can send to absolutely anyone with a phone..


Pretty much this. I only ever send out SMS if I am the one who initiates the conversation on a phone, but other people send me messages on other apps.

However most of my instant messaging is done on a computer using discord, so I might not be in the prime user base of these apps


SMS is still used in France too.

> I don't get it how having a dozen of messaging apps and remembering who uses what is better than a simple SMS

Indeed, especially now that Telegram is taking off by times in Europe (in Belgium / Spain / France at least Telegram is getting used by a lot of people) and that some people now refuse to use WhatsApp.

In addition to appointment reminders from doctor/dentist/notary/whatever and delivery tracking numbers I still exchange SMS with quite some people.

It's not as if it was exactly hard to open and reply to a SMS you just received from someone: takes exactly the same time as answering using WhatsApp or Telegram.


> Indeed, especially now that Telegram is taking off by times in Europe (in Belgium / Spain / France at least Telegram is getting used by a lot of people)

Interesting, here in Germany, almost everyone I know has Signal and WhatsApp with some people using only one of them. Telegram I encountered from one US American living here, and from people into conspiracy theories.


In my experience here in Germany, Signal usage has increased drastically in the last two years. When my daughter started a new school, I got enlisted in the parents group on Signal. Previously, parent groups or anything similar was an exclusive WhatsApp territory.

As for Telegram, people mostly use it to consume news. It basically replaced RSS readers for common people. Although its install base is relatively high, I have yet to receive a single private message over Telegram.


When you're making these claims... are you actually looking at any aggregate survey or numbers... or are you doing the typical biased bubble "I've looked at 15 people I know" thing?


I thought I had added "I know", but apparently I missed that, apologies. Fixed now. The 2nd sentence had the relevant "I encountered" part, not the first.


I guess that varies from country to country. In Spain, it's WhatsApp for everybody with Telegram recently making inroads for specific topic groups.

SMS is used by companies to send notifications and asking for confirmation, even (ouch!) banks. I haven't sent one in more than a decade.


Same


>The only large group of people who still primarily use SMS to communicate person-to-person is Android users in the USA.

BS. I visited city I grew up recently, met with a few (9+) people (25-32 years old) and only one of them had WA, most haven't heard about Signal, everyone simply uses SMS. It's simply multiplatform, works with their gradmas and no one wants to install __another__ app to send messages to people. No one cases about RCS that will be used to push QR codes and ads, people will use SMS for its simplicity and reliability. I'll be dropping Signal and moving to WA once Signal drops SMS support.


If you're going to bother migrating and presumably taking people with you, why migrate to another company's proprietary service, rather than an open protocol?

Or (bluntly): why not Matrix (and/or XMPP)? What makes WA so much better that you're willing to go all-in with this company?


>If you're going to bother migrating and presumably taking people with you, why migrate to another company's proprietary service, rather than an open protocol?

I'm not taking anyone with me, they already have Signal and WA and obviously SMS. I'm uninstalling Signal and not recommending it again. I can already message Signal contacts using WA or SMS. I don't need Signal for that, and I'm not keeping 3rd messaging app.


network effect, as much as I like Matrix idea there is no chance it can compete with WhatsApp

now give me Matrix client with basic SMS support (I don't need even MMS) and I'm installing it immediately to replace my dedicated SMS app

I did same love with family as poster, from Signal with family, WhatsApp and SMS just to WhatsApp/SMS combo though already years ago after PIN nagging


but… WA also doesn’t have SMS support?


But I have 40 contacts on WA, and 4 on Signal? Everyone on Signal is also on WA and SMS.


"Everyone on Signal is also on WA": not true. I'm not and I know other people who aren't. But of course, this is not the majority. And "on SMS" isn't completely true either: you can have Signal on a landline number (I do have one on my office line), which of course can't receive SMS.


>not true. I'm not and I know

I don't have your phone number. I was talking about my 4 Signal contacts, they are on WA too.


I have 0 contacts on WA and 30 on signal. Only time I used WhatsApp was a decade ago when travelling in Europe.

Personally, I use signal as a replacement for Hangouts.


>Every other country has settled on either Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp or FB Messenger, or other niche apps. These apps work on both iOS and Android and often also Windows. I haven't sent an SMS in probably 12 years. I don't know anyone who has.

SMS is big in Europe (yes, Europe is not a country. I just mean "dozens of countries in Europe"). All courriers have plans with SMS focus.


I'm on a prepaid plan. I had the maximum plan (unlimited data, unlimited voice) for two decades but with home office, I spend most time indoors so I've switched to a <10% cost prepaid plan which works mostly fine.

Some months my data volume doesn't last till the end of the month. I use SMS instead of the Signal protocol then.

Yes I might be a minority, but if you're not the market leader, cutting out minority groups of users will not make you more successful.

What's your mission: Giving secure communication to everyone or become the next WhatsApp?


Your data is completely switched off when you run out? In Europe it would be illegal to market this tariff as a "flatrate" and typically data plans are just reduced in bandwidth once your volume is used up.


> In Europe...typically data plans are just reduced in bandwidth once your volume is used up

"Reduced" is a very kind characterization, even if it's literally true - in my experience (with Vodafone and Three) this means ~64kbps which makes even messaging apps functionally unusable.

Since I started traveling more, I use my eSim slot for a ~7€ data-only plan from one of the discount MVNOs just to avoid being caught in this situation.


No, but it's very unreliable and Signal doesn't work (Germany, Deutsche Telekom, Android, Mi 11 Ultra).


<<It's only in the US that iMessage is so prevalent that Android users have to use SMS, the only other way of messaging iOS devices. And the US is quickly becoming a de-facto iOS only country. It already has more than 50% market share, even 80% among young people.

Do you have any data to back it up? I have trouble believing that, but I am admittedly biased against Apple devices.


> With the US going (almost) full iMessage and the rest of the world having already settled on another app there simply no point to supporting SMS.

I think you just described the core of the problem: Signal has a very US-centric view of the market, and has no clue that SMS is actually still relevant elsewhere, and a low-hanging fruit for capturing user-base.


I have most of my friends using some messenger app and based on that I run―because I basically have to run―Whatsapp and Signal myself. But those are all people I know. What would you use but SMS when contacting people you don't?

Typically, if I try to reach someone but they don't answer I'll follow up with an SMS to explain what I tried to call for. If it's a co-worker, or an acquaintance, I'll send an SMS to make sure they receive my message. SMS is more reliable, doesn't require you to know which apps the other party runs, and it comes through to the recipient as SMS is a basic service in the telecom networks.

