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Signal (software)
Signal is an American open-source, encrypted messaging service for instant messaging, voice calls, and video calls. The instant messaging function includes sending text, voice notes, images, videos, and other files. Communication may be one-to-one between users or may involve group messaging. The application uses a centralized computing architecture and is cross-platform software. It is developed by the non-profit Signal Foundation and its subsidiary Signal Messenger LLC. Signal's software is free and open-source. Its mobile clients, desktop client, and server are all published under the AGPL-3.0-only license. The official Android app generally uses the proprietary Google Play Services, although it is designed to be able to work without them. Signal is also distributed for iOS and desktop programs for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Registration for desktop use requires an iOS or Android device. Signal uses mobile telephone numbers to register and manage user accounts, thoug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signal Technology Foundation
The Signal Technology Foundation, commonly known as the Signal Foundation, is an American non-profit organization founded in 2018 by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton. Its mission is to "protect free expression and enable secure communication, secure global communication through open source digital privacy, privacy technology." Its subsidiary, Signal Messenger LLC, is responsible for the development of the Signal (messaging app), Signal messaging app and the Signal Protocol. History On February 21, 2018, Moxie Marlinspike and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton announced the formation of the Signal Foundation, a 501(c) organization, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The foundation was started with an initial $50 million loan from Acton, who had left WhatsApp's parent company, Facebook, in September 2017. The Freedom of the Press Foundation had previously served as the Signal project's fiscal sponsor and continued to accept donations on behalf of the project while the foundation's no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Videotelephony
Videotelephony (also known as videoconferencing or video calling) is the use of audio signal, audio and video for simultaneous two-way communication. Today, videotelephony is widespread. There are many terms to refer to videotelephony. ''Videophones'' are standalone devices for video calling (compare Telephone). In the present day, devices like smartphones and computers are capable of video calling, reducing the demand for separate videophones. ''Videoconferencing'' implies group communication.Mulbach et al, 1995. pg. 291. Videoconferencing is used in telepresence, whose goal is to create the illusion that remote participants are in the same room. The concept of videotelephony was conceived in the late 19th century, and versions were available to the public starting in the 1930s. Early demonstrations were installed at booths in post offices and shown at various world expositions. In 1970, AT&T launched the first commercial personal videotelephone system. In addition to videoph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telephone Number
A telephone number is the address of a Telecommunications, telecommunication endpoint, such as a telephone, in a telephone network, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN). A telephone number typically consists of a Number, sequence of digits, but historically letters were also used in connection with telephone exchange names. Telephone numbers facilitate the switching and routing of telephone call, calls using a system of destination code routing. Telephone numbers are entered or dialed by a calling party on the originating telephone set, which transmits the sequence of digits in the process of signaling to a telephone exchange. The exchange completes the call either to another locally connected subscriber or via the PSTN to the called party. Telephone numbers are assigned within the framework of a national or regional telephone numbering plan to subscribers by telephone service operators, which may be commercial entities, state-controlled administrations, or ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, packaged as a Linux distribution (distro), which includes the kernel and supporting system software and library (computing), libraries—most of which are provided by third parties—to create a complete operating system, designed as a clone of Unix and released under the copyleft GPL license. List of Linux distributions, Thousands of Linux distributions exist, many based directly or indirectly on other distributions; popular Linux distributions include Debian, Fedora Linux, Linux Mint, Arch Linux, and Ubuntu, while commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise, and ChromeOS. Linux distributions are frequently used in server platforms. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MacOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of Desktop computer, desktop and laptop computers, it is the Usage share of operating systems#Desktop and laptop computers, second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows and ahead of all Linux distributions, including ChromeOS and SteamOS. , the most recent release of macOS is MacOS Sequoia, macOS 15 Sequoia, the 21st major version of macOS. Mac OS X succeeded classic Mac OS, the primary Mac operating systems, Macintosh operating system from 1984 to 2001. Its underlying architecture came from NeXT's NeXTSTEP, as a result of NeXT#1997–2006: Acquisition by Apple, Apple's acquisition of NeXT, which also brought Steve Jobs back to Apple. The first desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0, was released on March 24, 2001. Mac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sectors of the computing industry – Windows (unqualified) for a consumer or corporate workstation, Windows Server for a Server (computing), server and Windows IoT for an embedded system. Windows is sold as either a consumer retail product or licensed to Original equipment manufacturer, third-party hardware manufacturers who sell products Software bundles, bundled with Windows. The first version of Windows, Windows 1.0, was released on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The name "Windows" is a reference to the windowing system in GUIs. The 1990 release of Windows 3.0 catapulted its market success and led to various other product families ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Google Play Services
