Moxie Marlinspike, creator of the open messenger Signal and co-author of the Signal protocol, which is also used for end-to-end encryption in WhatsApp, has announced his departure as head of Signal Messenger LLC, the company overseeing the development of the Signal application and protocol. Until a new director is appointed, the duties of interim CEO will be taken on by Brian Acton, co-founder and head of the non-profit organization 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 dissatisfied with the project's dependence on one person, and over the past few years, the company has managed to form a core team of skilled engineers, as well as delegate all functions related to development, support, and maintenance.
It is highlighted that the workflows are now established to such an extent that recently Moxie has virtually ceased to participate 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 involvement. According to Moxie, for the further development of Signal, it would be better if he passed the CEO position to a worthy candidate (Moxie is primarily a cryptographer, developer, and engineer, not a professional manager). At the same time, 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 skeptical view of the future of decentralized technologies (Web3). Among the reasons mentioned for why decentralized computing will not dominate is the reluctance of ordinary users to support servere Și să ruleze procesatoare pe sistemele lor, precum și o mare inerție în dezvoltarea protocoalelor. De asemenea, se menționează că sistemele descentralizate sunt bune în teorie, dar în practică, de obicei, ajung să depindă de infrastructurile unor companii individuale, iar utilizatorii se văd constrânși de condițiile de funcționare ale platformelor specifice, software-ul client doar având un strat de interfață deasupra API-urilor centralizate externe, furnizate de servicii precum Infura, OpenSea, Coinbase și Etherscan.
Ca exemplu al iluziilor descentralizării, se aduce în discuție cazul personal al lui Moxie, când NFT-ul său a fost șters de pe platforma OpenSea fără detalii privind motivele, sub pretextul general al încălcării regulilor serviciului (Moxie considerând că nu a încălcat regulile). După aceea, acest NFT a devenit inaccesibil și în toate portofelele criptografice ale dispozitivului, cum ar fi MetaMask și Rainbow, care funcționează prin API-uri externe.
Sursa: opennet.ro
