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Et Tu, Signal? (stephendiehl.com) 60

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Software developer Stephen Diehl on Signal's move to introduce support for cryptocurrency: Many technologists viscerally felt yesterday's announcement as a punch to the gut when we heard that the Signal messaging app was bundling an embedded cryptocurrency. This news really cut to heart of what many technologists have felt before when we as loyal users have been exploited and betrayed by corporations, but this time it felt much deeper because it introduced a conflict of interest from our fellow technologists that we truly believed were advancing a cause many of us also believed in. So many of us have spent significant time and social capital moving our friends and family away from the exploitative data siphon platforms that Facebook et al offer, and on to Signal in the hopes of breaking the cycle of commercial exploitation of our online relationships. And some of us feel used. Signal users are overwhelmingly tech savvy consumers and we're not idiots. Do they think we don't see through the thinly veiled pump and dump scheme that's proposed? It's an old scam with a new face.

Allegedly the controlling entity prints 250 million units of some artificially scarce trashcoin called MOB (coincidence?) of which the issuing organization controls 85% of the supply. This token then floats on a shady offshore cryptocurrency exchange hiding in the Cayman Islands or the Bahamas, where users can buy and exchange the token. The token is wash traded back and forth by insiders and the exchange itself to artificially pump up the price before it's dumped on users in the UK to buy to allegedly use as "payments." All of this while insiders are free to silently use information asymmetry to cash out on the influx of pumped hype-driven buys before the token crashes in value. Did I mention that the exchange that floats the token is the primary investor in the company itself, does anyone else see a major conflict of interest here? Let it be said that everything here is probably entirely legal or there simply is no precedent yet. The question everyone is asking before these projects launch now though is: should it be?

I think I speak for many technologists when I say that any bolted-on cryptocurrency monetization scheme smells like a giant pile of rubbish and feels enormously user-exploitative. We've seen this before, after all Telegram tried the same thing in an ICO that imploded when SEC shut them down, and Facebook famously tried and failed to monetize WhatsApp through their decentralized-but-not-really digital money market fund project. The whole Libra/Diem token (or whatever they're calling its remains this week) was a failed Facebook initiative exploiting the gaping regulatory loophole where if you simply call yourself a cryptocurrency platform (regardless of any technology) you can effectively function as a shadow bank and money transmistter with no license, all while performing roughly the same function as a bank but with magic monopoly money that you can print with no oversight while your customers assume full counterparty risk. If that sounds like a terrible idea, it's because it is. But we fully expect that level of evil behavior from Facebookers because that's kind of their thing.
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Et Tu, Signal? More

Et Tu, Signal?

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  • We're too late (Score:4, Informative)

    by fred911 ( 83970 ) on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @10:00AM (#61246946) Journal

    They are already selling the news. March 28th it was 7 bucks or so, yesterday traded at 65 bucks and today is trading at 40 on high volume. Any sheeple here?

    https://coinmarketcap.com/curr... [coinmarketcap.com]

  • Oh come on! Cut the drama. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @10:00AM (#61246948)

    You're not a dying swan.

    He wanted to make a messenger for people threatened by totalitarian systems. He thought they needed a way to make finncial transactions too, as that is a major hindrance sometimes.
    So he added it to Signal.
    If you don't use it, it literally does nothing to you whatsoever.

    Sure, cryptocurrencies are a staple of the financial scam industry. But the reverse association is not true. And while I don't think it's necessarily a particularly great solution, I learned to never underestimate Moxie. Usually, if you think it is stupid, it's simply because you are badly informed, since he usually explains it all somewhere, or too stupid to get it. (No shame. Cryptography is hard.)

    So you seem more loke an NSA sock puppet than anything else. Eve if likely unintentionally and unknowingly.

    • P.S.: (Score:4, Funny)

      by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @10:02AM (#61246966)

      Also: "MOB (coincidence?)"

      Are you fucking serious?

      Now it's completely obvious you're just a moron with a bone-headed agenda.

    • Re:Oh come on! Cut the drama. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mononymous ( 6156676 ) on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @10:03AM (#61246972)

      No response to any of the points made in TFS? No argument at all, other than "trust Moxie"?
      And anyone who doesn't trust him enough is a useful idiot for the NSA? Frankly, this is not enough.

      • Were you expecting something resembling an informed argument from our resident crackhead BARefO0t?

    • Re:Oh come on! Cut the drama. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @10:43AM (#61247138) Homepage Journal

      The problem is Marlinspike does things that make Signal unsuitable for all his states goals.

      He ignores major security issues that come up. He actively works to prevent other messaging apps from interoperating with Signal. The Signal app itself is bloated, it wants to handle everything on Android and goes way beyond just secure messaging.