When I get to know a new person there's a transition to "oh, you're on $APP too", and I might starting moving non-urgent messages to $APP. But if you don't know the other party well or there's a question of reliability, what is an alternative backbone for messaging if not SMS?


> What would you use but SMS when contacting people you don't?

Here in the UK, whatsapp is the default first try, at least with anyone I've interacted with. The dog groomer even messaged me on whatsapp to tell me dog is ready, completely unprompted.


Where are you getting 80% among young people? A quick google search only returned numbers around 55% among younger people. That's a looong way from a de-facto iOS only country.


Recent thread[0] about it.

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33169684


woah those shares are very high, thanks for digging it up.


> Every other country

That's obviously not true. I live in a European country where a lot of people are still using SMS.


In Australia, SMS is still fairly widely used for messaging people you're not in usual contact with (to be fair, Facebook Messenger and Instagram are far more popular for communicating in general if you've added each other).


> the group of people using it to communicate is really small and shrinking every year

Group of people using it to communicate might be small, but group of people using SMS to get verification codes, messages from delivery company about scheduled delivery, doctor appointment reminder etc. will be for sure 90% or more phone users at least in Europe

So I find it very stupid to say nobody use SMS, because pretty much EVERYONE use them, just not to communicate with other, but to receive messages and you still need some app to receive these messages. So while I can communicate with almost everyone through Whatsapp I still need to use SMS app almost every day and I'd rather have all my communication consolidated in one app than must switch between apps to check the codes or other stuff, man I wish Whatsapp supported at least receiving SMS, actually I'm pretty sure that would be enough for majority of people which don't really need to compose message.


> Every other country has settled on either Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp or FB Messenger, or other niche apps. These apps work on both iOS and Android and often also Windows. I haven't sent an SMS in probably 12 years. I don't know anyone who has.

This is a big call. I live in a country where SMS is still standard. Most communication with friends and family is done by it.

Can you please provide a source?


At this point, my entire family, including my 80 old grandmother, use Telegram for communication. I often find myself having to visit her house to show her how to “report spam and leave” random crypto groups she gets added to.


this really speaks to the urgent need of making interoperability legally mandatory for the bigger actors so one isn't socially forced to use one or two applications that are provided by a private actor


The answer doesn't always have to be larger governments and more oversight.

Users can switch to another OS if they really cared that Apple refuses to use industry standards, hamstrings their own mobile browser to bolster app sales, and violates antitrust laws with their ban on third party browser rendering engines.


The reality is that leveraging closed networks to gain effective monopolies (with all their known harmful effects) is a winning strategy with little counter strategies.

Users cannot switch to another OS because if they do they won't be able to communicate with social circle. This is also completely artificial because the networks have otherwise pretty much the same feature sets and are only distinguished by their accreted userbase.

Concurrent cannot compete because they can't gain enough users to get a critical mass

I wager that no single entity should have so many captive users.

Regulation is clearly in order


> I wager that no single entity should have so many captive users.

100% agree here, we've collectively picked convenience and shiny objects over everything else so often that we're left with a handful of companies with way too much power and reach

> Regulation is clearly in order

I disagree, or at least hope,this isn't our best or only option left. If it is the only thing that would work though, at least its something


I'm in the US, have android and use sms a lot, almost entirely to communicate with users of "dumb phones".

In fact, all the ios users I communicate with do it over whatsapp or telegram.

Today I had an ios user sms me asking if he could send me a voice message. I honestly have no idea if that would have worked but I directed him to whatsapp (that he already had installed) and it was frictionless thereafter. I expect I'll never see another sms from him again.


> The only large group of people who still primarily use SMS to communicate person-to-person is Android users in the USA.

This is precisely why RCS and MMS support aren't important. I just need Signal to deliver SMS authentication codes and notifications. For person-to-person communications I'll use Signal protocol.


Don't forget 2FA from shitty European companies! And pizza delivery notifications!

Jokes aside, I see SMS as a useless protocol; because it cannot be used for identification, and neither can anything be encrypted nor verified without another communication channel.

It's also not in the power of the end user to decide whether or not their number gets reassigned, blocked, or does work at all. Most US people seem to think that it's normal to have "one" number for years on end. For the rest of the world, it's not true.

For example: If I don't use my SIM card to make phone calls (which get billed) for 6 months, it's gone and reallocated to a different person.


> Most US people seem to think that it's normal to have "one" number for years on end. For the rest of the world, it's not true.

Uh, I’m from Germany and had the same mobile number for over 20 years.


Up to relatively recently (a few years ago) it was not possible to transfer numbers from one provider to another.

Even two years ago, I had to actually change a phone number because I couldn't transfer my number from one provider to their own reseller. O2 Scheißladen.


> Up to relatively recently (a few years ago) it was not possible to transfer numbers from one provider to another.

Huh, I guess I got lucky staying with Viag Interkom and then O2 (which was an automatic switch when O2 bought them) for so long, I only really switched providers in 2020 which was long after the EU regulation was in effect.


Yes, I remember that, although EU regulation was in effect, I still couldn't keep my number when switching from O2 to Tchibo (O2 reseller) because O2 did not allow that "for technical reasons".


I looked it up, the regulation was in effect since about 2006, but there was a loophole: It didn’t trigger if you switched from one provider to the same provider. And I guess that still counts when you switch from a reseller. That part has been changed later.


Thanks for the info. Good to know for the next time. Although, at the time they didn't say "we don't let you keep your number because we don't have to" but blamed it on "technical reasons".


I'm not sure what you mean about a reassigned number? Do you mean that people risk getting a new number, whether they want it or not? Because that shouldn't be an issue - I believe all of Europe (at least EU) demands that the customer can transfer their number to a new provider or whatever, whenever they want. So maybe you mean something else?


> Do you mean that people risk getting a new number, whether they want it or not?

It's a ̶̶u̶s̶e̶ pay it or lose it thing. AFAIK, typically applies to prepaid/pay-as-you-go SIMs, not on contracts.

For my case, it is that I have to make a 12EUR top-up every 3 months. The top-up credit will expire if I don't make another top-up on time. After a few months on zero credit, you get you incoming calls blocked. And after a couple more months, your SIM is de-registered.

Transferring your number is always possible, yes. As long as you're still the registered owner of the SIM number.


Ah. That sounds like a strange prepaid SIM. I haven't seen any of those. Assuming that's the same as a prepaid plan. For the latter ones you can go years without topping up, in my experience, but they suffer from the same as any other SIM - if you don't use the phone even once in a year (or sometimes less), then it expires and you can't use the number. I saw someone complain about that because the guy had this "emergency phone" in the glove department of his car, which he never used, until an accident - and then he couldn't call (if it had been serious he could always call 112, I'm not sure he was aware of that). Come to think of it, this happened to a number I and my wife kept on a "loaner" phone we gave to foreign visitors, during the Covid period (no visitors..)


