explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2365: Messaging Systems

2020-09-30T20:40:29Z

Wolfsbane2019: Corrected previous edit of link

{{comic
| number = 2365
| date = September 28, 2020
| title = Messaging Systems
| image = messaging_systems.png
| titletext = SMS is just the worst, but I'm having trouble convincing people to adopt my preferred system, TLS IRC with a local server and a patched DOSBox gateway running in my mobile browser.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A VAGUELY MODERN SMS. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Messaging systems suffer from the {{w|network effect}}, as in order to communicate, both parties need to be using the same system.
Though relatively ancient by modern standards, {{w|SMS}} is supported by almost every mobile device (unless you're using a {{w|kosher phone}} or still on a {{w|DynaTAC}}) that has a phone number attached, which means if you want to send a message to someone, but aren't sure if you have a messaging protocol in common, you can be sure at least they have SMS.

The comic mentions many other communication systems, which offer various advantages in either security ({{w|end to end encryption}}) and or a bunch of general improvements filed under the label "vaguely modern", such as longer character limits and the ability to share media such as images in-service.

The messaging systems are shown in a {{w|Venn Diagram}}, with the categories corresponding to these three advantages. The intersections between the categories are very minimal: there are a few systems that have both E2E encryption and are modern, but no intersections with "supported by everyone", and SMS is the only system in that category. So when choosing a method of communication, you're usually faced with a compromise.

The title text proposes an alternative, absurd mingling of technologies in the vein of [[1636: XKCD Stack]]. IRC is Internet Relay Chat, a similarly antiquated messaging service that may also never die, as suggested in [[1782: Team Chat]]. {{w|Transport Layer Security}} (TLS) is a layer of networking software that provides encrypted communication. {{w|DOSBox}} is an emulator that recreates the operating environment of {{w|MS-DOS}}; part of the absurdity is that DOSBox is intended almost solely for video games.

Various other comics have referenced the issue of chat services, including [[1810: Chat Systems]], [[1254: Preferred Chat System]], and [[1782: Team Chat]].

=== Vaguely Modern ===
'''Slack'''
* {{w|Slack (software)|Slack}} is a workplace messaging service that offers the ability for administrators to create channels in order to organize the discussion. It is asynchronous, which means that conversations can occur out of time, hours apart from each other. It also keeps track of every message, and everything in a public channel stays there forever for everyone to see. It is not encrypted and has been moving towards being less privacy-focused for end-users over the years as corporate demand for employee surveillance has prompted the company to offer ever more invasive services to administrators. Overall, it is a popular service with some large companies and non-profit organisations but does not yet have universal adoption.

'''Facebook Messenger'''
* {{w|Facebook Messenger}} is {{w|Facebook}}'s messaging app for phones, but not everyone has a Facebook account, or uses Facebook regularly.

'''Hangouts'''
* {{w|Google Hangouts}} is a messaging service that can be accessed through the online Gmail client, as a separate web page and a standalone app for the phone. Theoretically, that means everybody has access to it, but modern usage patterns mean that most people do not use the attached web client and don't bother downloading the app. It allows users to make group or 1-on-1 voice or video calls, upload images, videos, links, and other media along with text messaging.

'''Discord'''
* {{w|Discord (software)|Discord}} is a communications program that offers both direct messages and "servers", membership groups with a variety of voice and text channels. Discord was initially designed to serve the needs of online gaming communities, but is now used by many other groups.

'''Various DMs'''
* A {{w|Personal message|DM}} (direct message) is a private message between two or more users. The term DM originated from {{w|Twitter}}, but is now broadly applied to any user-to-user messaging feature within a larger service.

=== Vaguely Modern & E2E Encrypted ===

'''Signal'''
*{{w|Signal (software)|Signal}} is an encrypted messaging service owned by the Signal Foundation a 501c3 nonprofit, popular among protesters and hackers who wish to remain anonymous. Signal allows for highly secure messaging and for messages to be deleted after a period of time.

'''iMessage'''
*{{w|iMessage}} is the instant messaging service for Apple devices. iMessage features end-to-end encryption; however, it only works between Apple devices, so users of Android devices are not able to receive or send messages through iMessage.

'''WhatsApp'''
*{{w|WhatsApp}} is a messaging service owned by Facebook. It is popular in multiple countries, especially India & in Latin America.

