Thinking back to last year I remembered the us-east-1 outage, how it affected Signal and how some of the users freaked out that they have to rely on US hyperscalers.

Wouldn't it be useful if @signalapp (and maybe similar providers) published their infra requirements with little crosses and ticks, so alternative providers could aim for "good enough for Signal" service levels?

Related articles by @bert_hubert :

https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/the-european-cloud-ladder/

@buherator @signalapp signal has mostly been saying "trust us, only Amazon can do this, and it is harder than you think, nerd". Not very satisfying. Taking Signal a notch down in terms of trustworthiness.

@bert_hubert @signalapp This is exactly why I think sharing some actual unmet requirements would be a good idea.

(FTR I was told they also used GCP as a fallback which apparently didn't work too well)

@bert_hubert @buherator The way Whitaker addressed concerns about this ("you don't understand and if you think you do then you don't") has really rubbed me the wrong way.

@aetios @buherator same!

@bert_hubert @aetios @buherator show us the architecture of infra and code and we will find you something else than #amazon

@buherator @bert_hubert @signalapp

Or just ditch US services and get Threema 🇨🇭.

Up-front (reasonable) cost, so less doubt about business model.

Signal has your social graph. Very tempting for Tulsi Gabbard and her pro-Kremlin insiders.

https://threema.com/en/products/private

@rislandr I had an account, forgot the pw, couldn't reregister the last time I tried...

@rislandr @buherator @signalapp ah we spot the use of the word 'just'! https://eupolicy.social/@bert_hubert/115757523488655548

@bert_hubert @buherator @signalapp
Dammit , got me - and I remember thinking your "just" red flag was a great rule of thumb 🤔

@bert_hubert @buherator @signalapp What messaging app do you use, or what would you recommend?

I've looked at Olvid 🇫🇷 , but their subscription gets expensive and we need something that will be accessible to more people.

@buherator

If you tried it some time ago, I suggest trying again.

I've used it recently and bought licenses for the family. It's working great now.

I bought directly via the Threema shop and installed from F-Droid to by-pass Google and to give the Google Tax to the developers instead.

@bert_hubert @buherator @signalapp yes it definitely smelled to me like Signal is under a secret NSL that says "you must route all (plaintext?) traffic thru a single point in us-east1 (VA?) where the NSA can tap it and inhale any/all of it at their leisure" or equiv. their bottleneck/SPOF suggested either something shady or they lack the needed scaling expertise, at leaat one of the two

@synlogic4242 @buherator @signalapp Note that I have implied no such thing. But I would still appreciate better comms/transparency.

@bert_hubert @buherator @signalapp I agree. and we cant deduce more precisely without 100% transparency. it could be they just lacked expertise needed for their own scale. I've been writing book on topic

@bert_hubert @buherator @signalapp one important thing for Signal is having fast connections possible. You don't want two Australians relying on servers in Europe for IM. Not sure how many EU providers have global availability?

@murb @bert_hubert @signalapp Great, that can be a checkbox then! I'm also sure that support/M.W. didn't have to deal with as many angry Europeans if the us-east-1 only affected users over the pond :)

@murb @buherator @signalapp this is what I would like to call the "surely it must have a good reason why it must be so"-bias. Try it the other way around, MUST you rely on Amazon?

@buherator @bert_hubert @signalapp agree. We all should consider more seriuos and decentralized alternatives like @delta #chatmail