Skip to content
0:00 / 0:00

#signal#moxiemarlinspike#decentralization

36C3 - The ecosystem is moving

media.ccc.de

274K subscribers • 56 videos on Hallway • Conference channel

YouTube
  • Recommended by 2 people: 2 on Hacker News.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2021 to 2025.
  • Presented by Moxie Marlinspike, creator of Signal
  • An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

1.7K views6 years ago2 recommendations

Distributed systemsSecurityConsensus: Raft and PaxosCryptographyPrivacy and surveillance

Moxie Marlinspike explores the product and ecosystem challenges of building decentralized and federated communication systems based on his experience with Signal.

media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11086-the_ecosystem_is_moving Challenges for distributed and decentralized technology from the perspective of Signal development Considerations for distributed and decentralized technologies from the perspective of a product that many would like to see decentralize. Amongst an environment of enthusiasm for blockchain-based technologies, efforts to decentralize the internet, and tremendous investment in distributed systems, there has been relatively little product movement in this area from the mobile and consumer internet spaces. This is an exploration of challenges for distributed technologies, as well as some considerations for what they do and don't provide, from the perspective of someone working on user-focused mobile communication. This also includes a look at how Signal addresses some of the same problems that decentralized and distributed technologies hope to solve. Moxie Marlinspike fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2019/Fahrplan/events/11086.h…

Why it's here

2 people recommend this, 1 disputes it

What people say. Highly recommended as a seminal critique of decentralized and federated protocols, explaining why centralized ecosystems move faster.

seaniebon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Telegram Ad Platform”

…is is an exploration of challenges for distributed technologies, as well as some considerations for what they do and don't provide, from the perspective of someone working on user-focused mobile communication. This also includes a look at how Signal addresses some of the same problems that decentralized and distributed technologies hope to solve.” link to this video…

blfron Hacker News • Recommends

On “Why Twitter is such a big deal (2009)”

There's a great CCC presentation by Moxie (Signal originator) on that link to this video ~summarized in text form link

Jerry2on Hacker News • Disputes

On “On Privacy versus Freedom”

…ght one. I've used Signal on few occasions in the past but his talk made me uninstall it. I simply do not trust him after hearing his opinions. I do not support centralization and other ideals he's now pushing (including the use of a phone number as Signal's primary ID). The talk was mirrored on few channels on YT 2 and you can still see it. 1 link to this video (it's a private video now) 2 link (working link, who knows for how long so mirror it).…

seaniebon Hacker News • Mentions

On “We Abandoned Matrix: The Dark Truth About User Security and Safety (2024)”

Moxie (Signal Founder) gave a talk about the issues with federation at CCC in 2020, he took a crazy amount of flak for it, a lot of it from the Matrix community. Lots of the issue highlighted are in this post. link to this video

jazzzon Hacker News • Mentions

On “How should group chats work in decentralized systems?”

Appreciate the clarity. It helps me focus without going off on a wild tangent. The durability/independence of the protocol being a primary driver makes sense, and aligns with the design. > "no privileged party at all" > "The network should outlive the operator, function without it." I also believe these are absolute requirements for the future of groupchats. I'd argue for stronger requirements, but I'm definitely onboard here. This protocol has strengths: 1) Per-sender buckets. This is a clever workaround for the downsides of client-side fanout, and provides reasonable sender identity decoupling. 2) Realistic membership limits. I think the number is quite low, but in general I love the willi…