# I am the Watcher. I am your guide through this vast new twtiverse.
#
# Usage:
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/users View list of users and latest twt date.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt View all twts.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/mentions?uri=:uri View all mentions for uri.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/conv/:hash View all twts for a conversation subject.
#
# Options:
# uri Filter to show a specific users twts.
# offset Start index for quey.
# limit Count of items to return (going back in time).
#
# twt range = 1 13
# self = https://watcher.sour.is/conv/xbn6g5q
I haven't used Signal long but I must admit I'm a convert. Also handy it can act as the default SMS app on my phone. SMS will be unencrypted of course, and Signal reminds you of as much, but it means i can just use Signal for either case
I use Signal for pretty much everything ๐
I use Signal for pretty much everything ๐
Speaking of Signal, just went through the settings menu and I see a payments section now... Send and receive MobileCoin ๐คจ
I will stick to using the good old SMS/MMS when interacting with non-iOS users, and Messages when interacting with iOS users. It works fine. It is instant with other iOS users, and it is carrier delayed for non.
In an ideal world, all my family and friends would be on iOS---which almost is, with the exception of two of my jerks brothers, and their wives---but we don't live in one. ๐ฉ
@deebs Yeah, it's a story as old as time, I remember when I joined KeyBase. It had private messages, place to link and verify your social media and keys, later they also added some weird crypto integration and than it got bought by some Chinese company and the privacy went right out the window.
So I don't really trust these new services asking for a phone numbers and offering weird crypto integrations that no one ever asked for.
I gave Signal a try and didn't really like it. Telegram was a tiny bit better, but still think it's not even work to keep it installed on my phone.
@fastidious ๐ Not really. I'm an ideal world the standard for safe messaging would be open and universal, with no potential for backdoors.
In this idea world Apple and similar companies would have already went bankrupt, over the shit they tend to push. ๐
@thecanine dear lord! Is a good thing you are not in charge of anything. You just described hell. ๐คฃ
@fastidious Ah, so it is better when Google and Apple have two incompatible standards for this kind of messaging and some other companies using Android use neither and thus most messages are just basic, ancient and un-encrypted SMS? Or are you a backdoor enjoyer?
@thecanine It needs to be a public service. Like the actual telephone, back in the day. Government funded, appropriately, for required uses. And, to confirm that that's the case, the code needs to be public too, absolutely.
publiccode.eu
There's just too much at stake to leave this to market forces, informal communities (however well funded), etc.
Competition is good, @thecanine. SMS/MMS is still very compatible for both (Google and Apple), and it will eventually get better when RCS becomes mainstream. I don't sweat over encryption (though the encryption and privacy provided by Apple works well for me) and what nots, I leave that to you, seemingly stressed with backdoors.
I am sure you have carefully analysed all of the Signal code (client and server), and keep a close tab on their servers, as to rest assured nothing "backdoory" is happening, right? ๐๐
@fastidious I agree with the first part, hopefully it indeed becomes more widely uaed.
I don't use Signal, when I want privacy I use XMPP, at best with OMEMO encryption in DMs. But that's obviously not something I'm able to use talking to most people, so at times I have to use the garage like Facebook Messenger, MS Teams or Discord.
With Discord I still kinda like a lot of things about it and wouldn't even call it garbage, if the company wasn't so money hungry.
Speaking of garbage, this is the third time I'm writing this reply, it keeps logging me out when I try sending it, if it happens again, I'll stab someone. ๐ช
@deebs will have to look into this MobileCoin thing to get a gauge on whether its potentially malicious or just plain annoying, but thankfully there's well known forks of Signal if worst comes to the worst that strip out unnecessary stuff.