With all respect, SIgnal has red flags, IMO - It's executive chair is Brian Acton, co-founder of What's App and formerly with Yahoo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Acton
The foundation was started with an initial $50 million in funding from Acton, who had left WhatsApp's parent company Facebook in September 2017.[46] According to the announcement, Acton is the foundation's executive chairman and Marlinspike continued as CEO of Signal Messenger.[4] The Freedom of the Press Foundation agreed to continue accepting donations on behalf of Signal while the Signal Foundation's non-profit status was pending
In May 2014, Moxie Marlinspike said that "Open Whisper Systems is a project rather than a company, and the project's objective is not financial profit."[56] News media outlets later described Open Whisper Systems as a "nonprofit software group"[20][3] while the project was not registered as a nonprofit organization.[57][4] Between 2013 and 2016, Open Whisper Systems received grants from the Shuttleworth Foundation,[58] the Knight Foundation,[59] and the Open Technology Fund.[60]
**Signal Messenger was initially funded by donations through the Freedom of the Press Foundation,[57][61] which acted as Signal Messenger's fiscal sponsor **while the Signal Foundation's non-profit status was pending.[4][5][62] The Signal Foundation is officially tax-exempt as of February 2019.[8] (emphasis mine.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Messenger
These globalist funding sources should be eye-openers - and Acton's ties to Freedom of the Press Foundation are the most disconcerting. For those who may not know, Freedom of the Press was initially started by Julian Assange and John Perry Barlow. Unfortunately, like many other NGOs, it was eventually infiltrated and taken over by Pierre Omidyar, who ensured that Assange lost his funding. FPF is directed by Edward Snowden - whose deal with Greenwald and Poitras led to Omidayr pouring $250 million into creating the Intercept - a deal via which he gained Greenwald and the NSA docs which are still in his private possession.
After a series of deaths, including that of Aaron Swartz, FPF "inherited" Swartz's "Dead Drop" which was renamed to become the Secure Drop of the famous 4AM talking points we know today.
John Cusack, rumored to have dated, Huma Abedin, also sits on the FPF board.
Like it or not, the app is open-source and uses end-to-end encryption, which is a win-win in my book. It's alot harder to insert funny business if it's open-source. The closest competitor is Telegram, which is a closed-source app, but it at least uses E2E encryption. Regardless, open vs closed source is an easy choice and we don't have many good choices. That isn't to say Signal couldn't be compromised in the future (like Firefox....), but again, what are the options?
I've been moving as many friends and family over to Signal as I can.
Lastly, I've noticed that the link preview in both the desktop and mobile app have stopped processing the .WIN domain. All other domains show the link preview. This is a bit disturbing, because my first inclination is a form of censorship. It worked for about a week, 2-3 weeks ago after an update, but then stopped working again. Not just me, but happening to other friends as well.
With all respect, SIgnal has red flags, IMO - It's executive chair is Brian Acton, co-founder of What's App and formerly with Yahoo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Acton
The foundation was started with an initial $50 million in funding from Acton, who had left WhatsApp's parent company Facebook in September 2017.[46] According to the announcement, Acton is the foundation's executive chairman and Marlinspike continued as CEO of Signal Messenger.[4] The Freedom of the Press Foundation agreed to continue accepting donations on behalf of Signal while the Signal Foundation's non-profit status was pending
In May 2014, Moxie Marlinspike said that "Open Whisper Systems is a project rather than a company, and the project's objective is not financial profit."[56] News media outlets later described Open Whisper Systems as a "nonprofit software group"[20][3] while the project was not registered as a nonprofit organization.[57][4] Between 2013 and 2016, Open Whisper Systems received grants from the Shuttleworth Foundation,[58] the Knight Foundation,[59] and the Open Technology Fund.[60]
**Signal Messenger was initially funded by donations through the Freedom of the Press Foundation,[57][61] which acted as Signal Messenger's fiscal sponsor **while the Signal Foundation's non-profit status was pending.[4][5][62] The Signal Foundation is officially tax-exempt as of February 2019.[8] (emphasis mine.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Messenger
These globalist funding sources should be eye-openers - and Acton's ties to Freedom of the Press Foundation are the most disconcerting. For those who may not know, Freedom of the Press was initially started by Julian Assange and John Perry Barlow. Unfortunately, like many other NGOs, it was eventually infiltrated and taken over by Pierre Omidyar, who ensured that Assange lost his funding. FPF is directed by Edward Snowden - whose deal with Greenwald and Poitras led to Omidayr pouring $250 million into creating the Intercept - a deal via which he gained Greenwald and the NSA docs which are still in his private possession.
After a series of deaths, including that of Aaron Swartz, FPF "inherited" Swartz's "Dead Drop" which was renamed to become the Secure Drop of the famous 4AM talking points we know today.
John Cusack, rumored to have dated, Huma Abedin, also sits on the FPF board.
https://freedom.press/about/board/
For these reasons, I personally don't trust Signal. Obviously, you will make your own decision.
Like it or not, the app is open-source and uses end-to-end encryption, which is a win-win in my book. It's alot harder to insert funny business if it's open-source. The closest competitor is Telegram, which is a closed-source app, but it at least uses E2E encryption. Regardless, open vs closed source is an easy choice and we don't have many good choices. That isn't to say Signal couldn't be compromised in the future (like Firefox....), but again, what are the options?
I've been moving as many friends and family over to Signal as I can.
Lastly, I've noticed that the link preview in both the desktop and mobile app have stopped processing the .WIN domain. All other domains show the link preview. This is a bit disturbing, because my first inclination is a form of censorship. It worked for about a week, 2-3 weeks ago after an update, but then stopped working again. Not just me, but happening to other friends as well.
Is it open source general public license or proprietary open source? Big difference.
As far as the win domain - you're probably right.
Please use caution - everyone has to decide what they're comfortable with - and I'm not comfortable with Signal.
Thanks for having a reasonable discussion - I appreciate it.