Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of the open messaging app Signal and co-author of the Signal protocol, which is also used for end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp, has announced his departure as the head of Signal Messenger LLC, which oversees the development of the Signal app and protocol. Until a new leader is appointed, the temporary CEO will be Brian Acton, co-founder and head of the non-profit Signal Technology Foundation, who once created the WhatsApp messenger and successfully sold it to Facebook.
It is noted that four years ago, all processes and development were entirely dependent on Moxie, and he could not even be out of touch for a short time, as he had to solve all problems himself. Moxie was not satisfied with the project’s dependency on one person, and over the past few years, a core team of skilled engineers has been formed in the company, and all functions related to development, support, and maintenance have been delegated to them.
It is noted that work processes are now established to the extent that recently Moxie has practically ceased his involvement in development, and all work on Signal is carried out by a team that has demonstrated the ability to keep the project afloat without his participation. In Moxie's opinion, for the further development of Signal, it would be better if he handed over the CEO position to a worthy candidate (Moxie is primarily a cryptographer, developer, and engineer, not a professional manager). However, Moxie is not completely leaving the project and remains on the board of the related non-profit organization Signal Technology Foundation.
Additionally, it is worth noting the article published a few days ago by Moxie Marlinspike explaining his skepticism regarding the future of decentralized technologies (Web3). Among the reasons stated for why decentralized computing will not dominate is the reluctance of ordinary users to support it. servers and run handlers on their own systems, as well as the significant inertia in the development of protocols. It is also mentioned that decentralized systems are good in theory, but in practice, they tend to become tied to the infrastructures of individual companies. Users end up being bound to the operational conditions of specific platforms, while client software merely serves as a wrapper over external centralized APIs provided by services like Infura, OpenSea, Coinbase, and Etherscan.
An illustrative example of the illusory nature of decentralization is provided by a personal case where the Moxi NFT was removed from the OpenSea platform without detailing the reasons under the general pretext of violating service rules (Moxi believes he did not violate any rules), after which the NFT became unavailable in all cryptocurrency wallets on the device, such as MetaMask and Rainbow, which operate through external APIs.
Source: opennet.ru
