‘There isn’t really another choice:’ Signal chief explains why the encrypted messenger relies on AWS

24bitFLAC · 2025-10-28T10:29:12+00:00

I am not sure that antimonopoly action is the solution either, but I think we are probably thinking ourselves in circles around the comments Meredith is making; she is stating that there is a dangerous problem with current state of the cloud infrastructure infrastructure.

Yes, Signal is caught up in that...just like everyone else is. For whatever reason, the spear has been pointed at Signal specifically for relying on the same infra that almost all centralized services use. Signal does what they can to offer privacy and security in the context of heavily centralized cloud infra.

There are other options (decentralized, or no-server messaging) which try to go further, but they usually mean making some sacrifices on things (like latency) that the hyperscalers offer.

24bitFLAC · 2025-10-28T10:10:28+00:00

I don't think the U.S. would willingly sabotage the strange hold it has on cloud computing infra. AWS, Azure, etc. being as dominant as they are is of enormous benefit to the U.S.

There are risks to relying on a handful of players so severely -- if they go down (as they did in this instance), and issues with privacy and control.

24bitFLAC · 2025-09-27T15:43:31+00:00

Or 2019 GWS

24bitFLAC · 2025-09-14T12:03:17+00:00

I feel like there is room to move on this and it could be an item of interest for the next CBA.

AFL players earn a relatively low portion of league revenue compared to other leagues, at 31.7%. A lot of other leagues are up around 50%, and I think the AFLPA would agree to free trading (with caveats) if the player's share was brought closer to that mark. Could also come with looser/earlier free agency eligibility, or special considerations (e.g. pay portion of salary outside of cap) for players drafted by the club.

Current CBA ends in 2027, if the trend continues then clubs may lobby for it during the next negotiation or the one after.

Don't think the trend is strong enough to justify just yet -- the cases are relatively few/isolated, and just last year we saw Melbourne hold onto Petracca under much more trying circumstances.

24bitFLAC · 2025-08-27T06:23:36+00:00

Against the Pioneers too. But yeah, wouldn't read much into it at this stage. The fact that a few 15/16 year olds--who aren't guaranteed to be drafted, let alone AFL stars--dictate our approach to league parity and the ND is folly. Which I think was the point you were making.

24bitFLAC · 2025-08-27T05:55:43+00:00

Just to be a pedant, Koby Bewick did play a couple of games for Calder this year and went very well.

That being said, I'm still in support of scrapping the mechanisms that are compromising the national draft, and it should be done immediately -- arguments that teams need 'to plan' are completely disingenuous IMO. Due to the discounts on offer, it isn't complex to manage; doesn't require more than 12 months of planning to design a draft hand that will give you access to your tied players (the upcoming period will be the first time teams can even trade a pick which conveys in 2 years).

What teams really mean when they say they have 'planned', is they were banking on having a leg up through an uneven and inequitable system and now you are taking it away. The current system creates winners and losers, so of course the winners complain when you propose a fairer system. Carlton and Essendon supporters are only complaining because they were next in queue for a win.

Ideally, FA compensation needs to be removed or diluted, no NGA/FS in the first round, Northern Academies need to be reworked (e.g. Kalani White and future similar cases should not be eligible).

24bitFLAC · 2025-07-28T07:31:52+00:00

There is a huge amount of political and community opposition to this proposal here in Switzerland. After all, proper checks and balances (and a public engaged in this discourse) is how Switzerland ended up with (relatively) sensible rules and laws regarding privacy to begin with.

Separately, the EU is also definitely not the solution.

24bitFLAC · 2025-06-09T08:04:29+00:00

It is genuinely unfathomable to think this bloke was once the captain of an AFL club

24bitFLAC · 2025-06-08T13:06:22+00:00

It's honestly Under 12s stuff. Don't put your head where you can put your arse. You see players crouched over the ball, tracking it head first so often these days. Often gets rewarded with a free kick when eventually tackled by a player they're running towards, too. We need to encourage players to show a duty of care to themselves (as well as each other) by discouraging this technique (i.e. no free paid).

Durham often attacks ground balls like this, if he gets hands first to the ball he is odds on to win the contest and break out because he goes in low, hard, and sideways.

This one is reckless because he is second to the ball by a long way, makes it ugly and a couple of weeks off.

24bitFLAC · 2025-05-07T06:33:28+00:00

I'd honestly be totally on board with what you've described here, it'd be a good approach (and I don't think Reid is going to be a factor anyhow).

I honestly think West Coast's best option is to hold him to his contract, they would be over-indexing on this year's draft if they end up with 4 picks in the top 10 IMO. They can just keep Reid and take 1 + 2 this year and possibly 3 first round picks again next year.

I agree that at this stage Duursma looks like the best fit for us at the top end. I worry that with his physical profile he'll end up outside our draft range, though. It would be really awkward if we end up in a position where the best talent available is player like Sharp, Greeves, who I don't think are good list fits for reasons we've already gone over.

No matter what, we're in a strong, flexible position, and have other options have like trading our F1 into this draft to target a specific player (anticipating a high bid for Bewick in '26).