=== E2E Encrypted ===
{{w|End-to-end encryption}} is another messaging system where only the communicating users can read the messages posted. In principle, it prevents potential eavesdroppers – including {{w|telecom provider}}s, {{w|internet provider}}s, and even the provider of the communication service – from being able to access the {{w|cryptographic key}}s needed to decrypt the conversation.

'''PGP Email'''
*{{w|Pretty Good Privacy|PGP}} (short for "Pretty Good Privacy") is an encryption protocol for privacy and authentication developed in 1991. PGP can be used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting data. It is used to ensure the validity of the nature of the sender of the message (i.e., to make sure you got the email from the sender and not from someone else pretending to be someone else with malicious intent). PGP was also featured in [[1181: PGP]].

'''Various Obscure Projects'''
*Randall is probably referring to the multitude of projects similar to those listed here that had end-to-end encryption but never went far.

'''Skype I Think'''
*{{w|Skype}} is a video conferencing service owned by Microsoft released in 2003; thus Randall does not consider Skype "modern". He is unsure if Skype is end-to-end encrypted or not. Skype used to be E2E encrypted, but that was changed and now {{w|Skype security|it does not have E2E encryption}}.

'''XMPP''' ('''Jabber + TLS''')
*{{w|XMPP}} (short for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), formerly named Jabber, is a communications protocol based on XML that was developed in 1999. The XMPP protocol could be used with {{w|Transport Layer Security}} (TLS) to have a secure communications service.

The first IM service based on XMPP was {{w|Jabber.org}}.

There are several (XEPs) (short for XMPP Extension Protocols).

=== Supported By Everyone ===
'''SMS'''
*{{w|SMS}} (short for Short Message Service) is a text-messaging service formally defined in the {{w|GSM}} standard in 1985 and first used in 1992. It limits messages to 160 characters, text-only. SMS has been extended at least twice, first by {{w|Multimedia Messaging Service|MMS}} (first used in 2002), which allows for "multimedia", including short videos, images and audio. MMS is also supported by most modern phones, but does not have any security features and is less powerful than other messaging apps, making it less modern. {{w|Rich Communication Services|Rich Communication Services}} (abbreviated as RCS) is a more modern protocol, aimed at replacing SMS & MMS protocols. RCS support has been slow to rollout among cellular carriers, due to their preference for proprietary implementations & monetizable usage tracking &\or gatekeeping. Like SMS & MMS, RCS is a federated network, wherein failure of one provider's systems is unlikely to result in a total system outage. The single-provider messaging networks of other widely used systems (such as those mentioned on this page) can experience system-wide outages that prevent all users from communicating via them at all; this has happened multiple times for both Signal & Discord, among others. For this reason, single-provider networks are intrinsically more prone to total system outages than federated networks. The long-standing interoperability of SMS+MMS networks is difficult (if not impossible) to match in terms of communicating with a maximum number of people, & maintaining functionality for other users when one provider experiences an outage.

==Transcript==

A Venn Diagram is shown, framed in a box. It has three components:

Vaguely Modern, E2E Encrypted, Supported By Everyone

'''Items Solely in the Vaguely Modern category are:'''

:Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Discord, Various DMs

'''Items In both 'Vaguely Modern' and 'E2E Encrypted' categories are:'''

:Signal, iMessage, Whatsapp

'''Items Solely in the E2E Encrypted category are:'''

:PGP Email, Various Obscure Projects, Skype I think, XMPP and XMPP + XEP-0384: OMEMO

'''Items Solely in the 'Supported By Everyone' category is:'''

:SMS

All other categories are empty.

[Caption below the comic]: Why SMS refuses to die

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Venn diagrams]]
[[Category:Phones]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

2365: Messaging Systems

2020-09-30T20:37:18Z

Wolfsbane2019: Change kosher-phone link to Wikipedia, which has a more neutral tone

{{comic
| number = 2365
| date = September 28, 2020
| title = Messaging Systems
| image = messaging_systems.png
| titletext = SMS is just the worst, but I'm having trouble convincing people to adopt my preferred system, TLS IRC with a local server and a patched DOSBox gateway running in my mobile browser.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by A VAGUELY MODERN SMS. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

Messaging systems suffer from the {{w|network effect}}, as in order to communicate, both parties need to be using the same system.
Though relatively ancient by modern standards, {{w|SMS}} is supported by almost every mobile device (unless you're using a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone#Kosher_phone] or still on a {{w|DynaTAC}}) that has a phone number attached, which means if you want to send a message to someone, but aren't sure if you have a messaging protocol in common, you can be sure at least they have SMS.

