Live data from Hacker News

EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

politico.eu

41–50 of 289 posts

Re: EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

#41
>>Promoting the app, however, could antagonize the law enforcement community.

The margins of law enforcement and intelligence can be blurry, but to the extent that they're antagonistic towards private communication as a whole... "law enforcement" is kind of a euphemism. The article should have said "could antagonize the intelligence community," whether it's police or whatever.

Over time this "antagonism" is growing, because intelligence is increasing its reliance on these data sources.

"What do you mean we can't analyse IM chats. How are we supposed to do our job?"

Re: EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

#42
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Signal might be open source but the servers are still run in the USA and thus are subject to the US "legal system" (which in turn is subject to the mood of its president).

Signal servers only know who talked to whom, but otherwise are physically not able to see even a smattering of the contents of the communication. Correction: The signal servers don't even have that bit of metadata. See [1], they only store the last time that a user connected to the server. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Servers

> The signal servers don't even have that bit of metadata. See [1], they only store the last time that a user connected to the server.

Note that it's what they claim at least. It's not verifiable client side, and to be honest, it's hard to come up with a scalable protocol where this is the case, but you should still not repeat their claim as a matter of fact while in reality we only have their word that the code actually matches what's deployed. And even if they don't store anything, AWS could still provide interested entities access to the infrastructure to capture what Signal doesn't want to capture. Yes, features like sealed sender are awesome and are an important step, but the service still gets ip addresses, which do provide hints about the sender. Again, likely Signal doesn't store ip addresses but people with access to their infrastructure could.

Furthermore, Signal's encryption doesn't help against people storing all of Signal's traffic and waiting until attacks on crypto algorithms become practical (quantum computers, theoretical progress on attacks). Some secrets become irrelevant with time, others increase in value. The best defense is never having the message leave your country's network in the first place.

And there's the DOS problem. What happens if the american president decides that the EU should be cut off from all US network connections? The EU parliament members can't even organize a good response to this because they use an american service...

Re: EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

#43
post #11

I'm supprised they have not developed their own or at least, bankrolled the development of one via grants. Though it would be good if there was an open source communications platform that would allow the public to engage with politicians in a formal and constructive way. Alas, so much disparity in solutions that it often irks me. https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/projects Be great if the interface was bet…

Why reinvent the wheel?

Signal does the job, doesn't store data, not even metadata, and can be used immediately.

Re: EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

#45
post #43
post #11

I'm supprised they have not developed their own or at least, bankrolled the development of one via grants. Though it would be good if there was an open source communications platform that would allow the public to engage with politicians in a formal and constructive way. Alas, so much disparity in solutions that it often irks me. https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/projects Be great if the interface was bet…

Why reinvent the wheel? Signal does the job, doesn't store data, not even metadata, and can be used immediately.

[deleted]

Re: EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

#46
post #28

The EU budget is 148 Billion Euros. Surely, if they have a requirement for a secure communication app, they have the wherewithal to build one for their needs, that EU citizens and others could then use if they so chose? Essential knowledge is definitely public. This is not about 'Signal' it's about why governments can't/won't deliver on so many issues they themselves deem to be very materially important to them, part…

Chances are, if government would make a "secure communication app" it would suck (unlike private companies, government has no interest in making applications usable because they usually have no competition - if you have to use them, you have to use them). The projects are usually done by external contractors which will implement the unusable project that technically meets the requirements (implementing more is a waste of money). Add cryptography into an equation (cryptography is notoriously difficult to get right), and you have a recipe for disaster.

Re: EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

#47
post #28

The EU budget is 148 Billion Euros. Surely, if they have a requirement for a secure communication app, they have the wherewithal to build one for their needs, that EU citizens and others could then use if they so chose? Essential knowledge is definitely public. This is not about 'Signal' it's about why governments can't/won't deliver on so many issues they themselves deem to be very materially important to them, part…

The EU has 27 (?) member states (plus others). All those governments have intelligence agencies. All of those want to know what MEPs are thinking etc. All of them have veto powers...

Re: EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

#48
post #18
post #7

As an EU citizen I think that's a great decision.

Is there no open source or European alternative? Just keep relying on some Californian dude that insist i give him my and my friends phone numbers? And harass me so i give him more info to “personalize my profile” !?

There's Matrix (https://matrix.org/).

Re: EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

#49
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Signal might be open source but the servers are still run in the USA and thus are subject to the US "legal system" (which in turn is subject to the mood of its president).

Signal servers only know who talked to whom, but otherwise are physically not able to see even a smattering of the contents of the communication. Correction: The signal servers don't even have that bit of metadata. See [1], they only store the last time that a user connected to the server. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Servers

Signal app is also canonically distributed by Google Play/Apple Store, which are US entities under US law. When push comes to shove, an app update may get distributed to select individuals that will happily gather and send all their conversation histories and more.

As an EU citizen, I'm half puzzled and half horrified at how happy the EU institutions are to rely on foreign products: especially coming from a country that has a history of being trigger-happy and cutting people off in the name of a "trade war".

Re: EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

#50
post #39
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the government in Germany does IT projects, they usually burn millions of Euros even for simple projects. And then, years after the planned rollout, the project is still unfinished and no politician wants to touch it anymore. My favorites was the "special email inbox for lawyers". So, I am somewhat hesitant to let the EU develop a chat client.

The Dutch government is also often terrible at managing IT projects. It seems an industry has evolved to game the public procurement rules required by the EU. Those companies just leech money for never-ending IT projects that tend to be over budget, over time, and working poorly.

I think it's more that one of the consequences of painful public procurement processes is that they incentivise public officials to avoid procurement as much as possible. This leads to larger/maximalist projects being specified and a proliferation of "framework agreements" under which small projects are undertaken, both of which seem to benefit the large incumbents disproportionately.
Post reply on HN