For me it’s the “max devices” is laughably low (5 devices per phone). We use Signal at work, and for work I have a laptop with Win/Linux/Linux (for Signal that’s 3 devices), plus a macbook (4th) device. That means I get one personal device. What I’ve had to do instead is keep the macbook open just for Signal while using either Windows or the less frequent Linux on that tri-boot laptop. Which in the grand scheme of things is ridiculous to me because the limit is so low.
Edit: Context is I can’t have my cell phone with me at work which is the reason for this nonsense.
I alsi question the choice to have some sim-card-accepting tablets force themselves to act as the “single” phone, and cannot auth as follower applications.
I would love something like this for websites (all of them) “Remember login for 30 days” - no, remember login until further notice goddammit. So many times I’ve scrambled to log into my account just to join a Google meet, can’t you just stay logged in
For a while I was using a libpurple/signald plugin, but it broke. Perhaps it works again. I found that there were purple plugins for WhatsApp and Discord as well: it felt good for a while to be IM’ing like it’s 1998 again
The unlinking behavior makes sense from a security perspective, I think. However this is a good example of what happens when security causes usability problems: People will set up hacks to undermine your security measures.
Ironic, since Signal is pretty famous for having both a high level of security and a high level of usability at the same time. Clearly this is an area that needs more work.
First thought “well if Signal opens on login to the desktop then it’ll stay linked” but if it’s not actually used from that desktop then that’s basically equivalent to OP’s hack which circumvents the security feature.
Also, what if you simply don’t log in to the desktop that often.
Maybe the phone could show a reminder that the desktop app will be unlinked in X day?
It doesn’t often happen to people who use Signal a lot. The two access patterns that trigger it are:
Use Signal occasionally. If you haven’t used Signal for 30 days, your desktop app will be unlinked. It’s annoying. This is especially bad for adoption because a lot of people start using Signal because they know one person on Signal and don’t touch the desktop app for extended periods, then discover that it’s broken.
Use Signal on multiple computers, one of which you use infrequently. This bit me when I had it on a laptop and a desktop and was mostly not touching the desktop. When I started using the desktop again I found Signal had unlinked itself and there was no way to sync the message history.
I believe that this is done because Signal requires clients to be kept up to date to avoid old clients being used for security downgrade attacks. If a client isn’t used for ages and has a vulnerability, it can be used by an attacker. Signal does fairly frequent protocol upgrades the break backwards compatibility and so will require desktop apps to be updated regularly. I’m not sure if this is related.
I feel I wouldn’t mind the unlinking if it kept or synced logs once it made sure the device was upgraded; in the case of OP’s article where you want to reply to something that you can’t see because a relinked device is a tabula rasa…
I don’t think it deletes logs, but messages sent in between unlinking and relinking are not sync’d. This is also quite annoying without the disconnection: old messages aren’t sync’d to new devices. I wish Signal would do something about that, but I think their view is that syncing old messages means that a temporary compromise that allows linking a new device would leak all previous messages.
Signal constantly unlinking and intentionally losing logs is an annoyance, especially if you’re surrounded by multiple devices like I am.
For me it’s the “max devices” is laughably low (5 devices per phone). We use Signal at work, and for work I have a laptop with Win/Linux/Linux (for Signal that’s 3 devices), plus a macbook (4th) device. That means I get one personal device. What I’ve had to do instead is keep the macbook open just for Signal while using either Windows or the less frequent Linux on that tri-boot laptop. Which in the grand scheme of things is ridiculous to me because the limit is so low.
Edit: Context is I can’t have my cell phone with me at work which is the reason for this nonsense.
I alsi question the choice to have some sim-card-accepting tablets force themselves to act as the “single” phone, and cannot auth as follower applications.
Thank god someone did this. Not updating the conversations on the desktop app is Signal’s most annoying feature.
@stapelberg, any plans to package this up?
No plans to package this, no. It’s a single file, simple enough to build/copy around.
