Anyone using/ used Wire?

Looks/ sounds great and is GPL too

I actually didn’t know they also release their server code. That’s also
a point over Signal, on top of allowing pseudonymous accounts (by not
demanding the phone number as an unique id).

Nevertheless, it’s not federated, which means that people can only
communicate if they are on the same server instance. That’s probably why
they compare to slack and mattermost
(https://wire.com/en/explore/competitive-advantage/).

Although it’s still iffy with video/audio, heavy on the server side, and
still developing, I think the Matrix protocol is still the way forward
(https://matrix.org/, Riot [https://about.riot.im/] is the reference
client). Or XMPP, which many people still favor. I guess it depends on
what you need it for.

Also, just saw this:
The Wire messenger changed ownership in July, didn’t really notify
anyone as per their own privacy policy, and now belongs to a US entity
called “Wire Group Holdings”:
https://www.zefix.ch/de/search/entity/list/firm/1116851

Seems that every time we consider settling for the least bad option,
most usable, etc, tables get turned on us and we get reminded that we
really need our own federated/distributed FOSS tech.

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Saw this (private so re-posted) on my timeline regarding Wire:

My biggest issue with Wire isn’t that it’s backed by opaque US venture capital. It’s that they made vague noises about federation but didn’t follow through. If a system doesn’t federate/peer then its not likely to be useful to a decentralized internet. Also see the similar problems with Signal.

Just an FYI. I haven’t dug into this but it’s probably worth investigating.

Personally I’m not too bothered/ zealous about federation. If it’s open source and I’m self-hosting with a host I trust, who cares? Not me :slight_smile:

But thanks for the info nonetheless.

Mostly I’m interested in hearing from anyone who has actually used (or ideally regularly uses) Wire to hear what they think about the usability etc :slight_smile:

So is this GitHub - signalapp/Signal-Server: Server supporting the Signal Private Messenger applications on Android, Desktop, and iOS not the full signal server code then?

You are right, it seems that is the complete server code. Thanks for the
correction.

We can’t actually be sure that is the same code running on OpenWhisper
servers, though. Also, what is new and counter intuitive to people used
to FOSS is that forks of that code wouldn’t be able to talk to Signal’s
users. Same situation with Wire, I think.

For reference, a couple of articles about this situation:
https://drewdevault.com/2018/08/08/Signal.html

Wire is always mentioned as superior to almost all other encrypted communication technology, but it always seems rather shrouded in secrecy, so I’ve never looked further.

Thanks for looking into it.

I’m afraid the situation developed in a slightly more worrying direction since I saw some hearsay on my timeline: Privacy Guides: The Expert's Guide to Online Privacy in 2023. That’s worth a look.

RE: signal, the mask is certainly slipping: https://blog.freedombone.net/the-ecosystem-is-moving-away-from-monoliths.

Is it fair to say that a mask is slipping? Seems to me Open Whisper have always maintained the attitude in the blog post and the talk.

By doing so they have brought strong encryption to almost every smart phone either with Signal or WhatsApp, in a way that is significantly troubling for law makers to be signalling (ha) their displeasure. There are lots of flaws with this model, both technically and politically, but as a strategy it certainly seems to have worked well, in comparison to any existing decentralised solution, where apart from email and the web itself, nothing really exists at consumer scale.