Google Play Services is a proprietary software package produced by Google for installation on Android devices. It consists of background services and libraries for use by mobile apps running on the device. When it was introduced in 2012, it provided access to the Google+ APIs and OAuth 2.0. It expanded to cover a variety of Google services, allowing applications to communicate with the services through common means. The package's services include location tracking and geofencing, single sign-on account services, user health and fitness tracking, payment processing, integrated advertising, and security scanning. Many apps on Android devices depend on the use of Google Play Services, and the package requires the user to use a Google Account and agree to Google's terms of service. Distributing Google Play Services on an Android device requires a license from Google, which contractually prohibits device producers from producing Android devices that are incompatible with Google' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spamming
Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, non-commercial proselytizing, or any prohibited purpose (especially phishing), or simply repeatedly sending the same message to the same user. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social spam, spam mobile apps, television advertising and file sharing spam. It is named after Spam, a luncheon meat, by way of a Monty Python sketch about a restaurant that has Spam in almost every dish in which Vikings annoyingly sing "Spam" repeatedly. Spamming remains economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first copyleft license available for general use. It was originally written by Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), for the GNU Project. The license grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the Free Software Definition. The licenses in the GPL series are all copyleft licenses, which means that any derivative work must be distributed under the same or equivalent license terms. The GPL is more restrictive than the GNU Lesser General Public License, and even more distinct from the more widely used permissive software licenses such as BSD, MIT, and Apache. Historically, the GPL license family has been one of the most popular software licenses in the free and open-source software (FOSS) domai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Android (operating System)
Android is an operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen-based mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computer, tablets. Android has historically been developed by a consortium of developers known as the Open Handset Alliance, but its most widely used version is primarily developed by Google. First released in 2008, Android is the world's Usage share of operating systems, most widely used operating system; the latest version, released on June 10, 2025, is Android 16. At its core, the operating system is known as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License. However, most devices run the proprietary software, proprietary Android version developed by Google, which ships with additional proprietary closed-source software pre-installed, most notably Google Mobile Services (GMS), which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Server (computing)
A server is a computer that provides information to other computers called " clients" on a computer network. This architecture is called the client–server model. Servers can provide various functionalities, often called "services", such as sharing data or resources among multiple clients or performing computations for a client. A single server can serve multiple clients, and a single client can use multiple servers. A client process may run on the same device or may connect over a network to a server on a different device. Typical servers are database servers, file servers, mail servers, print servers, web servers, game servers, and application servers. Client–server systems are usually most frequently implemented by (and often identified with) the request–response model: a client sends a request to the server, which performs some action and sends a response back to the client, typically with a result or acknowledgment. Designating a computer as "server-class hardwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free And Open-source Software
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free software and open-source software. The rights guaranteed by FOSS originate from the "Four Essential Freedoms" of '' The Free Software Definition'' and the criteria of '' The Open Source Definition''. All FOSS can have publicly available source code, but not all source-available software is FOSS. FOSS is the opposite of proprietary software, which is licensed restrictively or has undisclosed source code. The historical precursor to FOSS was the hobbyist and academic public domain software ecosystem of the 1960s to 1980s. Free and open-source operating systems such as Linux distributions and descendants of BSD are widely used, powering millions of servers, desktops, smartphones, and other devices. Free-software licenses and open-so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
