Bruce Schneier is also probably just a conspiracy theorist, when he writes in 2014:
"By the way, the Register noted that Whisper Systems (along with Tor and several other privacy projects) received $450,000 from Radio Free Asia – which is pretty much an official State Department / CIA propaganda organ, isn’t it? How exactly does this work as a coherent national security strategy, when State is funding ‘privacy’ while NSA is funding eavesdropping? opentechfund.org/…/otf2013annualreportfinal.pdf"
“Between 2013 and 2016, Open Whisper Systems received grants from the Shuttleworth Foundation,[49] the Knight Foundation,[50] and the Open Technology Fund.[51]”
“Marlinspike launched Open Whisper Systems’ website in January 2013.[2][1]”
(from the page you linked)
How is that not the OTF (100% funded by Radio Free Asia) since its inception? how is it not its initial conception phase?
During most of it’s initial conception phase it was US gov funded
therefore some of the characteristics its users still suffer today (like reliance on strong selectors, pinky-promise of non-retaining metadata, centralized architecture based on the same “cloud” as the one of the CIA and other decisions hostile to free/libre software users and ethics) originate from that era.
As many people mentioned backups before, I would only add this: Maybe check -in your favourite search engine- if the very same model of computer that you use doesn’t have know quirks (hardware needing some tweaking, not being fully recognized, etc.) with gnu/linux, like for instance searching “$model linux” or “$model $distro” (with the distros you plan on trying, etc.
Also maybe if you connect only via Wifi, check that wifi chip for compatibility first, and maybe get as a backup a USB wifi dongle that is know to work on gnu/linux… juuuust in case ;)
there is now a discovery mechanism of some sort… but otherwise it’s a feature and not a bug that you can only identify people whom you had an initial exchange with. much preferable than something that Signal that without asking (and without opting out?) will by default access all your contacts and match them through the use of a strong selector (phone number) also:
i think with the minimal knowledge the server has of its users (and the no-identity concept) this really limits risk. Also it means that for the most tight of security models, one can use their own server (which is not feasible with most other chat protocols)
simplex seems to check all boxes for respecting privacy. it doesnt rely on using any identity (no strong selectors like email addresses or phone number). seems very forward-thinking in its concepts.