> And the US is quickly becoming a de-facto iOS only country...

I love that "there are two big players in the market with a literally 50%/50% split" means that iOS dominates. iPhones have always been popular among teenagers, if Millennials are any indication it levels out over time. It's just one of many weird demographic splits, not some grand trend. People need to not fall into the fallacy that "something is popular with young people" means that thing will remain popular as they get older.

iOS is more popular among women, young people, liberals, professionals, upper-middle and high-income, people with post-secondary education, and urbanites.

As well as the inverse of the above Android is more popular with people who work in IT, and people who follow tech news.


SMS is still very common in India.


You're forgetting that there's more than just person-to-person SMS.


No I'm not. I receive automated SMS messages all the time. 2FA codes, parcel tracking, my appointment at the dentist reminder etc...

But that's pointless to have inside the Signal app, which is for person-to-person communication. I wouldn't even want those messages in WhatsApp even if it could do it.


I don't see why an SMS app (or Signal) should be unsuitable for M2P.


SMS was, in my opinion, the killer feature for Signal. Telling people to install yet-another-inbox which was only going to be used by their one privacy-weirdo friend was a non-starter.

Saying "this is a better SMS app" got people on-board and let them "upgrade" to secure messaging. That's why I started using it in the "TextSecure" days.

But, sadly, I agree with Signal's reasoning here. Mixing the two protocols was annoyingly complex. If someone stopped using Signal, messages you sent to them would never arrive - with no notification. And there's no obvious way to "downgrade" to SMS.

I was working on RCS a decade ago. I'm glad to see it is finally getting somewhere - but I'm sad it is at the expense of better and more secure protocols.


Problem is Signal people had really odd visions how to make basic functionality work. This isn't really because SMS/MMS are bad(yes they are).

But there are threads in their issue tracker where Signal people would disagree with basically functionality of responding to text messages on dual sim devices. "We'll always use the Signal registered number as default".

One part of this is a terrible(but working) protocol, the other is really weird product management where basic needs of the consumer are brushed aside with a "I know best approach" that doesn't really work when you're not in the shoes of apple and have the ability to just replace SMS altogether.


Yeah, I've hit this interesting attitude from Signal developers when I noticed they hijack the SMS datastore which then becomes inaccessible to tools like SMS Backup & Restore and tools that forward SMS notifications to other devices.

The developers were adamant that they know better than me what I want from my SMS tool. And then proceeded to work on crypto and stories.


Agreed. I remember when - years ago - they unilaterally switched all Android devices to use the Apple emoji. No consultation, no investigation with users, no reason other than they wanted consistency across their apps.

Took a lot of grumpy users before they backtracked.

I use and like Signal. I'm not smart enough to disagree with some of their technical decisions, but I wish they could have found a way to make SMS/RCS work.


Just to add some citations.

You can see various threads where people complained about the forced Apple emoji e.g. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/3712 and https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/3675

Signal's own FAQ says

> Signal Android includes built-in emoji functionality for consistency between platforms

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360017561992-Wh...


I can see why some people would want a toggle, but defaulting to Apple emoji seems like the obviously correct thing to do. I suspect a major reason why HNers hate emoji in general is because they see different images from what gen-z sees and therefore have a hard time understanding jokes that rely on how these images look.


This used to be a problem but has been largely solved for the last 3-5 years. Emoji while slightly different looking are tonally consistent across devices.


One thing you need to keep in mind is that if you want an app with strong security, the less code you have, the easier it is to achieve the goal.

By definition, Signal is not going to have bells and whistles and niche features, to keep the codebase lean and easier to avoid security weaknesses.

If you want an app with many features, use Telegram.

(They did however ship emoji reactions in Signal because most people actually like it and the other apps do have it; curiously missing in Telegram).


And yet, they added crypto, stories, reactions, animated stickers and all that stuff while refusing to allow people to keep their loved-ones messages when their phone falls in to a toilet.

I don't think the reasoning for their implementation is as well thought out as you claim here.


>> curiously missing in Telegram

Telegram has had emoji reactions since 2021 -- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/now-y...


Telegram has emoji reactions as well


As a Dutch person, I'm still amazed that the US still seems to use SMS as much; mind you, our phone plans here were "you get 1000 text messages and X minutes or a bajillion megabytes of data"; that + 'free' international messaging / calls with services like Whatsapp quickly pushed people to data-only messaging like Whatsapp or maybe FB Messenger. We also have a big immigrant population that like to chat with their family wherever they may live, and international calls / text messages are stupid expensive.

I can imagine that's less of an issue in the US; do you pay extra for text messages and calls that go across state lines?


FWIW, I'm not American.

In the UK, where I am, most contracts have unlimited SMS. I think even the cheapest PAYG plans include massive bundles.

Lots of companies send out reminders by SMS because it is universally accepted. Not every customer has WhatsApp.


We do generally pay extra for international calls, though text messaging is often free (assuming you’re talking about international states. US states, of course, are all treated as the same country).

Almost all phone plans have unlimited (domestic) texting and calling and differentiate themselves with data, reliability and ”free” perks like subsidized Netflix. You really have to go out of your way to find a plan with limited texts/calls.


It's actually mostly some parts in central Europe where texting is expensive. For most parts of the world texting is quite important.

I don't understand why people on this board keep forgetting that central Europe and the US is the minority of the world population.

Everyone keeps bringing up WhatsApp. But it seems that everyone has all but forgotten that WhatsApp became so popular not because they only focused on the US market, but because they went around the globe and specifically targeted feature phones as well. I.e. they understood that their own home turf isn't enough to make a dominant chat application.


> I don't understand why people on this board keep forgetting that central Europe and the US is the minority of the world population.

Did you mean to reply to a different comment? Mine was a reply to the GP, to answer the very narrow questions he asked about the US.


The death of SMS is hardly specific to central Europe and the US. It's already thoroughly dead in most of Asia for person-to-person communication, replaced by WhatsApp/WeChat/LINE/Telegram/etc depending on country.


That's incorrect. Dead for person-to-person communication in east Asia yes, but still EXTREMELY common for everything else.

"It doesn't matter for the use cases I don't care about" - what a selfish look at the world.

Besides paying for parking by SMS and other services in Europe there's also M-Pesa and similar services[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa


> That's incorrect.

Read before replying. I literally said "for person-to-person communication".


