Signal To Phase Out SMS Support From the Android App 54
schwit1 shares a blog post from Signal, the popular instant messaging app: In the interest of privacy, security, and clarity we're beginning to phase out SMS support from the Android app. You'll have several months to export your messages and either find a new app for SMS or tell your friends to download Signal.
[...] To give some context, when we started supporting SMS, Signal didn't exist yet. Our Android app was called TextSecure and the Signal encryption protocol was called Axolotl. Almost a decade has passed since then, and a lot has changed. In this time we changed our name, built iOS and desktop apps, and grew from a small project to the most widely used private messaging service on the planet. And we continued supporting the sending and receiving of plaintext SMS messages via the Signal interface on Android. We did this because we knew that Signal would be easier for people to use if it could serve as a homebase for most of the messages they were sending or receiving, without having to convince the people they wanted to talk to to switch to Signal first. But this came with a tradeoff: it meant that some messages sent and received via the Signal interface on Android were not protected by Signal's strong privacy guarantees.
We have now reached the point where SMS support no longer makes sense. For those of you interested, we walk through our reasoning in more detail below. In order to enable a more streamlined Signal experience, we are starting to phase out SMS support from the Android app. You will have several months to transition away from SMS in Signal, to export your SMS messages to another app, and to let the people you talk to know that they might want to switch to Signal, or find another channel if not.
[...] To give some context, when we started supporting SMS, Signal didn't exist yet. Our Android app was called TextSecure and the Signal encryption protocol was called Axolotl. Almost a decade has passed since then, and a lot has changed. In this time we changed our name, built iOS and desktop apps, and grew from a small project to the most widely used private messaging service on the planet. And we continued supporting the sending and receiving of plaintext SMS messages via the Signal interface on Android. We did this because we knew that Signal would be easier for people to use if it could serve as a homebase for most of the messages they were sending or receiving, without having to convince the people they wanted to talk to to switch to Signal first. But this came with a tradeoff: it meant that some messages sent and received via the Signal interface on Android were not protected by Signal's strong privacy guarantees.
We have now reached the point where SMS support no longer makes sense. For those of you interested, we walk through our reasoning in more detail below. In order to enable a more streamlined Signal experience, we are starting to phase out SMS support from the Android app. You will have several months to transition away from SMS in Signal, to export your SMS messages to another app, and to let the people you talk to know that they might want to switch to Signal, or find another channel if not.
No, they aren't giving up REGISTRATION over SMS!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
They had me fooled for a little while thinking they'd be doing something halfway sensible and actually useful.
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I didn't even know Signal did SMS until I read this headline. Just fired it up and still can't see how you send an SMS with it.
This is not asking for instructions on how to do it, just pointing out that it's a pretty nonobvious capability. Having said that, given that a basic encrypted messaging app is three hundred megabytes of bloat, for all I know there's a full-blown office suite, 3D rendering application, and flight simulator in there as well.
Re:Why limit your userbase? (Score:5, Insightful)
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also, Signal messages can be edited and deleted. and can be set to automatically delete themselves
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Not really the point. The more dog pictures and "what's for dinner" you encrypt, the bigger the haystack is. If you're only encrypting the needles, then someone who's looking into you knows exactly where to start.
Ya, but if the ratio changes too much, Signal will have to rename itself "Noise" ... :-)
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Re: Why limit your userbase? (Score:1)
Is Signal ever going to work w/o a phone number? (Score:2)
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That's the one thing I hate about it. Phone numbers are archaic.
I know that WhatsApp also still associates your account with a phone number.
Re:Is Signal ever going to work w/o a phone number (Score:4, Insightful)
Nonsense. What on earth makes you think phone numbers are archaic? What new development do you think has made the phone number obsolete? I'll be happy to correct your misapprehension.
I should add that without SMS, it doesn't make sense for most people to continue to use Signal. It's a pain dealing with multiple messaging apps.
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I agree. I use signal, and I have a handful of contacts who also use it. So the majority of my messages are sent as unencrypted sms. I'm not going to be the ass hat who annoys friends/family/coworkers by persistently telling them to download an app because I use it. So most likely I will just stop using signal because as you said it is a pain to deal with multiple messaging apps.
I'm sure signal will quickly learn that they are shooting themselves in the foot after losing more than half of their user b
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Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2365/ [xkcd.com]
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Nonsense. What on earth makes you think phone numbers are archaic? What new development do you think has made the phone number obsolete? I'll be happy to correct your misapprehension.
I should add that without SMS, it doesn't make sense for most people to continue to use Signal. It's a pain dealing with multiple messaging apps.