      • Signal also has an explicit development goal of not adding more user options, a terrible straightjacket to put on a program in an age where more and more apps are adding something like about:config.

        • IMHO That's an awesome development goal. Choice is work. If a user won't put in the work, they will make a stupid or random choice. Why make the user work? One App, One Purpose. It's the Appian Way!

        • Uuum, Signal's team was WAY too small! They *had* to limit what they're maintaining, or they'd still be stuck without video/audio calls!

          Besides: It's OPEN SOURCE. That means it has ALL the user settings. It's called forking and patching. git pull, edit file or apply patch, make, push to device via adb, done.

          And if you want to add a switch and feature, and can guarantee to support it *forever*, then you can gladly add it. Go ask Moxie yourself. ... No, now you have to. No backsies. No stating crap and then n

          • Sure I can fork it, but then my forked version of Signal would become one of those 3rd-party clients not allowed to interoperate with the official Signal implementation. Forking Signal is not like forking nano...the network lock-in effect practically makes it more like a freeware program with source available than libre software. In F-Droid store I believe an app like this would be labelled "Requires non-free network services"

            As for asking Moxie to be a volunteer developer...maybe I will, first feature will

      • Literally everything he said in his comment is a plain blatant lie.

        * Moxie doesn't ignore anything at all. Go look at the bug tracker.
        * He actively encourages federation with others. He only requires using the same, proper security. Not the backdoored crap people lkie AmiMoJo want to introduce. So that's why I was offered federation, and he wasn't. Go find you yourself.
        * The app is not "bloated" at all. It is one of the leanest messengers there are. The amount of functionality per bit of code is much higher

    • Cryptography is hard. Let's go shopping!

    • Yeah the OP's diatribe seemed to be a blanket condemnation of everything cryptocurrency if not everything blockchain, as well as having a few specific gripes about the way the Signal thing is being done. Gratuitously attacking the Facebook project seemed to be done just to add some kind of low-hanging-fruit rhetorical ad hominem attack weight to the argument, in an underhanded and not particularly relevant way.

      To critique this stuff intelligently you have to stay particular and specific, and avoid the side
  • If it's not a paid app/subscription and they don't sell your data, how do they pay their employees?

  • Pump-n-dump isn't the concern. It's that Signal is still tied to verified phone numbers so all financial txns will ultimately be traceable to a person and place. Even with security engineering, the platforms are not trusted.

    The visceral angst is that Signal could be doing something revolutionary here but there's no will there to make it happen. It's become a bit of a joke now that Signal doesn't even work on a tablet. Five years ago it was a development goal - today it's a symptom of stagnation and priori

    • It should be obvious to you at this point that the National Security Letter(s) that Signal have received come with a gag order. That's why they stopped talking about a feature abandoning the strong tie to your identity and why they simply stopped talking about it...

      • Re:Phone Numbers (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Vintermann ( 400722 ) on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @10:47AM (#61247164) Homepage

        BS, Moxie is a classic crypto-libertarian, in the vein of Julian Assange or Jacob Appelbaum. He'd sooner pull a Ladar Levison [wikipedia.org] than allow quiet co-option.

        It's just an unfortunate fact that just as surely crypto-libertarians love free speech and hate spy agencies, they have a crush on the idea of anonymous payments.

        • There's comfort in that notion, but if it's true then he's just massively ignorant, considering how obvious the phone tie-in issue is to those genuinely concerned with privacy and identity fluidity.

          Kind of a damned if he is, damned if he isn't situation.

        • The argument for keeping the phone number as primary identity has always been pragmatic. Prevent spam, boost adoption by making it easy for normies to find their friends, etc ... libertarianism isn't for compromising on fundamental values, he's more of a crypto-liberal.

          • It's always been up front about the limitation of this. Signal protects your communication, it even gives perfect forward secrecy and deniability, but that you use Signal itself isn't practical to conceal.

            It's always fun to see friends (or, more often than not, distant acquaintances left over in my phonebook from years ago) show up on Signal. Once I saw a guy I knew in high school, 20+ years ago, who was already by then fairly left-wing. I googled him, and found out he's now involved in a hyper-fringe, supe

  • Has one good point though (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    He's overtly anti-cryptocurrency, but does bring up a good point:

    I say that any bolted-on cryptocurrency monetization scheme smells like a giant pile of rubbish and feels enormously user-exploitative. We've seen this before ...

    ... their decentralized-but-not-really digital money market fund project. The whole Libra/Diem token (or whatever they're calling its remains this week) was a failed Facebook initiative exploiting the gaping regulatory loophole where if you simply call yourself a cryptocurrency platf

  • "Technologists"?

  • exploited and betrayed by corporations (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @10:34AM (#61247114)

    Does anyone ever actually think you're not going to be exploited and betrayed by corporations?