I would love something like this for websites (all of them) “Remember login for 30 days” - no, remember login until further notice goddammit. So many times I’ve scrambled to log into my account just to join a Google meet, can’t you just stay logged in
For a while I was using a libpurple/signald plugin, but it broke. Perhaps it works again. I found that there were purple plugins for WhatsApp and Discord as well: it felt good for a while to be IM’ing like it’s 1998 again
I recently started using this plugin for Pidgin, it isn’t perfect.. but it works for most of my needs.
It is a great feeling ^^ I do this for Skype.
The unlinking behavior makes sense from a security perspective, I think. However this is a good example of what happens when security causes usability problems: People will set up hacks to undermine your security measures.
Ironic, since Signal is pretty famous for having both a high level of security and a high level of usability at the same time. Clearly this is an area that needs more work.
First thought “well if Signal opens on login to the desktop then it’ll stay linked” but if it’s not actually used from that desktop then that’s basically equivalent to OP’s hack which circumvents the security feature.
Also, what if you simply don’t log in to the desktop that often.
Maybe the phone could show a reminder that the desktop app will be unlinked in X day?
When I worked at Signal years ago, this was something we discussed but never implemented. I don’t know the idea’s current status.
I think they do it now. I got a notification somewhere that my iPad was about to get unlinked.
I don’t think this is a fair characterization. Telegram doesn’t do E2EE and WhatsApp just recently added true multi-device support.
oh, neat!!!!
I run Signal without a phone (no, this is not a supported configuration), so I don’t hit this problem, but I’m sure this will help other people
How do you do that? signal-cli or the signal in an android container/emulator or what?
the second one. initial setup was challenging and a working phone number was still required.
I would only recommend this to people who are highly confident in their ability to 1) not lose it; 2) not have it stolen.
I’ve never had this problem, but I would have reached for Apple Script first. I mean Automator or whatever it’s called today.
AppleScript is still around, and it’s separate from Automator. Which is also separate from Shortcuts, as far as I’m aware.
Oh. I knew AppleScript was still technically separate, but I thought it was basically integrated into Automator now. Thanks for the update!
In my case, I want this program to work on Linux as well.
Also, reaching for a tool I know very well is much quicker than getting familiar with Apple Script :)
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to criticize, I apologize if you took it that way. I was just saying, how I would have tried to solve the problem.
Of course now you have me thinking if anyone has ever tried to port AppleScript to Linux.
Also, I just looked, Signal doesn’t offer any AppleScript actions, which makes me sad.
Strange, never had this happen to me in my 7 something years of using Signal.
It doesn’t often happen to people who use Signal a lot. The two access patterns that trigger it are:
Use Signal occasionally. If you haven’t used Signal for 30 days, your desktop app will be unlinked. It’s annoying. This is especially bad for adoption because a lot of people start using Signal because they know one person on Signal and don’t touch the desktop app for extended periods, then discover that it’s broken.
Use Signal on multiple computers, one of which you use infrequently. This bit me when I had it on a laptop and a desktop and was mostly not touching the desktop. When I started using the desktop again I found Signal had unlinked itself and there was no way to sync the message history.
I believe that this is done because Signal requires clients to be kept up to date to avoid old clients being used for security downgrade attacks. If a client isn’t used for ages and has a vulnerability, it can be used by an attacker. Signal does fairly frequent protocol upgrades the break backwards compatibility and so will require desktop apps to be updated regularly. I’m not sure if this is related.
I feel I wouldn’t mind the unlinking if it kept or synced logs once it made sure the device was upgraded; in the case of OP’s article where you want to reply to something that you can’t see because a relinked device is a tabula rasa…
I don’t think it deletes logs, but messages sent in between unlinking and relinking are not sync’d. This is also quite annoying without the disconnection: old messages aren’t sync’d to new devices. I wish Signal would do something about that, but I think their view is that syncing old messages means that a temporary compromise that allows linking a new device would leak all previous messages.