I was specifically referencing YOUR language. You can't on the one hand proclaim death of a protocol and in the next sentence limit it to a specific use case.

> The death of SMS is hardly specific to central Europe and the US.

I hate to be a grammar Nazi, but since you're specifically attacking my wording I have to correct you. This statement would only be correct if it was: "The death of SMS for person-to-person communication is hardly specific to central Europe and the US."

So yes, your statement is incorrect. It's not dead, far from. It might get there eventually, but definitely not yet.


Fair enough, I guess, although I intended for "death" to refer to a process which is ongoing (contrast with "already dead" in the following sentence). It's not an uncommon usage, and Wiktionary seems to document it along with several other dictionaries.


Why are you people always so proud of having all your communication owned by Meta? With Meta dictating which phones you can use to communicate with others?


Where are you getting the idea from that "we" are proud of our communication being controlled by a commercial party? I'm pretty sure most people are not proud, but either poorly informed or not willing to make the trade off for more security while losing half their social network.


And yet, every time we have this conversation we get this "who cares about SMS, we have WhatsApp!" comments, like that's some kind of a good thing?

It happens in iMessage and RCS threads as well.


No, my phone plan in the US was unlimited call and text. So it was either imessage with everyone or text.


I've gotten SMS messages from iPhone users. In some Apple centric areas (rich people or people who think/want to pretend they're rich), I think iMessage is the default.

Fine by me. If they want a better experience, I have almost every messaging app on the Dutch market bridged to my Matrix server so I don't care, they'll just have to live with the lack of features if they want to chat with me (or install something like Signal).

I don't care about RCS and other ISP standards that exist to squeeze more money out of texting. I'll use Telegram/Signal/WhatsApp calling before I'll use my phone app because my subscription doesn't include free minutes (and I barely call anyway) so I've gotten the benefits of tech like WiFi calling through VoLTE for years before ISPs bothered sending their VoLTE profiles to my phone.


Probably because I haven't witnessed the Textsecure days: I didn't even know Signal was doing SMS, until these days. Certainly didn't convince anyone to use Signal by telling them it was a better SMS app. So SMS as killer feature seems to be, at least for my peer group, firmly in the past.


Signal's maneuver may be rational, but that doesn't make it good business. You can't just release a chat app into the wild. You need some strategy for how you will bootstrap users. If you build it they won't come.

Some chat apps bootstrapped by riding emerging markets with exorbitant SMS costs. Others bootstrapped by cross-promotion from existing popular communication networks.

Signal's strategy was to replace your current SMS app as-is and then incentivize you over to their network one contact at a time. It didn't work, for the stated reasons, which honestly sound like failures of product design and engineering more than anything else. Apple's Message app has the same strategy and it's working.

We haven't actually seen what Signal's next strategy will be, which is maybe a timing mistake as announcing a viable alternative could have taken some heat off the SMS retirement announcement. Or maybe there isn't a next strategy?

'The super secure chat network' is not a bootstrap strategy, it's a build it and they won't come strategy; so I think it's fair to remain bearish on Signal's future even after reading a rational take on why writing SMS apps are difficult.


> Apple's Message app has the same strategy

Maybe coming preinstalled on all i-devices helps?


You're right, I guess they're a blend of the cross-promo strategy as well.


This is a fantastic summary.


I once spend several euros sms-ing instead of what I thought was Signal-ing with someone in another country. Since then I keep the two strictly in 2 different apps.

I certainly wont mourn for this. Sms gets super expensive to other countries (outside the EU), it also gets super expensive when you don't pre-pay for a bundle (it's 2 eur for 1000 messages, then 25ct per message after that, ridiculous). Imho dutch carriers did everything they could to kill sms, and now I'm happy for it. The only bad thing is that my society at large seems to have chosen Whatsapp as it's replacement...


I have 2 issues with RCS:

1. Requires data connection, either WiFi or mobile data. SMS does not.

2. On Android, it goes through Google Messages. I don't trust Google.

So, I replaced Messages with another SMS app that doesn't spy on me and disabled RCS. If I wanted to do rich messaging through data connection, I would use Signal or similar.

So, RCS is not a replacement for SMS. It's just another IM protocol. And we have enough of those.

As for others replying through RCS, that's a failure of the messaging app, should recognize that the counterpart is SMS and reply in SMS. It's an attempt to force RCS...

SMS is for fast short messaging between mobile users, and that is its killer feature, it's universal. Every mobile phone supports it.

Signal dropping SMS support makes no difference for me, never used it for SMS, I used Signal for the secure conversations. Two different methods of contact.


"2. On Android, it goes through Google Messages. I don't trust Google.

So, I replaced Messages with another SMS app that doesn't spy on me and disabled RCS. If I wanted to do rich messaging through data connection, I would use Signal or similar."

3rd party SMS apps use a Google provided API to send and receive SMS messages on an operating system provided by Google. I'm not sure how you think using a 3rd party SMS app would be protecting you if Google cared about spying on your messages.

RCS through Google Messages is end to end encrypted while SMS is not, so you haven't eliminated Google in theory spying on your messages but you have assured that your carrier, the recipients carrier and whomever controls the OS and app on the destination device can potentially spy on your messages.


1. True RCS isn't supposed to go through internet, it's supposed to go through same way as SMS and voice calls (which is also a data connection, but specific to sms/rcs/voice)

2. That's not a requirement even though Google does their best to kill all alternative implementations. (Samsung had one, but Google paid them a lot of money to get rid of it. I have to admit I don't know who is left with their own RCS client)

> So, RCS is not a replacement for SMS.

It's 100% a replacement to SMS, it's literally defined in the same spec as SMS over LTE, as an upgrade to SMS. Though yeah Google made it, this... uh... thing. RCS is technically a federated standard, but Google killed every part of the federation and some parts of the standard.


RCS might be a federated standard, but before Google not even Verizon at AT&T wanted to federate.


Not sure why you'd say "not even Verizon". Verizon is literally the worst carrier worldwide (ok maybe after NTT) with regards to interoperability.


I think they're saying that the two biggest US carriers didn't want to interoperate.

Which is insane. An SMS replacement where Verizon and AT&T users cannot message each other is insane.


Yeah, that's exactly what I meant - if those two couldn't connect their systems, who can?


> So, I replaced Messages with another SMS app that doesn't spy on me and disabled RCS.

I think you know this based on the rest of your post but there is no “another SMS app that doesn’t spy on me”.


Why not? SMS apps no need internet access, so only one spying there can be carrier.


This was posted in the Signal discourse on the same day of the announcement (and linked deep in 630+ comments of the HN post), and I'm glad it's reposted here because it paints a very different picture than the previous blog post.

