Comment by luuurker
2 years ago
There are ways of getting messages without breaking Signal or using a backdoor. One of them is getting the messages from the other party(ies) involved. You can't protect yourself from this even if you self host. Something else that might happen is you ending up with your phone hacked because you're talking with someone close to Putin.
The only way to know for sure is for you to create an alternative service, write all code yourself, and host everything without ever leaving your server alone. And even then you can't be sure you haven't been hacked.
On a side note, if we're getting information from someone that lies a lot and often leaves out details that don't fit the narrative, then perhaps we should also look at the person, not just the issue.
> One of them is getting the messages from the other party(ies) involved. You can't protect yourself from this even if you self host.
You certainly can, the self destruction messages are one of the ways, sure, it is not the only solution as you need to make sure the OS is secure itself too, but definitely helps in that case, no messages stored at rest and all are encrypted in transit.
> Something else that might happen is you ending up with your phone hacked
Which is essential to have a messaging platform that allows multi-client/cross platform, say running that app on a hardened OS is an option and possible compared to only iOS with a phone a number for example.
> write all code yourself, and host everything without ever leaving your server alone.
You don’t need to write it yourself, as long as you can read it, and host it knowing no other services are spying on that server, should be miles ahead of other apps like signal, sure, you can still have that server breached, but first you need to know where’s that server, or even you are using this messaging app in the first place, contrary to Signal for example, all I need is checking if you use it by the phone number. Not to mention it will make it harder for whoever is trying to spy on you, if most people ran their instances, but that’s a little bit more of a dream as the average person won’t, but at least the option should be provided.