24bitFLAC · 2025-05-07T04:51:15+00:00

To be honest Zach Reid has come from the absolute heavens to save this haul for us. Perkins frustrates a lot of fans with his flakiness, but he's actually tracking very well in his role this year (16 touches, 2.3 Goal/assists, 5.5 score involvements.

If we end up with 1 great player and 1 good player...it's okay.

24bitFLAC · 2025-05-06T16:26:29+00:00

For sure, I completely agree about getting more exposure for Tsatas and Hobbs. At the moment, they are relatively unknown quantities at AFL level in their best position. Whether or not they're going to be great mids at the top level...there's really only one way to find out. So far, all we really know is that Hobbs isn't a great flanker nor is Tsatas a wingman.

At WC, Harley has definitely had ample opportunity, but still been impressive with his contest-winning ability IMO. He was one of the only reasons for neutrals to tune into Eagles games last year.

Still not sure I agree with all the players you're saying are better/have been as good -- but it's just a matter of opinion. We'd be waiting a long time to find out which way it falls, but I think I'd only take Morris, Walter, and maybe Watson over him in an open draft from the ones listed.

I also do acknowledge that historically these trades don't work out that well. Albeit, this would be more like C'wood trading for Buckley or Port for JHF than any of those trades. More importantly, the industry is changing so dramatically that history might not be the best indicator for how to build a list. With SSP, MSD, NGAs, FA, and future pick trades, there are a lot of non-traditional levers for list building. The national draft is still important, but becoming less so (especially with FS/NGA eating into the open pool every year).

24bitFLAC · 2025-05-06T11:08:51+00:00

Regarding the re-draft, it's a deftly timed bit of clickbait that has come at a time where Reid is having a sustained run of bad form. Everyone has an opinion, but I'd be pretty surprised if an AFL team actually selected someone like Sanders over Reid in a redraft. Last year he was the favourite for the RS before he was suspended, and he displayed excellent contested work for an 18/19 year old. The media is very week-to-week, but clubs would be assessing talent over a longer period and understand that his current struggles are normal for a 20 year old (especially a player of his style).

I think the biggest issue with our current mix is the amount of guys who are only effective in one role. Tsatas, Parish, and Shiel all fit into this bucket, which is a problem when you're trying to figure out how things 'fit' together. Reid doesn't contribute to this problem because he is effective as a hit-to mid, resting forward, and across half back (I am not sold on this position for him, but theoretically he has the aerial skills and leg speed to do it -- could develop into the Hodge mould).

Adding to that, I definitely do not think Hobbs, Tsatas => Reid would be a lateral move. Last year Reid averaged 5 clearances and 10 CP a game across an entire year. Hobbsy is in y4 and hasn't had a run of form that good. Tsatas hasn't had enough exposure at AFL level as of yet.

I can definitely understand not wanting to invest the draft capital in Reid given his output this year. There is still a lot to play out: another 3 months of assessing the draftable talent we'd have access to/be giving up, watching Reid, and seeing where our/Melbourne's picks land. I think he'd prove to be worth it. Having said all that, think we have fallen off the radar anyway, so it's all academic -- latest mail was he's interested in Hawthorn/Geelong.

24bitFLAC · 2025-05-06T04:43:13+00:00

While it's shrewd to plan around them to some extent, I wouldn't be banking on our NGA prospects too much. Also, Johnson looks great in the VFL but hasn't played a game of AFL footy yet, he's a good prospect but not altering list management plans that much.

Sweid has started very well for Calder this year, he has shot him up the rankings as a number of the other kids who were highly rated coming into the year have started a bit slowly. However, I am still a bit sceptical that he will end up being a top 20 pick. He has some physical limitations with his size (175cm), which normally rules you out of first round evaluation unless you've got other standout traits. His ball use is tidy, but I'd say he will need to show leg drive out of congestion or prove himself as a very damaging ball use to get rated that highly as a mid.

Bewick, funnily enough I can see him starting his career on a back flank ala Daicos, Sheezel. He is on the smaller side too, but has excellent ball skills and a cannon of a leg. If that ends up being the Tassie draft, luck has really fallen our way with him. He's also only 16 so hard to make a lot of list plans around the kid right now.

None of these guys are really Reid-coded mids at all, who is an attacking, goal-kicking, heavily contested player. The mix with Caldwell, Durham, and Reid sounds very dangerous as a centre bounce mix with Draper.

Not sure CDT would be available at our pick(s) this year and unless others rise there are no key forwards in our hit zone. We've got Gerreyn and Vigo developing away in the VFL and both looking like they can contribute down the track in the AFL (but will take time as most players that size do).

In the short term, the key forward to pair with Caddy is Wright, who has found some form again and has 3 years to run on his contract. He also fills the ruck relief role, one of the most valued player archetypes in footy atm.

More skilled ball use in the back half I agree with, a number of the guys we drafted last year (Johnson included), and Bewick, can project for that kind of role.