The hidden gem is that basically Google is taking over control of RCS, and by proxy "text messages". There will only be one Android implementation, and it's Android Messages. It (finally) comes with E2EE messages with something resembling the Signal protocol, but you lose the possibility of writing a custom UX for that, as was possible since Android 1.0. It's particularly ironic during Google's campaign pushing Apple to support RCS.


I haven't looked into the RCS protocol myself but what is preventing others from building their own RCS clients? As I understand the protocol, it's IP based rather than modem based, so external apps should work, right?


As far as I understand it right now its a lack of exposed APIs in Android to access the message stores. I suspect this is something that will be standardized and exposed in a future API revision, but as it stands right now using the official APIs I don't think you're able to make your own...


hmm so how is Google to get Apple's iPhones to support RCS if Google hasnt completely opened their API?


With Signal moving away from SMS, the required messaging app stack on my phone just to be able to receive everything sent do me will have to be:

- Signal -> Close friends & family I've convinced to use it.

- WhatsApp -> Most of my friends.

- SMS -> School notifications, 2FA, shipping updates, etc.

- Facebook Messenger -> Elderly relatives

- Telegram -> That one relative who wants to use this instead of Signal.

Is there a consolidated messaging app that the HN community recommends?

I can't be the only one suffering from messenger bloat.


I never understood Telegram. It's insecure by default, runs in a different jurisdiction. It's not even anonymous

But somehow people started using it because it was "more secure" than whatsapp.


> I never understood Telegram.

Telegram has amazing user experience. It's available for any platform, the messages are always backed up, the apps are high quality and responsive and they have great features for group messaging and group organization. They even give you a library you can build your own Telegram client with.

It's *great to use* - something that Signal people never prioritized and always rather pushed their sometimes horrible preferences down peoples throats.


Different jurisdiction to what? :)

My UK-based employer seems nonchalant about expecting me to agree to be subject to the laws and courts of California in order to receive internal company newsletters delivered via a 3rd party.

While I agree this is harmful to the user (or unpatriotic, if you prefer), it's extremely common thanks to the state of the global economy since the 1980s.

I'd wager that 99% of people in the UK would now be unable to contact their friends and family without relying on at least 1 large U.S. company.


Signal was late to market, and as much as I hate this in principle, it is unfortunate state of things.

Whatsapp has caught internationally but it's Facebook and its desktop app is a crashing dumpster fire.

Viber is another popular app, but has too many ads and visual noise.

Telegram has caught on as a good alternative for all, because it does everything good. Apps are functional, fast and stable. Interface is clean. Also Telegram channels were genius idea to increasing market penetration. Nowadays all social networks are heavily abused by bot abusing abuse feature (hehe). Basically any post containing "politics" let alone "war" content can be taken down by abuse spam. Be it facebook, twitter or reddit, all the same. So political and social "influencers" are rapidly creating backup or new main channels in the Telegram to post "controversial" information, and people reading news and blogs in Telegram will also message there too.


Anonymous groups are one killer app: you can easily join interest groups without leaking your phone number or other obvious ID (Facebook identity etc).

Of course, it's not really "anonymous" if a nation-state wants to come after you, but that's not the threat model for most people.


If someone has your phonenumber, they will still know it's you. Even if you think you're 'anonymous'


telegram doesn't make me share my phonenumber with everyone. i would use signal, but sharing my phone number is a no go.

maybe now that signal is switching off SMS it can implement user handles that people can share instead of their number. once they do i'll give it a try


It has channels, which are a great middle ground between Twitter and Substack.


Telegram is now more to Discord than friends and family messaging app. You use Telegram and Discord similar on how you use Reddit or Hacker News.


> It's insecure by default

Any proof? If you're calling MTProto 2.0 'insecure' then you should know it's already been audited multiple times in the last 2 years. If insecure means not using E2EE, then I guess the whole infrastructure of the internet is insecure.

> It's not even anonymous

It's more anonymous than Signal is. It requires phone number to register but you don't need to share a phone number or any personal detail to communicate with people.


> > It's insecure by default

> If you're calling MTProto 2.0 'insecure' then you should know [...]

If you're calling "secret chats" the default, then you should ask around or try to use telegram on desktop or just open telegram and see how much stuff is actually encrypted.


Secret chats are not the default. So Telegram can simply read them.

In whatsapp, messages have always been on-device / in-memory, where they belong, doing a p2p sync/transfer

> 1. Is There a Secret Chat On Telegram Desktop?

> No. Due to Telegram secret chat's end-to-end encryption and the requirement for permanent storage on the device (and not using the Cloud to store data), Telegram does not have the secret chat feature on Desktop or Web Telegram. They may add this feature on their desktop version in the future, but for now, it is not safe enough to have it.


> If you're calling "secret chats" the default

MTProto is the name of the:

1. Cloud Encryption

2. E2E encryption

algorithm at Telegram. MTProto 2.0 is not just secret chats, a different implementation is used for cloud: https://core.telegram.org/mtproto/AJiEAwIYFoAsBGJBjZwYoQIwFM...

Both cloud and e2ee consist of what's called the MTProto 2.0 algorithm.


Yeah that cloud encryption is bullshit. If you're not transferring keys in a way that only your devices can access the data, then they can also read the data. It's indeed not broken if it didn't perform this function in the first place


I'm so tired of people wanting to turn Telegram into Signal, it's never going to happen. E2EE comes at a cost. The cost is decreased scalability and inferior UX as clearly evident.

Matrix can't even load 100 old messages properly with E2EE enabled in a room. Signal can't even handle scale when it comes to chat groups and communities. There's no anonymity in both either as Signal doesn't even allow you to hide your phone number and Matrix leaks your metadata to all involved participants like crazy.

Telegram doesn't use E2EE but the privacy and security are in no way compromised.

The whole fuss about "They can read your messages" holds a very negative assumption in the first place about them reading it and then also assumes everybody's threat model involves inferior UX of managing chat backups like WhatsApp just to keep messages away from cloud.

Just take a look at your threat model and decide what you want, not everybody wants an E2E encrypted chat app because we know the compromises that we have to make with E2EE and I'd rather have my chats on cloud encryption than my local device, considering how many features Telegram allows me to have with cloud sync.


> I'm so tired of people wanting to turn Telegram into Signal

Oh, no, please! What I want is the other way around: turning Signal into Telegram, i.e. keep bolting features onto Signal until it has feature parity with Telegram, or even what Telegram did five years ago. That would be a dream.

