<story><title>The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]</title><url>https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11086-the_ecosystem_is_moving</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thekyle</author><text>So in the beginning of the presentation Moxie brings up some valid cases where it&amp;#x27;s good that centralized services can rapidly iterate and improve such as WhatsApp being able to roll out end-to-end encryption with a single update, while email is still not encrypted despite the tools existing to do so for years. Basically centralized services can roll out changes quickly and decentralized ones are more or less set in stone.&lt;p&gt;However, I feel that maybe he isn&amp;#x27;t considering the downsides of being able to change quickly. Sure WhatsApp was able to add end-to-end encryption with a single update, but they can just as easily remove encryption with another update. Additionally, while I will admit that it sucks that email is not encrypted, knowing how many people and businesses rely on email every day, it should be incredibly difficult to make changes to it. I don&amp;#x27;t want a single person or company to be able too suddenly decide to change how email works.&lt;p&gt;One area where I am sympathetic towards Moxie and Signal is requiring phone numbers (mentioned at the end in the Q&amp;amp;A). Personally, I don&amp;#x27;t see it as being all that big of a deal and it does bring several advantages with it:&lt;p&gt;* Users get to store&amp;#x2F;control their own social network in their phones address book&lt;p&gt;* Users can switch easily between WhatsApp&amp;#x2F;Signal&amp;#x2F;etc.&lt;p&gt;Although I agree that requiring phone numbers does reduce the privacy of Signal users, I think it is a worthwhile trade off for making the app usable by the public.&lt;p&gt;Also, it seems like usernames might be supported in the future: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;signal.org&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;secure-value-recovery&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;signal.org&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;secure-value-recovery&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fauigerzigerk</author><text>This idea of phone numbers being easy to use is baffling to me. Phone numbers come with so much red tape it&amp;#x27;s unbelievable.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m still paying for a phone service in a country where I previously lived (5 years after leaving) because I can&amp;#x27;t move all the stuff that&amp;#x27;s linked to that phone number. I even had to send them a government issued photo ID recently so I could keep the number.&lt;p&gt;And to use the number without switching SIM cards I have a separate phone that I&amp;#x27;m booting up just for that purpose. I actually bought a third phone to manage all my SIM cards. This time I was smart. I bought an Android phone with dual SIM slots in spite of being an iPhone user.&lt;p&gt;After listening to Moxie&amp;#x27;s talk, I realise that many of his arguments sound entirely plausible from a US centric point of view but make far less sense if you live elsewhere.&lt;p&gt;Building on top of phone numbers also assumes that end-to-end encrypted messaging will always be permitted in the mobile app stores. It&amp;#x27;s a reasonable assumption as far as the US app stores are concerned. I wouldn&amp;#x27;t bet on it here in the UK though, and even less so in many other countries.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Ecosystem Is Moving [video]</title><url>https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11086-the_ecosystem_is_moving</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thekyle</author><text>So in the beginning of the presentation Moxie brings up some valid cases where it&amp;#x27;s good that centralized services can rapidly iterate and improve such as WhatsApp being able to roll out end-to-end encryption with a single update, while email is still not encrypted despite the tools existing to do so for years. Basically centralized services can roll out changes quickly and decentralized ones are more or less set in stone.&lt;p&gt;However, I feel that maybe he isn&amp;#x27;t considering the downsides of being able to change quickly. Sure WhatsApp was able to add end-to-end encryption with a single update, but they can just as easily remove encryption with another update. Additionally, while I will admit that it sucks that email is not encrypted, knowing how many people and businesses rely on email every day, it should be incredibly difficult to make changes to it. I don&amp;#x27;t want a single person or company to be able too suddenly decide to change how email works.&lt;p&gt;One area where I am sympathetic towards Moxie and Signal is requiring phone numbers (mentioned at the end in the Q&amp;amp;A). Personally, I don&amp;#x27;t see it as being all that big of a deal and it does bring several advantages with it:&lt;p&gt;* Users get to store&amp;#x2F;control their own social network in their phones address book&lt;p&gt;* Users can switch easily between WhatsApp&amp;#x2F;Signal&amp;#x2F;etc.&lt;p&gt;Although I agree that requiring phone numbers does reduce the privacy of Signal users, I think it is a worthwhile trade off for making the app usable by the public.&lt;p&gt;Also, it seems like usernames might be supported in the future: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;signal.org&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;secure-value-recovery&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;signal.org&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;secure-value-recovery&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dijit</author><text>Why not use something like an email address instead of a phone number though. A phone number can be used to track you in the real world, it’s worse than having someone’s IP in some cases.&lt;p&gt;In fact some countries (Russia, at least) require you to give over Government issued ID when you get a new phone number. So it’s directly tied to your real persona, this is not just one country doing that either. I believe it is also a requirement in the UK now too. (They’re combating “burner” phones)</text></comment>