The comic mentions many other communication systems, which offer various advantages in either security ({{w|end to end encryption}}) and or a bunch of general improvements filed under the label "vaguely modern", such as longer character limits and the ability to share media such as images in-service.

The messaging systems are shown in a {{w|Venn Diagram}}, with the categories corresponding to these three advantages. The intersections between the categories are very minimal: there are a few systems that have both E2E encryption and are modern, but no intersections with "supported by everyone", and SMS is the only system in that category. So when choosing a method of communication, you're usually faced with a compromise.

The title text proposes an alternative, absurd mingling of technologies in the vein of [[1636: XKCD Stack]]. IRC is Internet Relay Chat, a similarly antiquated messaging service that may also never die, as suggested in [[1782: Team Chat]]. {{w|Transport Layer Security}} (TLS) is a layer of networking software that provides encrypted communication. {{w|DOSBox}} is an emulator that recreates the operating environment of {{w|MS-DOS}}; part of the absurdity is that DOSBox is intended almost solely for video games.

Various other comics have referenced the issue of chat services, including [[1810: Chat Systems]], [[1254: Preferred Chat System]], and [[1782: Team Chat]].

=== Vaguely Modern ===
'''Slack'''
* {{w|Slack (software)|Slack}} is a workplace messaging service that offers the ability for administrators to create channels in order to organize the discussion. It is asynchronous, which means that conversations can occur out of time, hours apart from each other. It also keeps track of every message, and everything in a public channel stays there forever for everyone to see. It is not encrypted and has been moving towards being less privacy-focused for end-users over the years as corporate demand for employee surveillance has prompted the company to offer ever more invasive services to administrators. Overall, it is a popular service with some large companies and non-profit organisations but does not yet have universal adoption.

'''Facebook Messenger'''
* {{w|Facebook Messenger}} is {{w|Facebook}}'s messaging app for phones, but not everyone has a Facebook account, or uses Facebook regularly.

'''Hangouts'''
* {{w|Google Hangouts}} is a messaging service that can be accessed through the online Gmail client, as a separate web page and a standalone app for the phone. Theoretically, that means everybody has access to it, but modern usage patterns mean that most people do not use the attached web client and don't bother downloading the app. It allows users to make group or 1-on-1 voice or video calls, upload images, videos, links, and other media along with text messaging.

'''Discord'''
* {{w|Discord (software)|Discord}} is a communications program that offers both direct messages and "servers", membership groups with a variety of voice and text channels. Discord was initially designed to serve the needs of online gaming communities, but is now used by many other groups.

'''Various DMs'''
* A {{w|Personal message|DM}} (direct message) is a private message between two or more users. The term DM originated from {{w|Twitter}}, but is now broadly applied to any user-to-user messaging feature within a larger service.

=== Vaguely Modern & E2E Encrypted ===

'''Signal'''
*{{w|Signal (software)|Signal}} is an encrypted messaging service owned by the Signal Foundation a 501c3 nonprofit, popular among protesters and hackers who wish to remain anonymous. Signal allows for highly secure messaging and for messages to be deleted after a period of time.

'''iMessage'''
*{{w|iMessage}} is the instant messaging service for Apple devices. iMessage features end-to-end encryption; however, it only works between Apple devices, so users of Android devices are not able to receive or send messages through iMessage.

'''WhatsApp'''
*{{w|WhatsApp}} is a messaging service owned by Facebook. It is popular in multiple countries, especially India & in Latin America.

=== E2E Encrypted ===
{{w|End-to-end encryption}} is another messaging system where only the communicating users can read the messages posted. In principle, it prevents potential eavesdroppers – including {{w|telecom provider}}s, {{w|internet provider}}s, and even the provider of the communication service – from being able to access the {{w|cryptographic key}}s needed to decrypt the conversation.

'''PGP Email'''
*{{w|Pretty Good Privacy|PGP}} (short for "Pretty Good Privacy") is an encryption protocol for privacy and authentication developed in 1991. PGP can be used for signing, encrypting, and decrypting data. It is used to ensure the validity of the nature of the sender of the message (i.e., to make sure you got the email from the sender and not from someone else pretending to be someone else with malicious intent). PGP was also featured in [[1181: PGP]].

'''Various Obscure Projects'''
*Randall is probably referring to the multitude of projects similar to those listed here that had end-to-end encryption but never went far.