I disagree that e2ee can fundamentally not deliver Telegram's experience, at least not far off. It may need more local processing and indexing (storage), but generally it's all possible. It's just a ton of work that Telegram has sunk many millions into and will cost even more to do securely.

What you are absolutely wrong about, however, is claiming that it's all the same.

> Telegram doesn't use E2EE but the privacy and security are in no way compromised.

There are various scenarios in which your data on Signal is safe in ways that it is not on Telegram, and more actors can see your data on Telegram than on Signal. Thus, both security and privacy are impacted. That much is plain as day. Whether that is worth the trade-off, is up to you.

It's fine to have opinions and a conversation about whether the whole e2ee concept is silly, but please don't give your friends and family false senses of what the practical impact is for privacy and security when choosing these trade-offs by saying it's all just as safe and identical.


> I never understood Telegram.

A lot of piracy stuff on it.


No, there isn't any, because outside Telegram and SMS, none of those apps really support any APIs or 3rd party clients.

Signal team is also actively hostile to any 3rd party client usage of their service.

And that's always cheered on this website - just remember the RCS topics where people were making fun of attempts to add some basic standardisation to this mess.


> Signal team is also actively hostile to any 3rd party client usage of their service.

"actively" is a big word, there are several 3rd party clients and no big push to make them stop. They don't want widespread 3rd party clients though.


> Is there a consolidated messaging app that the HN community recommends?

I am not HN community, but there is Beeper or Texts.com possibly others, there are also (other) Matrix bridges, but it's PITA to set them on your own.

Personally I'd just move family and (old) relatives to Whatsapp and you will have everything consolidated in one app used by everyone anyway. That one relative would have easy choice, either Whatsapp or SMS if they wanna talk to me, not keeping extra app for one special snowflake.

Plus you need to keep SMS app to receive all those codes, shipping updates since Whatsapp sadly doesn't support SMS.

That's also my setup - Whatsapp+SMS, used to have also Signal years ago with family before we ditched it en masse after PINgate for Whatsapp, my mother has also Facebook, I think father only Whatsapp, sister I don't talk to has also Whatsapp, wife has Whatsapp and (Google) Messages which she use just for receiving SMS.

If I would be moving somewhere my family (parents, wife, kids) I'd go for Element (Matrix) - decentralized network, various apps to choose from, no phone required.

Another alternative but without (video) calls would be using some email app like Delta Chat or Mailtime for instant messaging, that would require no signing up for new service, I like the idea, though I guess messages would be quite slow.

Btw. Messenger and Skype (Lite) supports SMS, so since you use Messenger anyway you could ditch SMS app and Signal after they remove SMS, if you wanna keep more IM apps than having everyone on Whatsapp.


There is some critical mass fortunately. The driver for most people in my group to get it was that they’d miss out on a group chat if they didn’t have it.

I now have everyone I talk to regularly on Signal (30-40 people), but it took years.


I don't think that would work, because then they'd just introduce their own messaging standard.

https://xkcd.com/927/


> the difference is that matrix isn't trying to become the One True Standard, but just glue the others together. @xkcdComic

https://twitter.com/matrixdotorg/status/841424770025545730/p...


I don't disagree that that's the status at the moment.

But the nature of these things is X gains traction. Y wants a piece of X's pie so cuts X off. X realises that it's dependent on the Ys and so launches its own service.

We've seen the this with Netflix. We've seen the former with Twitter.

Ideally the stars would align so that it's in everyone's interests to support an open protocol and we kind of have those in SMS and email. Except these have their own issues.


Matrix


Matrix has fundamental security problems that they seem unwilling to fix. Almost a polar opposite to Signal.


This is categorically not true, as per https://matrix.org/blog/2022/09/28/upgrade-now-to-address-en....

The only practical issue raised by https://nebuchadnezzar-megolm.github.io/ which we didn’t already fix is the question over whether servers or clients should control group membership. Our position is that it’s okay for the server to control it as long as clients are warned if malicious users/devices are added. Fixing it properly is Hard: for instance, if you are chatting in a room and it turns out that a remote user kicked another remote user, but the kick was delayed in reaching you, you could keep chatting away encrypting messages for a user who is no longer in the room and theoretically should not be receiving them. Is this a security flaw? Or is this just how causality works? So we’re dealing with problems similar to that; hopefully we will be able to switch to client controlled membership by end of year.

tptacek’s derision is not very constructive.


What security problems?

Genuinely curious, not trying to be antagonistic.


Commentry from tptacek: https://twitter.com/tqbf/status/1575259743278563329

on this paper: https://nebuchadnezzar-megolm.github.io/


Thanks.

Worth reading the response from Matrix as well (https://matrix.org/blog/category/security).

My first reactions are to wonder how many of these issues are associated with federated (as opposed to fundamentally decentralized) group chat in general. Matrix seems to be taking the position that some of these issues ultimately relate to trust vs lack thereof in the homeserver as a bottleneck.

I also wondered if there was a good security model for federated or decentralized group chat at all at the moment. I can't remember offhand if Briar was adding groups or not, but that's not federated.


What do you mean by "unwilling to fix"? They published a blog post addressing the exact issues you brought up.

https://matrix.org/blog/2022/09/28/upgrade-now-to-address-en...


They don't, and they haven't. The flaws, like being able to add servers without every participant trusting them, require a deeper redesign.


https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/matri...


It is my understanding that this mostly works with rooms/channels over bridges - not with individual, 1-on-1 communication. Do you have a hint how to set this up?


I have set up a bridge on my own server. I bridge 1-on-1 chats and group chats equally and have set up spaces to separate the different clients for ease of overview.

Bridging chats of different technologies doesn't work well/at all (i.e. Signal bridge + WhatsApp bridge users in a single room) but bridging external chats (DM or group) into Matrix works very well. Some services need a daemon running on a phone (i.e. WhatsApp) and that's very annoying, but where possible these bridges all run in the cloud.

If you trust third parties, you can also go the easy route by getting a subscription from EMS (https://element.io/matrix-services/ems-pricing) or Beeper (https://www.beeper.com/). I personally prefer to keep my messages and encryption keys on devices I control, but others prefer to let someone else take care of it all and I respect that.

It's relatively straight-forward to set up a bridging server if you're comfortable with Docker and YAML files. You can read how to set up a Matrix server here: https://matrix.org/docs/guides/free-small-matrix-server and here: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/b...

If you use the Ansible playbook, all you should really need to do is run through the setup, fire up a Matrix client, start chats with bot accounts, and follow the instructions on the guide (usually sending /login to a bot and authenticating your account with whatever service you're bridging).