The old "location" based system of phone number is archaic. It used to be when calling a different part of the country or a different type of phone cost more than local. Now that a national grid is basically a giant local grid thanks to modern PBX's and routers, a phone number is just a UID. That being said, I don't disagree with you, they are still quite current as said UID.
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Believe it or not, long-distance is still a thing. AT&T, for example, will still sell you a basic landline for a flat rate of ~$40/month, with optional long-distance calling. I'd need to call to get the rates, unfortunately, but apparently unlimited nationwide calling is still not the only option.
I always thought the country/area/exchange/number system was not only clever, but useful. In the days when long-distance calling was common, you knew right away if there would be a change for a particular ca
You want me to go back to Google's SMS then? Ugh. (Score:1, Insightful)
Signal has no understanding of their userbase (Score:5, Interesting)
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More likely it will start shrinking. They want to 'own' messaging and think this move will force people on to their platform. That's not going to happen. Once they cut-out non-signal users, I expect most people to just go back to whatever default messaging app came preinstalled on their phone.
We learned in the late-90's / early-00's that using multiple messaging apps is a pain in the ass. SMS is the secret of interoperability all of these little messaging apps lean on to make themselves usable. You get
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Exactly this. SMS is the lowest common denominator for personal messaging, until Apple decides to raise that common denominator by either including RCS in iMessage or creating an iMessage client for Android. Everything else is a balkanized messaging environment that just sucks bigtime.
Currently on my phone and laptop because the industry can't get their shit together:
Google Messages
Apple iMessage (laptop) and BlueBubbles (android phone)
Whatsapp
Slack (multiple workspaces)
Google Meet
Google Chat
I would consi
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Sure, Apple should support something like RCS. Open standards are good for everyone. I don't see how an Android iMessage client would change anything though. It's not like it's good enough for people to want to use it over whatever it is they have now. Besides, the answer isn't for one proprietary messaging thing to dominate the market, it's the adoption of open standards that allow for interoperability.
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To be clear: I'm not advocating for Apple to own worldwide messaging any more than I would advocate for Google or Meta to get a monopoly position. Open standards (such as SMS) are definitely better, but even a proprietary all-encompassing solution would be better than the horseshit we have now.
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even a proprietary all-encompassing solution would be better than the horseshit we have now.
What features do you think are lacking?
I can understand delivery and read receipts. I remember reading an article about the use of BBM in a disaster situation and how those features were helpful, as was the fact that they were so lightweight and pushed, given the spotty and limited coverage. I don't see any reason why these couldn't be added to SMS and MMS in a forward compatible way.
The only other feature I can see would be end to end encryption, though there is nothing stopping an app from implementing
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Nope, you aren't missing anything.
SMS backwards compatible for lowest-common-denominator cross-platform support.
RCS for more modernized and widely available features between clients that support it.
Delivery receipts.
Read receipts.
Typing indicators.
Sending video without bitcrushing it into slightly organized noise.
Intelligent handling of "reaction emoji" without making a huge mess of group chats
Optional upgraded connection with E2E encryption if all clients support it.
Uses IP data rather than phone service,
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Well said.
Re:Signal has no understanding of their userbase (Score:4, Insightful)
Couldn't agree more - this is Signal putting its goals ahead of its users'. My goal as a user is to get as much privacy as I can while communicating with the people I care about. To ask me to put someone's privacy agenda ahead of communicating with my people is absurd. I will almost certainly drop Signal when this happens.
They are abandoning the mass market in favor of remaining a niche product. From an organizational/business perspective this may make sense for them, but in terms of their mission-oriented stuff to improve privacy for everyone it's a big step back.
From a landscape perspective, another reason this will not work is a single app: iMessage
iMessage is central to the iPhone/Mac experience and most iPhone users simply will not drop it, nor do they have any desire to do so. Apple knows that iMessage is pivotal to its userbase and guards it zealously. If Signal doesn't interoperate with iMessage, anyone who communicates with someone on iMessage will have to drop Signal.
Since my wife and daughter have iPhones and rely on iMessage for various features (e.g. FaceTime), I will have to use something SMS-compatible to talk to them. While some friends are on Signal, it's too much trouble for me to deal with them out of band. I might keep the app for calling but otherwise I'll be out.
Pity, I liked the privacy when I had it.
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Re: Signal has no understanding of their userbase (Score:1)
"improve privacy for everyone it's a big step back."
They don't care about everyone, unless everyone means people using the single app, then that's a step up getting rid of SMS...
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My goal as a user is to get as much privacy as I can while communicating with the people I care about.
Exactly my goal as well.