'''Skype I Think'''
*{{w|Skype}} is a video conferencing service owned by Microsoft released in 2003; thus Randall does not consider Skype "modern". He is unsure if Skype is end-to-end encrypted or not. Skype used to be E2E encrypted, but that was changed and now {{w|Skype security|it does not have E2E encryption}}.

'''XMPP''' ('''Jabber + TLS''')
*{{w|XMPP}} (short for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), formerly named Jabber, is a communications protocol based on XML that was developed in 1999. The XMPP protocol could be used with {{w|Transport Layer Security}} (TLS) to have a secure communications service.

The first IM service based on XMPP was {{w|Jabber.org}}.

There are several (XEPs) (short for XMPP Extension Protocols).

=== Supported By Everyone ===
'''SMS'''
*{{w|SMS}} (short for Short Message Service) is a text-messaging service formally defined in the {{w|GSM}} standard in 1985 and first used in 1992. It limits messages to 160 characters, text-only. SMS has been extended at least twice, first by {{w|Multimedia Messaging Service|MMS}} (first used in 2002), which allows for "multimedia", including short videos, images and audio. MMS is also supported by most modern phones, but does not have any security features and is less powerful than other messaging apps, making it less modern. {{w|Rich Communication Services|Rich Communication Services}} (abbreviated as RCS) is a more modern protocol, aimed at replacing SMS & MMS protocols. RCS support has been slow to rollout among cellular carriers, due to their preference for proprietary implementations & monetizable usage tracking &\or gatekeeping. Like SMS & MMS, RCS is a federated network, wherein failure of one provider's systems is unlikely to result in a total system outage. The single-provider messaging networks of other widely used systems (such as those mentioned on this page) can experience system-wide outages that prevent all users from communicating via them at all; this has happened multiple times for both Signal & Discord, among others. For this reason, single-provider networks are intrinsically more prone to total system outages than federated networks. The long-standing interoperability of SMS+MMS networks is difficult (if not impossible) to match in terms of communicating with a maximum number of people, & maintaining functionality for other users when one provider experiences an outage.

==Transcript==

A Venn Diagram is shown, framed in a box. It has three components:

Vaguely Modern, E2E Encrypted, Supported By Everyone

'''Items Solely in the Vaguely Modern category are:'''

:Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Discord, Various DMs

'''Items In both 'Vaguely Modern' and 'E2E Encrypted' categories are:'''

:Signal, iMessage, Whatsapp

'''Items Solely in the E2E Encrypted category are:'''

:PGP Email, Various Obscure Projects, Skype I think, XMPP and XMPP + XEP-0384: OMEMO

'''Items Solely in the 'Supported By Everyone' category is:'''

:SMS

All other categories are empty.

[Caption below the comic]: Why SMS refuses to die

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Venn diagrams]]
[[Category:Phones]]
[[Category:Social networking]]

Talk:2365: Messaging Systems

2020-09-30T20:33:37Z

Wolfsbane2019:

I guess ordinary email should be in the same section as SMS as well. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.171|162.158.158.171]] 00:20, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

The comic should mention MMS, which is well integrated into SMS, so that it's supported by not quite as much as SMS but still by almost everybody, and counts as vaguely modern in that you can attach images and have no length limit. ―[[User:TobyBartels|TobyBartels]] ([[User talk:TobyBartels|talk]]) 00:46, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

My DynaTAC doesn't get SMS. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.22.150|172.69.22.150]] 00:56, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Okay, got a basic explanation up; The comic is missing a bunch of different messaging services I feel. Also, I knew that somebody would say that their phone doesn't support SMS, I guess that habit of hedging writing with mostly is paying off.
[[Special:Contributions/172.69.63.143|172.69.63.143]] 01:01, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