Your Matrix account doesn't have to be on the same server as your bridges, which is a setup some seem to prefer. You can set up a Matrix server just for bridging so that you don't need to set up all the VoIP features and performance tricks while keeping your own server dedicated to just bridging stuff. This does break some nice features (i.e. double puppeting, a bridge feature) but it also makes your own server less of a single point of failure if you ever do get talking on Matrix.


Most bridges work by running a program that will emulate a client. For example, with Telegram/Whatsapp/Signal you will authenticate the bridge bot using a qr-code just like if you were authenticating on a computer.

Also see [1], they have every bridge's features well documented.

[1] https://matrix.org/bridges/


That should have been written into the blog post. Not the current tasteless PR.


This is genuine; the PR messages are for businesses and shareholders; especially for publically traded companies, they have to be Very Careful with what they say in public.


Signal is not a publicly traded company and does not have shareholders; it's a non-profit.


What they said was outrageous, "Google is screwing us and screwing you" would have been received more warmly.


Except this has nothing to do with Google, almost all SMS users would be fine with plain SMS without RCS, nobody force them to use RCS. That's just very poor made up excuse why not offer simple SMS functionality. SMS is not depreciated in favor of RCS, they coexist.


I think this is basically this excellent explanation: https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms...

And their president also commented on it a bit at https://www.theverge.com/23409716/signal-encryption-messagin...


The "there's no RCS API" sounds more like an excuse or at least a pretty shallow take. There is none now. But chances are that there will be an RCS API in the near future.

E.g. EU countries are split between plain SMS and WhatsApp as the preferred messaging platform for automated interactions with services. Google not offering an RCS API would be like pushing everyone to use WhatsApp for automated interactions. Would Google risk that? Probably not.

By pulling the plug from SMS support now, Signal just makes it certain that they will lose user base, no matter what Google does.

And it is also kind of disrespectful to anyone who spent their personal time advocating the use of Signal to friends and family.


> Just choose the one with the best layout or usability

This was Signal for me. I understand the reasons to get rid of SMS support but I strongly disagree. Unfortunately I don't have enough people in my life on Signal to justify keeping it around as yet another messaging app.


I've a loyal signal user since it came out. Seemless SMS fallback is why I used it.

I was hoping to read here someone had forked it here. I won't be continuing with Signal.


Thank you for sharing this; this is very useful context. I wonder if it would have reduced the outcry from their initial blog post if they'd included these examples.


SMS integration is a lost opportunity in so many ways.

I wanted a no-code solution to push my bank-sent SMSs into a real-time transaction database. Apparently this is impossible on iOS, and on Android it's incredibly unreliable (IFTTT & Tasker keep getting shut down by the OS). Fortunately, before writing my own solution, I found messages.google.com/web. I have to scrape this, but that's simpler than maintaining an Android app.

Somehow, it's 2022 and if I want real-time banking information I have to write code to consume SMSs OR hand my banking credentials over to a third party to scrape my bank statements.


Have you tried Twilio or some similar SMS solution that doesn't involve your phone. Admittedly this costs money but potentially you could use a number there to consume everything.

Alternatively if you are in Europe/UK the openbanking API is quite widely used now


Why not scrape your bank directly? For semi-auto I used to use TamperMonkey to help turn a statement into a CSV if the bank didn’t have a download.


This (weirdly) edited copy-paste should be replaced by the source: https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms...


Can someone ELI5 the RCS thing for me? I don't get it...

From the answer and the wikipedia page it sounds like this might be a decision that the other side's client (SIM? carrier?) makes, to reply via RCS.

And my device would be able to receive this only via data connection? Or would my carrier detect that I'm not currently in 4G covered area (middle of Germany for example...) and send the text via regular SMS?

I'm a bit worried by the first point, really. What does that mean for e.g. pinephones or google free android? Do I risk silently missing text messsages?


I think it'll get clearer when you realise that SMS (and MMS) is also nothing more than a "data connection" message that carriers chose to classify as zero-cost and available during roaming via different pricing.

RCS - and VoLTE for example - is in this way no different. It's just a data message that gets sent to a configured endpoint (either on Google or your carriers' servers, depending on your carrier preference).

Of course, the carriers still remain the dumbass link in this chain as usual. I've just had to deal with a carrier that charges VoLTE call configuration setup connection as normal foreign data roaming with minimum pricing. The phone ate through 30EUR of costs despite having mobile data disabled.


When Signal finally drops SMS support, I will also drop Signal. It always was SMS foremost, secure communications second when I initially started using it. Having people on Signal was an added benefit, not the main drive for using it.

For me personally, Signal will turn into a messaging app among dozens of similar apps, of which I have enough already. SMS was why I stuck with Signal over the years I used it and now I have no real reason to stay on it.


I remember when Signal was called Textsecure and did E2E encryption for SMS - just to rant about argument number 5.


They've been fundamentally dishonest in their messaging. The truth is that they don't want to support SMS any more, and they don't care about usability or barriers to entry this causes. If they'd just said that I wouldn't be so annoyed with them.


> Getting someone to sort of clock the difference in a protocol layer security property, that’s an education task that is pretty steep

This is the signal president's stated reasoning on why they couldn't have a blue-message (secure) / green-message (insecure) dynamic, akin to iMessage. I think she is being disingenuous, and that the development effort of MMS is the driving motivation, but I am cynical.


I think the people who maintained their SMS codebase left and they don't know how to maintain it properly, and it isn't cool, so they let it wither and now they want to amputate it. Which is fine really, though it highlights that you can't depend on them. I was starting to feel that already with their cryptocoin experimentation. It's a pity Signal is un-forkable.


Tangential, but to 1.: Isn't RCS just built upon TCP/IP and SIP? Why can't you just implement it in user space? Or does it need to send some magic packets through the modem? It is really hard to find details on the protocol.


Another problem is that Google's RCS implementation has a Signal-protocol prekeys-exchange server in the loop that is not accessible for the public. So even if you'd implement RCS you could not send messages to android devices as you can't fetch the prekeys through anything but the Messages app.


So sounds like Google pretty much owns the RCS protocol? I know it's meant to be an open standard, but sounds like there's no point in any third party app implementing if it can't send messages to people with Google Messages.


Yes, TCP/ip and SIP, no magic packet, but: 1. You need to do challenges with the SIM card for authentication 2. On most carriers, "ims" is on a special IPv6 data connection that can't be used by apps.

The specifications are public, but yeah it requires a lot of work to get into.

That being said, I think neither of those limitations apply to Google's "RCS" (which bypasses carriers, so they can't get their own IPv6 connection and I don't think they can use SIM challenges for auth), so I think it should be possible in a 3rd party app.


