this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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Privacy
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At the moment you can't. The only realistic way I could see that happening is if the servers would check the app's digital signature and refuse the app from communicating with the official infrastructure if it didn't match.
Which would be absolutely disgusting given that Signal's official app lacks some basic functionality!
Yeah, I use the molly fork because there's features I like about it. I'd be sad if I couldn't use it anymore. :(
What are the ones you're after specifically?
I'm not totally sure signal has it, but I like the ram shredding and socks proxy. I know molly isn't fit for everyone's threat model but those two features I do like to see so I use it instead; I've not run into any issues with it.
Even then, nothing stops the client from lying to the server.
That's the point of digitally signing the app, to ensure its authenticity and integrity. TM and others wouldn't be able to resign the modified app with the Signal Foundation signature.
EDIT: Yeah after thinking more about it it's not a trivial problem, as you need to assume that the endpoint is inherently untrusted.
It's actually possible in a way:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SafetyNet
But you necessarily need to limit the devices and operating systems that are allowed. No custom ROMs, no root access, etc.
It's bullshit and breaks open computing as a concept.
Not to mention that a device that would pass Play Integrity is precisely the device I wouldn't ever consider doing anything private on. Which would defeat the whole point of Signal. It's already bad enough that it's so desktop-unfriendly while much fewer phones than computers that can run non-privacy-invasive OSes than computers...
Isn't that just delegating trust to a third party, e.g. here Google? It's not as if Google was somehow immune to 0 days.
Fuck Safetynet and Play Integrity.