"It [Whatsapp] is popular in multiple countries, namely Latin America and India." I have no idea what this means: should "namely" be "mainly"? But is the fixed version even true? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.158.225|162.158.158.225]] 11:28, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
: Both "namely" and "mainly" are valid and mean very similar things in this context. Saying "... mainly Latin America and India" suggests most of Whatsapp's popularity is in Latin America and India and Whatsapp has little popularity anywhere else. On the other hand, saying "... namely Latin America and India" suggests that Latin America and India are some of the countries where Whatsapp is particularly popular without implying that Whatsapp is significantly unpopular elsewhere. That said, it's a pretty subtle distinction that almost no one will actually care about except hardcore language geeks. With love from your friendly neighborhood Grammar Communist. <3 [[User:Gertuviti|Gertuviti]] ([[User talk:Gertuviti|talk]]) 12:57, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
:: In any case: Wouldn't it be easier to list countries where it's not popular? Because to what I know there are a few markets where it didn't get a foothold (''namely'' Northern America, Australia, China), but in most of the rest of the world it basically is ''the'' way of messaging since many years (others, like Signal, Telegram, Threema, are coming, but usually have a hard time fighting WhatsApp predominancy). SMS didn't disappear and is still used by some technical systems (like for sending TANs or alarms), but I can't remember when I last heard about someone sending an SMS privately (my current phone, in service since one year, for sure never received one). --[[User:YMS|YMS]] ([[User talk:YMS|talk]]) 14:17, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
::: FIFY by avoiding both terms, & by adding the missing "in." Your friendly & useful Grammar democratic republican.
:::: This Grammar socialist-conservative thinks "in multiple countries, especially India & in Latin America" has other issues. I appreciate the need for "countries, especially (...) in Latin America" to be integrated with "countries, especially India (...)", but the mix of the multiple and singular examples as equivalent list-subitems jars. The "Set of (Item, Set of (Items))" thing is a complex linguistic construct. Perhaps "in multiple regions, especially India and Latin America" works better (both qualify as regions, or contain more implicitly relevent sub-regions if you prefer that interpretation, without worrying about precise country-level boundries). This also switches the ampersand out (incongruous eyesore, an unnecessary ''abbr.'' that clashes with the "in; and, particularly if used as the reordered "in Latin America & India", would actually imply stronger linking than merely being two examples plucked from a clearly unexhausted larger list). But I leave this suggestion here only for consideration. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.52|141.101.98.52]] 16:04, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Discord is slowly moving towards supported by everyone because of Covid-19. [[User:Stardragon|Stardragon]] ([[User talk:Stardragon|talk]]) 12:27, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

"Discord being used by everyone" (ref. Explanation rather than above Talk comment), I have deliberately kept off Discord, so clearly not. The reason for Discord (as per Talk comment) applies more so to Zoom/Teams, though. Although I've kept off those too, where I can (using Zoom on a Raspberry Pi on a few occasions, which tends to overheat it). [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.140|162.158.159.140]] 13:45, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
: Good for you; you're fighting the system! Note that the explanation has been updated from "everyone" to "many groups". [[User:OhFFS|OhFFS]] ([[User talk:OhFFS|talk]]) 18:02, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Separate comment: I'm not sure if this helps or hinders the comic's assertions, but friends and family continually tend to send Texts to my dumb-phone that contain emoji I keep telling them that it can't show (i.e. any of them). Only by context can I guess if the anonymous 'square' character is more thumbs-up/smiley-face or otherwise. Or if the three squares after the birthday greeting might include candles/cake. Making them no more clarified than the plain-text message they think they're clarifying. I suppose the single, sole 'emojibox' reply ''does'' work as a basic read-receipt notification, though. Regardless of if it's actually winky-face, poo, zombie, rainbow, cablecar, flag-of-Liberia or whatever they decided to send me... ;) [[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.140|162.158.159.140]] 13:45, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
:That's one reason why SMS isn't in the "Vaguely Modern" category. Although it can transmit and receive emojis, many devices that only support SMS can't display them. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 14:28, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Why isn't there a category for Venn Diagrams? [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 18:58, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
:Uh, yes there is... — [[User:Sqrt-1|The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭]] [[User talk:Sqrt-1|talk]] [[Special:Contributions/Sqrt-1|stalk]] 11:31, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Aww, Telegram didn't even get mentioned, despite having 200 times as many users as Signal. :( [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 21:26, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I for one would support using Randall's local-mobile-TID-gateway protocol [[Special:Contributions/173.245.52.157|173.245.52.157]] 22:41, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

: Whatsapp is also used as main service in most of the European Union, to the point even everybody with iPhones or access to iMessage is using it as main protocol, and most youngsters have a habit of using it for everything instead of Email (then wondering why pictures and videos got degraded). Maybe this should be mentioned.

The Forward article at the kosher-phone link has a biased and faintly derogatory tone. The Wikipedia entry [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone#Kosher_phone], while not perfect, would be a better choice. [[User:Wolfsbane2019|Wolfsbane2019]] ([[User talk:Wolfsbane2019|talk]]) 20:33, 30 September 2020 (UTC)