> RCS (Rich Communications Services) is coming

Has there been any new press on this? The last nugget I heard was https://www.android.com/get-the-message/, which didn't really announce any progress.


I think many people don't realize they have it or use it, but if I would send a Message via my default "SMS" App to another Android User they will very likely receive this as an RCS Message.


Besides being available and enabled by default on pretty much all Android phones these days?


FYI, https://silence.im/ An open-source Signal fork dedicated to SMS encryption


This doesn't seem to be in active development sadly


FYI this was linked[0] and discussed on the previous discussion[1] of Signal's decision, and is available to view on their community forums[2].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33181636

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33179047

[2] https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms...


I agree with all the points mentioned. I hope this accelerates the development of signal - especially on desktop where there is still no integrated video player!!


I was amazed to learn, a few days ago, that you can send/receive SMS via Signal. It's like being able to send faxes from google hangouts; unencrypted paid messages just seems completely opposite to what the project stands for.

Which is not to say that I can't see the rationale, but I didn't know and it surprised me.

The next thing I wondered is how much work it is to maintain two entirely separate messaging systems in one app. How much did this drag them down over the years? I agree with you and hope that it can finally get Signal moving forward, there are so many missing features compared to Wire and, especially, Telegram that it is currently a pretty tough sell to move anyone away from Telegram.


Apple seems to maintain iMessage and SMS in one app just fine. Granted, they're a bigger company, but it's hard to say just how large the Messages development team is. It could conceivably be even smaller than Signal's workforce!

Apple's iMessage/SMS handling is a perfect model for how Signal should have approached SMS support: a firm hand of features and UI reinforcing the fact that SMS sucks, but reasonable enough support that you can send and receive SMS/MMS just fine.


Signal having SMS is the only reason for me to use it. The decision was specifically made to insist on people using their phone numbers it's rubbish to demand that and then yank this functionality.

If it doesn't support SMS I have zero reasons to use it I may as well use anything else that had less friction.

I liked your application enough to pay a reoccurring subscription, removing this functionality means I've cancelled my subscription.


I'll say what I said to Edith on twitter:

------------------

This will relegate Signal to niche use.

I don't even know if I will keep it and I've been a booster for years. I'll have to remember which ~5 of my contacts use Signal, and mentally update that list when/if any join?

Can't take on that cognitive load for everyday comms.

-------------------


The cynic in me says this looks more like a marketing/pr technique than an honest answer to an email.


Does it? What would an honest answer look like to you?


One of:

- we don't have the dev resources to keep SMS/MMS working

- with RCS becoming more common and no Google API for RCS, we don't have the ability to fully replace Google Messages any more

- since we can't support SMS/MMS on iOS, we decided to kill the feature for Android users for the sake of maintenance

They shouldn't pull punches and pretend that this feature removal is for the "protection" of users who accidentally send SMS instead of Signal messages. That's a strawman, anyway -- if a user manages to send SMS in the Signal app, it's because the person they're trying to communicate with doesn't have Signal installed... so there inherently isn't a secure communication path. Users who pay per SMS should disable it in the app settings, and you can easily add a popup the first time you send an SMS/the first time you open the app to make that clear.

This is 50% Signal trying to streamline development, 50% Google's push for RCS (and their lack of APIs to build alternative RCS apps on Android). They should be honest about that instead of making up nonsense about misguided users getting confused.


Thanks for mentioning it!

My initial response on it being announced in the Signal app was "Oh no, that's terrible!". Followed by "Meh, all software goes to shit eventually. Now it's Signal's turn". Now I already don't really care anymore.

I have been using Silence [0] as my sms app for a day and don't really miss the Signal sms integration anymore.

What bugs me more is that the text message export from Signal seems incomplete. Oh well, I will get over that as well.

[0] https://silence.im/

(Funnily enough Silence is a fork of Signal for SMS only. I thought it looked quite familiar but just realised it is the case)


Due to MMS/SMS messages getting hung I switched to YAATA for messaging people who do not have Signal. It is unfortunate Google is going to take exclusive control of SMS on Android with this RCS implementation. Just another "baked" in half-assed feature that android will permission wall its users from and support at the minimum level they can get away with. Now SMS can be natively as broken as notifications, face proximity sensors, file management, background service management, power management, and a myriad of other android "features" they refuse to fix.


6. A2P and 10DLC - since allowing sprint and T-Mobile to merge the primary carriers here in the US decided to charge business like signal to continue to have access to the messaging services via monopolies like the campaign registry.


Well I have to congratulate Signal on the thorough response.

I can't remember the last time I got such a response. It's a challenge to get them to respond to complaints


Turning RCS into their own private messaging platform on Android has to be peak Google.

They tried to make a bazillion messenger apps, all of which failed, and now they try to piggyback on an existing standardized protocol but don't expose any APIs for other apps.


> Turning RCS into their own private messaging platform on Android has to be peak Google.

While at the same time pushing this "Apple is bad because green bubble" narrative because Apple doesn't support it. It's somewhat amusing in some ways. Companies (Google or Apple) are never on the consumers side, and yet we fall for it all the time.


> and yet we fall for it all the time

Really? Do "we"? Everyone keeps warning of these issues while getting laughed out of the room. At some point I have to believe that most of society actually actively wants to be screwed over.


> At some point I have to believe that most of society actually actively wants to be screwed over.

Most of society is brainwashed by commercials, don't even understand half of the words techies use and would call you pretentious if you are not using iOS or Android


> Companies (Google or Apple) are never on the consumers side, and yet we fall for it all the time.

It genuinely surprises me how often the HN crowd falls for it.

I would have expected them to be more aware than the average consumer of how tech companies use lock-in to trap their users.

Perhaps there's a blind spot because lots of HN folks work on projects or for companies that (hope to) use the same tactic?


Convenience is a tough mistress!

Apple phones are simply good to use and work well. Me getting a generic phone and installing Arch Linux in it or something will have little effect on its own. But it will make my life very inconvenient!


And for real, who cares about a green bubble? Seems to be the epitome of pettiness

If you need to actually send files etc use another one of a multitude of messaging apps out there including the latest Google TalkMsgChatThing (but it works)


And it's not only on the client side, but also server side. There are carriers who implemented Universal Profile on their own and cannot connect to the ones running Jibe. So much for a federated protocol.

So today it's either Google or Samsung messages and Jibe, otherwise RCS is essentially useless. From what I know Facebook wanted to get on board at some point, I'm not sure why this didn't work out.

The fact Google publicly whining about the iMessage lock-in is pretty rich.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: