signal-cli

I don't know about the moderation tools for large channels, but bots should be possible: https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli

A good free way to achieve this is to use Signal. This project https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli enables you to send Signal messages from the command line, including from Raspberry Pis. It obviously needs an internet connection to work, but has the added bonus of being more secure than SMS.

Possibly of interest: https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli

"After filling the captcha, the site doesn't show the token but redirects to a signalcaptcha:// url that contains the token. [...] To see the URL you can open the browser developer tools (F12) before completing the captcha." https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/wiki/Registration-with-c... Using Tor Browser I can see the signalcaptcha:// address in the window title of a detached Developer Tools window.

signal-cli uses a clearly identifiable user agent [0] that could easily be blocked if Signal wanted to. signal-cli could escalate by trying to evade that kind of a block, but as it stands signal-cli has been operating without trouble for several years. I meant they may ask some clients not to use their servers, but they don't have any enforcement mechanism in place beyond asking them to stop on github. [0] https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/05abb3f9f6294677d2d...

I said it's not enforced. I cannot speak for moxie or Signal. I can speak for my own experiences, as the maintainer of a fork of signal-cli, and I have never seen any evidence that Signal's servers block signal-cli or my fork. I don't know about signal-cli but my fork clearly identifies itself in the user agent (and another field called the "signal agent") to the server. If they wanted to block me they could. edit: signal-cli also sets a user agent clearly identifies itself: https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli/blob/05abb3f9f6294677d2d...

There is a CLI client. Notifications/subscriptions may not be available. I think someone mentioned later in the thread that signald is a fork of signal-cli. https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli

well "signal-cli" is already in use by https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli (which signald is a fork of)

> It's practically a principle of the Signal project to discourage third-party clients It depends on what you call "client". At the protocol level sure, you're supposed to behave just like any official client. But to do that you just have to use their client library[0] and implement whatever you want on top of this, like signal-cli[1] has been doing successfully for quite some time now. Some forks exist here and there (from memory, there's one with WhatsApp import, another with UI features), there's just no interest for a completely new client. There's only so much space for innovation for what is mostly a messaging app. To be fair, the absence of an API (which Telegram has) also limits possibilities. [0]: https://github.com/signalapp/libsignal-client [1]: https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli

Signal is still an improvement over other non-federated messengers in that it's open-source, so you actually can try to improve the situation, although it's notoriously difficult. As an example of more platform support: https://github.com/signalapp/ringrtc/pull/12 signal-cli is an example of a 3rd party client which is tolerated for now: https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli The main problem right now is that they don't have enough developers to take care of everything, but it's not specific to centralized services (no developer == no code). If you care about it, you can develop your own client using their library (à la signal-cli). Regarding your last paragraph: I could probably list 20 features I'd like to see in Signal. That doesn't mean I want somebody implementing them with no guarantee about how securely they are implemented. One of t

Yes, once this is more mature, it should make it easier to write Signal bots. You can already do quite a lot with this awesome project: https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli. It doesn't support everything though.

Do you know Signal-cli? I'm using it for all my Signal bots. https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli

I've been using Signal for years now and although it still has its flaws (requirement for a phone number, PIN number debacle), it is IMHO the best alternative and I've moved my sginificant other, friends and families towards it. Combined with signal-cli (https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli.git) you can easily set up your own files & messaging upload. For instance, I've created an automatic upload to a Google Photos album for my family group chat and they love it !