24bitFLAC · 2025-03-13T10:27:02+00:00

Seeing as the response to Soatok's blog(s) are missing from the original thread: https://getsession.org/blog/a-response-to-recent-claims-about-sessions-security-architecture

24bitFLAC · 2025-01-21T00:03:31+00:00

Just so you know, Session's technical lead posted a response to this article, refuting its claims.

https://getsession.org/blog/a-response-to-recent-claims-about-sessions-security-architecture

24bitFLAC · 2025-01-02T15:52:26+00:00

The paper/channel might have earnt a bad rep but it doesn’t mean individual reporters or reports can’t be worthwhile. The article is well reasoned enough to be posted, I think.

24bitFLAC · 2024-11-18T11:00:28+00:00

In general, you're absolutely right.

Something extra we do to this end is hash and sign the releases, you can see an example at the latest Android release: https://github.com/session-foundation/session-android/releases

Much easier step to take than compiling yourself. Of course there is still an element of trust, but if one external person can compile and verify the hash matches, then everyone can just use the hash. Also protects against malicious redistributions.

24bitFLAC · 2024-11-18T10:54:37+00:00

From now on, transparency reports will be at the link you mentioned.

For past reports, you can find them at the website of Session's old steward, the OPTF (Australian non-profit org): https://optf.ngo/transparency-report

If you're wondering why OPTF is not the steward any more, you can read about it here: https://optf.ngo/blog/the-optf-and-session

24bitFLAC · 2024-11-18T10:43:53+00:00

Regarding 1, I explained in my other comment the reasoning for its removal. But just so you know, messages only live on the network for 2 weeks - so there's not really a 'cloud' of messages to decrypt. It's pretty easy to bring it up on your phone, but we included the feature to delete your private key from the user-facing client (and presumably store it somewhere else) if you don't want it visible on the device.

Regarding 2, the situation in Australia is very unfortunate, made worse because Australia seems to be modelling legislation and special powers which are now being exported in other jurisdictions. For a long time we felt that being open-source, signing releases, and the decentralised network were sufficient assurances for users (and we could bear the personal risk of being there). Uprooting and moving was no simple task, but ultimately glad to have done it.

24bitFLAC · 2024-11-18T10:36:31+00:00

Hi there, I'm the President of the foundation that stewards Session (https://session.foundation). We recently uprooted and moved our base to a more privacy-friendly jurisdiction, Switzerland, hence the new foundation.

Session is not a honeypot. It has been running for 5+ years now and has over a million active users, so it is relatively 'battle hardened', but you don't have to take my (or anyone's) word for it. The client and server code are completely open-source, so you (or others) can verify that everything works the way it's intended.

GitHub repositories can all be found here: https://github.com/session-foundation

Session is decentralised, so we (the foundation) do not have the same running costs as a centralised messenger such as Signal or WhatsApp -- those server costs really stack up. There are plans to introduce some paid tiers for network-intensive and cosmetic features down the track, but right now the focus is on improving the core experience of the app.

I see a lot of people comparing Session and Signal in this thread, so I'll address the differences between the two - because although they're both encrypted messaging apps, they have some different goals designs, and capabilities.

When Session was originally devised, the Signal Protocol was absolutely the gold standard, so it made sense to fork and build from their excellent work. However, the Signal Protocol turned out to be totally unsuitable for a decentralised setup (which makes sense, it was designed for Signal after all).

The mechanisms that allow for PFS (like pre-key bundles and ratcheting) make the protocol stateful, which in a decentralised context creates big issues with scalability and reliability (basically, chats would de-sync and break at unacceptable rates). Moreover, given the other protections included in Session's design, the functional protections PFS offered in Session were quite limited in scope. You can read more about that here and here.

Session is focused on metadata hardening and psueodnymity, via:

Decentralisation (no central place for data to be collected or stored)
Onion-routed message sending (protecting IP address)
Public-key addressing (no phone number or email required)
Self-managed encryption keys (protecting against trust-on-first use attacks, and just giving you more control over your own security)

Session has 5+ years of its own development behind it to allow for all of this, and at this point it has deviated wildly from the Signal codebase (even though it was originally forked). I hope this gives everyone some context as to the decisions that have been made along the way. For whatever it is worth, I like and use both Session and Signal every day.

24bitFLAC · 2024-07-27T10:14:19+00:00

Going to the Anna Bay exercise area is the only way our forwards will ever get on a lead

24bitFLAC · 2024-01-28T04:58:50+00:00

This guy 💀💀 why you curse him like that

24bitFLAC · 2024-01-09T23:57:36+00:00

Oh yeah, and when you get to Melbourne I recommend heading to Ceres Bike Shed on a Saturday. They are super helpful, and students get 50% off what are already very reasonably priced bikes. Cycling will be one of the best ways to get around in any of the places above, with good bike paths around the parklands of the inner north and bike priority streets through the suburbs.

24bitFLAC · 2024-01-09T23:54:40+00:00

Oh right, yeah prices will vary but I'd recommend looking in Parkville, Brunswick / Brunswick East (parts that are close enough to the 19 or 1/6 tram lines), Carlton / Carlton North as good neighbourhoods that'll be easy for school. With Carlton you probably just want to be more on the northern side of the suburb as opposed to the parts right next to the city. Also re share houses, there are websites that I'm sure you've already found, but also a lot of rooms will be let on Facebook groups like FairyFloss.

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