Granted, the part
The globally recommended app by privacy and security experts, Signal, is now being downloaded massively and tops the Danish Google Play Store
is a little ironic, but you gotta push this winning tide and then work from that.
Meshtastic. Let’s get some critical mass. Get single points of trust out of the equation.
Or briar, tox…
Yeah, a network based on the principle of flooding ain’t gonna work across that many people.
I’ll get a node, but the bandwidth is too low. I’m looking into WiFi meshing now.
Kinda ironic that if the danish representatives in the EU got their way with chat control, danish people wouldn’t even be able to install signal (officially at least), since Signal said they would leave the EU in such a case.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t irony, but rather a reaction from the population that is realizing the shit their government is doing.
I am from Denmark. I have spent the last 10 years fighting to get schools and government institutions to switch away from American software.
What a waste of time, when all it takes is the threat of an imperialist take-over of Greenland to actually get my fellow countrymen to finally listen and act.
Signal is still centralized US software.
It is the least evil for the ignorant technology end user.
Problem is if they change to Signal now they are less likely to change again to something “better”.
There’s no better. When that hopeful better comes we will all think about it.
pretty big fan of http://delta.chat/ secure and decentralised
Is that not just chat over email? I thought it used to be, and some of the language on the site is still kind of suggestive of it, but it does sound kinda different. Maybe I’m confusing it with something else. If it’s still just fancy email, I’m not sure I like that idea since email has so many privacy issues baked in deep.
i dont know much sorry, think you would want to start with https://chatmail.at/
Telegram is still better, while not being ideal, of course. But at least its servers aren’t located in the USA.
The ideal options are decentralized/p2p, but for now they have very few users (not many less than Signal, to be fair).
The software with encryption disabled by default, no security audits, and rampant spam is better?
E2E encryption it’s not the only feature that matters. By the way, I am not promoting Telegram, I only mean that relying on US-centric infrastructure is bad because you can be disconnected away at any moment.
Telegram is worse. There’s only pedos and russians on it, not to mention the french government having full access to the servers.
telegram is the absolute wirst when it comes to constant spam from scams and bullshit group chats… it’s an utter cesspool.
Elaborate please.
But at least the US government can’t listen in on your conversations, and if they don’t know your phone number, can’t block your specific communications either.
That you know of.
This is from 2020 after the news discovered that yeah actually, the US gov could read your encrypted messages. https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2020/02/12/cia-secretly-bought-global-encryption-provider-built-backdoors-spied-on-100-foreign-governments/
Edit: how fascinating! I’ve been downvoted. Really makes you wonder who is pushing for this adoption of this.
You were downvoted because what you posted is completely irrelevant to Signal. The only way to read the messages is to install spyware on your phone.
It’s the fediverse, signal is sacred and will not be questioned nor criticiced, anyone else who wishes to have a non-US instant messenger gets downvoted to hell.
Wish I was joking but just look at the other guy who dared to like Telegram.
It’s basically signal or matrix in here.I personally don’t use it, it’s much more suspicious that other messengers get so much flak and signal is defended so fiercely… And it’s also USA based.
It’s the fediverse, signal is sacred and will not be questioned nor criticiced
you can question signal just as much as you want, but you’d better come with actual arguments rather than just conspiracy, because signal has counters to pretty much every claim that non-experts try to make
signal was built and is run by one of the worlds foremost security researchers and privacy activists
it uses standard encryption that is used in huge numbers of things. if there were a problem with any part of that, the world would have a much bigger problem than individual communications. the US government does not behave in a way that suggests these algorithms are compromised
it has been repeatedly audited by 3rd parties
the fact that it’s US-based is barely worth mentioning… why is that a problem? are you sure it’s not solely a knee-jerk reaction?
it’s free (so you’re not supporting the US economy), the client - and server, though that’s not important because E2EE - is FOSS (so it’s auditable and extendable by anyone: AFAIK they also ensure repeatable builds), the encryption is basically as good as it gets (they even have various protections for quantum computing), their architecture means they can’t even see metadata like senders… so, again, in this case what are you giving up by having it US-based? perhaps a little bit of soft power, perhaps an acknowledgment that in this 1 case the US produced a good product counter to their governments interests
the other guy who dared to like Telegram
because telegram is not for security or privacy conscious people, despite their marketing: they actively muddy the waters and make people less safe
their encryption is custom, written by mathematicians not cryptographers so doesn’t include features like perfect forward secrecy, replay protection, etc
and their default chat mode isn’t even e2ee - only secret chats use their custom encryption, and nobody actually uses them!
there are numerous sources documenting these problems, and plenty more
it’s okay to like telegram: i like it as a chat app, and i use it for the features it provides… but it’s not okay to say in a privacy and security context that they’re even remotely comparable
Or, or…hear me out in this… Just maybe
You’re fucking wrong and there is no conspiracy to make you look bad
Crazy, I know
True. I was more referring to the fact that nobody has wanted to move away from Meta, Google and Microsoft solutions because of convenience (until now).
Are they switching in the hope they’ll get added to a group chat planning the invasion?
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Nope, signal.
It was though, to be fair, that’s definitely not what’s the bit to blame for government officials adding the incorrect people to their own group chats.
That is one fucked up looking flag
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greenland officially adopted it 3 hours ago (10000% real)
What’s she flag equivalent of blasphemy? This is what it would look like.
Mushing two nation flags plus an app logo plus some sort of pattern overlay into a headline image is just so wrong.
