This wasn't directed towards me, but I'll participate.
>> Now, let's ignore Telegram for a second. I haven't installed it, ever, but the feature set seems compelling and the UI (screenshots, demos) is nice.
Agree. I think Telegram has a nice design.
>> If we distill this post into one line: How can we have a decent user experience, without throwing out privacy and security?
Here is the thing, this is a relatively new ground. The technology for secure messaging systems has been around for a much longer time but it wasn't as popular or fashionable.
You can and will have secure messaging built on solid crypto with an attractive user interface and available everywhere. That's Moxie's long-term goal.
But this is how you get there (choose your adventure):
1. Build the world's sexiest user interface for secure messaging apps and focus on cross-platform compatibility, while building it on top of an okay crypto system (or worse, a weird custom one that ignores industry practices). Once you have mindshare, gradually improve your crypto (Telegram is demonstrably not doing this by conflating a contest with an audit, but that's another comment). You'll start off with a lot of hype and users, but not much respect from the information security community because, well, you haven't earned it yet.
2. Take a respected crypto team, build out the world's best crypto system for a secure messaging app, leveraging both established best practices and professional peer review. Focus on building a really good prototype in one area with an acceptably attractive and functional user interface, putting other things on the backburner in order to finish a core product.
3. Go for the hail mary and try to build out the most amazing crypto system with the most amazing user interface and the most amazing features running on everything from iOS 4.4 to bleeding edge Debian to please everyone. In a year, burn out and die off because you almost certainly don't have the Herculean development resources this would require in completely orthogonal disciplines.
Which of these tracks sounds most like what successful startups do?
I acknowledge your point that no offering is perfect right now. But TextSecure focuses on the right things.
If I could sum this up entirely: nothing is perfect (yet), but TextSecure is the best offering on the market for a secure messaging application, and if what you want is a secure messaging application, start from solid crypto and work your way to everything else, not from a sexy user interface to okay/passing crypto.
Telegram might very well have the best of intentions in mind and it might have solid crypto under the hood. But that's the sort of thing you consider false until proven true, and so far their behavior is similar to a company that promises a fantastic new service in financial trading but prioritizes ubiquity and design without ever auditing the core trading system itself.
So, you're basically saying TextSecure is the real thing (unsurprisingly) and that it might just add the UX related stuff (multiple devices, devices that .. well .. don't have a phone number) later.
I'm still unconvinced.
I can follow your argument if we're talking crypto only (Disclaimer: I .. shouldn't talk about crypto). So, ignoring Telegram again, TextSecure is putting encryption first. Great. Except that I don't see a way to remove the base assumption here. "Your identifier is a mobile number".
That is absolutely crap. Both for UX reasons (see above and up-thread, devices that I own that cannot claim my mobile number) and .. because I don't want to share my mobile number for random IM chats.
Again: Yes, my mobile number _might_ uniquely identify me. No, that is not a cool 'user name' in any sort of messaging app.
I fail to understand how TextSecure can go from this fatal and flawed assumption and .. fix that. It's broken. The encryption might be sound, but the idea is crap.
Granted, I'm not the best programmer and far from a crypto expert, but .. it seems to me as if changing this fundamental assumption would be hard to do for TextSecure. Their partnership with WhatsApp makes it worse, because those guys do the same insane bullshit and just tell your mom, your ex and your aunt twice removed that you're now available to chat on WhatsApp.
Let me state it differently: I have TextSecure installed. I cannot run it. It is, at this point, utterly unusable. I wouldn't know how I could market this to friends or family, because it is unusable.
How can we fix that? How can we - again, I've never installed or used that one, but it's the thread's topic right now - approximate Telegram?
I would have to agree with you on that one - TextSecure seems like a great option, with the exception of its reliance on mobile numbers. This is mostly because they're centrally controlled, and at no point do you actually "own" your mobile number.
Changing this wouldn't be a big deal, as TextSecure doesn't really use mobile numbers for anything important as far as I can tell. I get the feeling it was more intended for ease of use among the average person, but it is frustrating for someone who would rather get rid of mobile numbers altogether.
>> Now, let's ignore Telegram for a second. I haven't installed it, ever, but the feature set seems compelling and the UI (screenshots, demos) is nice.
Agree. I think Telegram has a nice design.
>> If we distill this post into one line: How can we have a decent user experience, without throwing out privacy and security?
Here is the thing, this is a relatively new ground. The technology for secure messaging systems has been around for a much longer time but it wasn't as popular or fashionable.
You can and will have secure messaging built on solid crypto with an attractive user interface and available everywhere. That's Moxie's long-term goal.
But this is how you get there (choose your adventure):
1. Build the world's sexiest user interface for secure messaging apps and focus on cross-platform compatibility, while building it on top of an okay crypto system (or worse, a weird custom one that ignores industry practices). Once you have mindshare, gradually improve your crypto (Telegram is demonstrably not doing this by conflating a contest with an audit, but that's another comment). You'll start off with a lot of hype and users, but not much respect from the information security community because, well, you haven't earned it yet.
2. Take a respected crypto team, build out the world's best crypto system for a secure messaging app, leveraging both established best practices and professional peer review. Focus on building a really good prototype in one area with an acceptably attractive and functional user interface, putting other things on the backburner in order to finish a core product.
3. Go for the hail mary and try to build out the most amazing crypto system with the most amazing user interface and the most amazing features running on everything from iOS 4.4 to bleeding edge Debian to please everyone. In a year, burn out and die off because you almost certainly don't have the Herculean development resources this would require in completely orthogonal disciplines.
Which of these tracks sounds most like what successful startups do?
I acknowledge your point that no offering is perfect right now. But TextSecure focuses on the right things.
If I could sum this up entirely: nothing is perfect (yet), but TextSecure is the best offering on the market for a secure messaging application, and if what you want is a secure messaging application, start from solid crypto and work your way to everything else, not from a sexy user interface to okay/passing crypto.
Telegram might very well have the best of intentions in mind and it might have solid crypto under the hood. But that's the sort of thing you consider false until proven true, and so far their behavior is similar to a company that promises a fantastic new service in financial trading but prioritizes ubiquity and design without ever auditing the core trading system itself.