    Derp.

  • The sad part of this entire project is that it launched in the UK—likely because it would be blatantly illegal in the United States

    All the notes on the github projects saying it should not be used in the US points to that.

    This is all just bringing us back to some stone age barter system for no reason.

    On behalf of the late David Graeber, let me just say, aaargh. Why spoil a nice argument with this old myth? There was no barter in the stone age [theatlantic.com].

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The article you posted says there were all sorts of forms of trade involving non-monetary exchange, but argues that it wasn't real barter because there were more steps involved, or it involved a ritual, or a gift, or the payments didn't happen at the same moment in time, or that they weren't rigid fair-value exchanges.
      Really it just sounds like a no-true-scotsman essay to make a point saying one highly specific form of non-monetary trade probably didn't exist.

      • That "highly specific non-monetary trade" is what economists (and this guy) have always used the word barter to mean. Of all the weird arrangements people had before money, "I'll give you this if you give me that, OK?" was not one of them. That's not a no true scotsman, it's fucking amazing in its own right. And it's an amazing fact you didn't know, because economists pushed their "just so" story so effectively for a hundred years, and didn't bother to actually try to find out if it was true.

        Get educated, a

        • The weirder part of it is that a barter system naturally implies some kind of private ownership which didn't exist for most humans at an individual level for a lot of history. Sure the serfs were free in the sense that they weren't slaves, but outside of a few personal effects they didn't own anything. Even societies which did have some degree private ownership tended to exist on a family level where the head of the family ultimately controlled any family-owned wealth. Frankly there wasn't enough of it arou
  • I'm not going to get into an analysis of the prospects of this budding cryptocurrency, except to say that social connections have value, so it's probably not worth zero and may be worth billions. Ultimately, it's probably a good thing that people all over the world might soon have a way to support human rights protestors and political dissidents without the use of banks. The spy agencies will love this, of course, because most people don't bother to obfuscate their real phone numbers, and if they do, don't

  • Bruce Schneier (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 07, 2021 @11:04AM (#61247266)

    also writes about Signal. https://www.schneier.com/blog/... [schneier.com]

  • I mean people using a service for free and expecting it to be limited entirely to the purpose of providing encrypted communication without any monetary income whatsoever sure sounds like a bunch of idiots.

    Tell you what tech savvy poster, why don't *you* build the infrastructure and service and see how long you last.

  • Facebook could not "print with no oversight" just because indeed "if you simply call yourself a cryptocurrency platform (regardless of any technology) you can effectively function as a shadow bank". Contract law does not stop working simply because it's a cryptocurrency platform. Libra/Diem has always been crystal clear, full backing ... even if that was all there was, it would be an implied contract no judge was going to let them walk away from. But they would almost certainly have committed to the same th

  • Some moron who wrote about 6 blog posts is suddenly /. prime? Seriously? Which jackass swiped this up to the front? It's one of many articles that has me questioning /. and its "corporate overlords" lately. Crypto's have plenty of problems, but at least they're not centralized. It's both their strength and their curse. It would be fantastic - in theory - if we could use a currency on a secure platform that can't be controlled. Yes, there will be plenty of tech problems to resolve and stability to guarantee
    • Ok so he wrote a few more posts than that - sorry didn't see his other content (before you bash me :P). Point still stands. Decentralised crypto is the future. Which one will stand the test of time remains to be seen.

  • No law exists against money. Money as a store of value or medium of exchange. Everyone is free to create their own money. You also are free to get people to adopt it, use it and populate it into existence as currency. That last tidbit being the high bar of freedom.

    This article’s narrative arc overwhelmingly tilts in-favor of branding MOD cryptocurrency as “pump and dump” scheme. It factually is not that. An 85% holding of MOD reserves squarely characterizes an SEC equivalent security offer

  • I don't understand your beef with Signal?

    Have you ever used Keybase.io? They are a kind of Slack + Signal alternative, plus a file sharing tool, plus a wallet. While Keybase does not have their own currency, a similar tool called Status.im does have its own currency called SNT, and Status lets you chat and create chat rooms, just like Signal.

    I mean, how do you expect Signal to make money? We've all been using their platform and servers for a while now, for free. I've never been shown a single ad. It's a fre

  • Banks and financial service providers must by law prevent financial crime including tax evasion, money laundering, bribery, corruption, fraud and terrorist financing. Yes weâ(TM)re seeing our largest banks support crypto currencies such as Bitcoin. A fundamental aspect of Bitcoin is that it by design prevents the traceability of transactions, i.e. it is impossible to trace how you came in possession of the currency, whether legit or otherwise. This, alongside their high valuation, make the crypto curre

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