Is it about the geopolitics or did SaveSocial’s marketing campaign “digital independence day” last weekend (look for #DIday and #DIDit) also contribute? I’m not sure how visible that was internationally or if it was just a German campaign.
DID stemms from a Talk AG the CCC this year. It is a month old and was held in german. I think this isnt DIDs work here
If only the threat didn’t (also) come from inside the house when it comes to privacy. I don’t want my national police to have full access to my chats at all times any more than I want the USians to have that access, possibly even less. FBI or CIA isn’t going to personally bust down my front door, arrest me and seize all my computing devices because I called a local politician a dick.
Unfortunately Threema the European alternative that’s at least as secure as Signal costs money - and that one time fee is enough to send everyone to Signal.
Especially as there are open source alternatives such as matrix
It’s also not open source.
But as far as I understand, for e2e programs that doesnt matter as long as the client is open-source, isn’t it?
The Threema client is open-source. Which is about the same as with Signal, who release partial open-source code of their server, but it is impossible to actually use.
As much as I praise Threema… it frankly sucks compared to the alternatives. Delayed message delivery, sometimes no notifications, somehow dated looking Ui…
Welcome to the club!
Like one of the main things Signal is really terrible at given that it is based in the US and hosted on AWS servers 🤦
Besides being hosted in the AWS servers, there’s no way to check if what’s running there is the same as the published code. That’s why i don’t use signal.
When the signal foundation is losing money every year, i can just wonder what will happen when the money runs out. Even the good guys need to eat.
Or what will happen when trump will decide to seize the AWS servers running the signal application server.
You don’t need to care about the server code since the secure bits and encryption that matters is all on the client side and verifiable.
i do care about metadata.
If you care about it then just use Signal since it’s the one with least amount of metadata fying around. A big central server with many normies using it also ensures that it’s very hard to correlate traffic.
If you care about it then just use Signal
No, because of:
When the signal foundation is losing money every year, i can just wonder what will happen when the money runs out. Even the good guys need to eat.
I have seen this film so many times…
as in phone number, IP and timestamps? If I were worried about that I wouldn’t have a phone in the first place but if private messaging (content is private) I think signal works fine
It shouldn’t matter because you can verify that your data is encrypted and thus not accessible to the server, but also, IIUC, they use secure enclaves so that you can verify that their server is running the published source code.
when trump will decide to seize the AWS servers running the signal application server.
How do we know he hasn’t already?
No need to size them. AWS is deeply embedded into the intelligence apparatus of the NSA as one of their prioritized suppliers.
I believe the fact that Signal is hosted on Apple or Google clients is worse than its server host. (I still use and recommend it though)
Convincing people to use an open Android build is much harder than installing another messenger.
It’s e2e encrypted. Although, as I noticed, the key is just a short pin, unless you use password, but the recipient might not use it and your messages are just as secure as your recipient.
Facebook Messenger also claims to be end-to-end encrypted… There’s literally no way of knowing if they can decrypt your messages.
The only way to know is to host it yourself and preferably use post-quantum secure encryption.
The PIN isn’t actually the encryption key, it’s just a display lock for the local client. But if whoever wants to read your messages has physical access to your phone and already bypassed the normal android lockscreen, you’re fucked anyway.
The other party is always the weakest link.
But also signal’s pins are a little more complicated than that, but you’re right, switch to a passphrase.
Plus side, even if signal themselves edited the secure enclave, the world would need a new client pushed and probably notice something was off.
The way signal’s encryption works is really an art in paranoia.
the world would need a new client pushed and probably notice something was off.
Not if the US have the support of Google.
Totally not how the APK teardown community works, but ok.
How does APK teardown help if Google can replace the app unnoticed?
Because there will always people running Signal from a different source, and only one of them is sufficient to notice the server has been tampered with.
(And I’m not sure if they have reproducible builds yet, but if they do, people can also verify that even the Google Play-provided APK does or doesn’t match the published source code.)
notice the server has been tampered with.
Which server?
doesn’t match the published source code
People don’t control their phone. There is no way of knowing if the installed app is the one that is running.
And? That doesn’t help at all if the US government decides to force Signal to stop servicing Denmark.
It helps in that they still can’t read your messages. The EU is likely to make e2e messaging illegal before the USA cuts access.
You can’t really make e2ee messaging illegal, at least it is impossible to enforce with decentralized open-source messengers.
It is much more likely that the US will mess with Signal, than that you will stop being able to use an e2ee messenger like XMPP, which is just as secure as Signal regarding the e2e encryption.
The issue is that it’s already pretty hard to convince people to use something easy like Signal, most people just don’t care enough for something “complicated” like XMPP-based messengers, especially if mainstream app stores had to stop letting EU-based users install messengers with these features.
Well, yes. But when it comes to digital independence Signal isn’t better than WhatsApp. At least recommend something like Threema if you think the much better alternatives are too hard.
Except Meta fully owns the WhatsApp metadata, and frankly Signal is a lot more trustworthy about its e2e implementation being actually, in practice, secure.
at least it is impossible to enforce with decentralized open-source messengers.
All you need is a central registry where licensed messengers register their e2ee connections. Then network providers only have to report all ip addresses with connections that are not on that list.
Impossible with VPNs, but politicians have already announced their desire to make them illegal.
What? You are not making much sense. What is a “e2ee connection”?
An encrypted connection between two endpoints.That’s required for “decentralized open-source messengers”.
Currently it’s impossible to prevent because of all the encrypted video calls of the Meta messengers and similar connections between endpoints.
If those video streams are marked then it is known which endpoints use software that evades surveillance.
Oh that’s another consideration indeed.
