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this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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Privacy
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You should have visited Signal's github page first, I dunno. Before talking. Made up a lot of stuff.
They do have proprietary code for that crypto wallet they have there, well hidden, and for, eh, phone number registration, but other than that module it's all released, I think.
The server and the client applications are FOSS. You can host it for yourself, patching out the domain names and registration parts the way you like it more.
That’s not the full picture. That's exactly the problem I was highlighting. The issue isn't whether some of the code is "FOSS", it’s about whether all of it is. If even small parts remain proprietary (as you mentioned), then we can’t verify what those parts are doing. And those parts could theoretically significantly affect the data collection. Also, I didn't make up a lot of stuff. The Signal Foundation themselves have confirmed that certain UI and build components are not fully libre. As the GNU project puts it, if part of your system is closed, then you're trusting a black box, no matter how well-lit the rest of it is.
Signal protocol guarantees that what's on the server we can discard in your suspicions, it doesn't matter, because you are not trusting it.
The client is fully open.
If it's not fully free, I don't trust it. I don't understand how someone in a privacy community doesn't understand how much a few lines of code can track someone so easily no matter how much of the program is free software.
Server code openness doesn't matter other than functioning at all. For a system acceptable in a privacy community.