This will only reduce Signal's adoption outside of the community of "privacy enthusiasts". That makes it less valuable to me and I'll probably mostly stop using it as I'll have another app that "talks to everyone" in place.
Very disappointed in this decision by Signal.
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This is the problem with proprietary nonsense. The only sensible thing to do is not use them. If you want end-to-end encryption, support open standards that do.
It's because of the slow march of friends convincing friends and family to go through a smooth transition
Slow march to what? Dependence on a closed system from a single vendor? No thanks.
If you want people to use secure messaging, you need open standards and interoperability between services. Any less that that is pointless.
Re: Signal has no understanding of their userbase (Score:2)
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Yeah I hate this change. Mom has Signal, Dad refuses, it was so nice not to care and have them both in one app. Stupid.
Re: Signal has no understanding of their userbase (Score:1)
Re: Closed Ecosystem? (Score:2)
This a closed ecosystem then? "Tell your friends" to join chat service #9,001?
Signal is open source and uses an open source protocol. They provide documentation and libraries [signal.org] in Java, C, and JavaScript which others can use.
Making your app less useful (Score:4, Insightful)
is not going to attract more users. The reasons they give for the change are problems computers are meant to solve. They are insinuating it will be simpler for someone to choose the communications app they want to use. What will happen is that there will be multiple apps and none will be complete or compatible. Now I will have to remember Joe is on Signal, Bob is on SMS, Grandma is with Whatsup, Suzy is on iMessage and so on... I am not sure how all this will be handled while driving? To be sure forget messaging and just call.
Re:Making your app less useful (Score:5, Insightful)
Supporting SMS wouldn't help really. You get a notification for a new message, you tap it and it opens in whatever app it arrived in.
The real issue is lack of interoperability between all these networks. Signal won't let anyone else federate with its servers, and neither will WhatsApp. Apple doesn't want to support anything that might put Android users on an equal footing in iMessage.
SMS remains in use because it's the only one that every phone has.
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This is a stupid, lazy, and hostile decision. What this will do is cause anyone who isn't a hard-core Signal user to stop looking at the app. Signal messages will sit undelivered for days to months now because the recipient is using iMessage or whatever Google is pushing now for SMS (Which is STILL 75% of my Signal usage, despite years of my efforts) and won't even see the Signal messages waiting.
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yes , agree , very bad decision.
that will force users out of signal app so that decrease signal usage is people dont see your messages, you have to fall back to sms or other messaging app....
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Currently I can forward an SMS to my computer using Signal. I can't do that with another app.
If I sign into iCloud I don't get any messages from Apple. So if I forget my iPad signed in, no messages from iPhones. So I told people, if you need to reach me don't message me, call me.
Messaging is a mess.
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The default Android SMS handling app, Messages, supports displaying and sending them on your computer.
https://messages.google.com/we... [google.com]
Didn't they enjoy their recent growth spikes? (Score:1)
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This
Wish they could reconsider... (Score:2)
Wish they would reconsider this. Back in the TextSecure/RedPhone days, I used their app, not just for encrypted messaging capability, but because it allowed one to store texts in an encrypted format. Because of this, I used the app all the time. At the time, it was as close to iMessage as one could get on Android where people could send through either channel, and it would work well either way.
On iOS, most of the time, I get people to install and set up the app, but then after that, it is pretty much for
Re: Twitter comments overwhelmingly disagree (Score:1)
Back to being a niche product (Score:2)
Brilliant as Tim Cook (Score:2)
RCS (Score:2)
You should use an e2e RCS client for anybody who doesn't have Signal whenever you can get a data connection.
I dropped Signal for SMS more than a year ago. MMS never worked right on my nearest tower anyway. Messages works fine on the same tower. Why? Dunno. Bugs never got resolved.
Signal is better putting their resources into Signal Accounts than tailing SMS.
very bad decision (Score:1)
this is very bad as it will reduce signal usage in the long term, attracting people outside signal app (to traditional sms, whatsapp or other)
It is pretty clear at the moment in the app when you communicate with someone that doesnt have signal and also it make switching to signal easy when you talk to a person that has signal app
number of persons in general that have signal app is very low , especially among non IT or non security people (but there are some you would not expect, which is why having both sup
SIGNAL is Dead (Score:1)
Just bad news (Score:2)
Now I'll not only need to use two apps for messages but convincing friends to use Signal will be more difficult.
Instead, how about a Signal app I can force to ALWAYS use SMS, encrypting, then splitting messages and requesting acknowledgement that the recipient completely reconstructed the message. Or is that currently possible?
For me, SMS is MUCH more reliable than "data". Why force something LESS reliable than voice instead of more?