Top all-time · #127
Signal Messenger
Company blog · whispersystems.org/blogsecurityprogramming
Signal Messenger is the company blog at whispersystems.org, writing about security and programming. Since 2013, 315 different Hacker News readers have linked it 493 times, most often “Open Whisper Systems”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Say "hello" to a different messaging experience. An unexpected focus on privacy, combined with all of the features you expect.
Most-linked posts?
- Open Whisper Systems45 people · 51 mentions · first linked 2013-06-06
- The Difficulty of Private Contact Discovery27 people · 32 mentions · first linked 2014-01-03
- Reflections: The ecosystem is moving26 people · 32 mentions · first linked 2016-05-10
- Open Whisper Systems partners with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption22 people · 23 mentions · first linked 2014-11-18
- Advanced cryptographic ratcheting13 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2013-11-27
- WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete13 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2016-04-05
- Saying goodbye to encrypted SMS/MMS13 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2015-03-06
- BitHub = Bitcoin + GitHub. An experiment in funding privacy OSS12 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2013-12-16
- TextSecure: Forward secrecy for asynchronous messages11 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2013-08-22
- Whisper Systems Advanced Racheting10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2013-12-16
What Hacker News says?
I switched into writing Markdown by accident. We've got the site frontend running on jekyll so it's static and easy to scale, and I've gotten too used to using the syntax. I can't edit that comment any more (time expired), but the correct link is https://whispersystems.org
Comment linking /
on “Today is The Day We Fight Back”Submitted WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete as a story · 1055 points
HN discussionMoxie says there's no backdoor as well: https://whispersystems.org/blog/there-is-no-whatsapp-backdoo...
Comment linking /blog/there-is-no-whatsapp-backdoor/
on “WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages”Submitted There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor' as a story · 1018 points
HN discussionSignal actively promotes as activist messenger by using names of revolutionaries and anarchists (Makhno, Proudhon, Masha Kolenkina) all over their website. Just for example: https://whispersystems.org/blog/images/signal-faces.png
Comment linking /blog/images/signal-faces.png
on “WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages”Submitted Grand jury subpoena for Signal user data as a story · 826 points
HN discussion> Boelter said: “[Some] might say that this vulnerability could only be abused to snoop on ‘single’ targeted messages, not entire conversations. This is not true if you consider that the WhatsApp server can just forward messages without sending the ‘message was received by recipient’ notification (or the double tick), which users might not notice. Using the retransmission vulnerability, the WhatsApp server can then…
Comment linking /docs/specifications/doubleratchet/
on “WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages”Submitted Facebook Messenger begins testing end-to-end encryption using Signal Protocol as a story · 633 points
HN discussionAhem. Don't they also have contact information? From https://whispersystems.org/blog/contact-discovery/ and lack of future follow-ups on the subject, I believe they do. Possibly, hashed or obfuscated, but still recoverable. Which must mean either I'm misunderstanding something (e.g. things had changed since the blog post was published and relevant GitHub issues were closed), or they had not disclosed some informatio…
Comment linking /blog/contact-discovery/
on “WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages”Submitted Signal Desktop as a story · 555 points
HN discussion> do you know whether the software you got from the App Store is the software that's on Github? Yes: https://whispersystems.org/blog/reproducible-android/
Comment linking /blog/reproducible-android/
on “WhatsApp backdoor allows snooping on encrypted messages”Submitted Open Whisper Systems partners with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption as a story · 506 points
HN discussionThe mind behind Noise (Trevor Perrin) is one of the minds behind Axolotl (actually Noise can be seen as a generalization of the Axolotl's cross-signing of DH keys, see this post: https://whispersystems.org/blog/simplifying-otr-deniability/ ) so I would likely be comfortable with it. Although it is completely true that it's been far less used and studied than TLS.
Comment linking /blog/simplifying-otr-deniability/
on “WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete”Submitted The New TextSecure: Privacy Beyond SMS as a story · 478 points
HN discussionI always liked "Axolotol" because axolotols are a type of salamander with the amazing ability to regenerate parts of their bodies (including their brains!), and the Axolotol protocol, like OTR, is "self-healing", meaning it's capable of recovering from a compromised session key ( https://whispersystems.org/blog/advanced-ratcheting/ ).
Comment linking /blog/advanced-ratcheting/
on “WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete”Submitted Free, Worldwide, Encrypted Phone Calls for iPhone as a story · 410 points
HN discussionThe open-source alternative is the Signal app made by Whisper Systems, the same people helping with WhatsApp from TFA, available for Android and iOS: https://whispersystems.org/ Don't know what kind of funding they've been having, but for an open-source app, it's pretty polished.
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on “WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete”Submitted Signal 2.0 released with private messaging support as a story · 337 points
HN discussionOT but https://whispersystems.org/workworkwork/ was great to read. I would definitely apply if I was in the market for a job.
Comment linking /workworkwork/
on “WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete”Submitted Open Whisper Systems Partners with Google on End-To-end Encryption for Allo as a story · 330 points
HN discussionReproducible builds help with 3) as well. There was just an announcement re that a few days ago: https://whispersystems.org/blog/reproducible-android/
Comment linking /blog/reproducible-android/
on “WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete”Submitted Disappearing messages for Signal as a story · 290 points
HN discussion> They seem to have replaced TLS/SSL between client and server with "Noise Pipes". WhatsApp was already using a custom protocol instead of TLS. We worked with them to transition over to Noise Pipes, which has some advantages over what they were doing before. Also, we've renamed Axolotl to Signal Protocol: https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-inside-and-out/
Comment linking /blog/signal-inside-and-out/
on “WhatsApp's Signal Protocol integration is now complete”Submitted Video calls for Signal now in public beta as a story · 286 points
HN discussionWhatsApp uses the Signal Protocol, I'm not familiar with the details, but this post by OWS should[1]. [1] https://whispersystems.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/
Comment linking /blog/whatsapp-complete/
on “There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'”Submitted Signal for Android: RedPhone and TextSecure in one app as a story · 243 points
HN discussionIt's also not clear that the server must forward all the delivery receipts before it forwards the later replies. Could it just eat them all? EDIT: after a quick look at the spec¹, it seems that it supports out-of-order messages, meaning the server could selectively eat receipts. [1] https://whispersystems.org/docs/specifications/doubleratchet...
Comment linking /docs/specifications/doubleratchet/
on “There is no WhatsApp 'backdoor'”Submitted Reflections: The ecosystem is moving as a story · 226 points
HN discussionA better alternative would be Signal https://whispersystems.org/ Telegram is a terrible alternative. Messages aren't even end to end encrypted by default and they're kept accessible on Telegrams servers. See the recent news on how a russian activists Telegram account got hacked giving them access to all stored messages: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2016/04/30/russia-telegram-h... Also this: Thomas H. Ptacek: By d…
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on “WhatsApp, Used by 100M Brazilians, Shut Down Nationwide Today by a Single Judge”Submitted Signal and Giphy as a story · 225 points
HN discussion
