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EU Commission to staff: Switch to Signal messaging app

politico.eu

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

#111

Post by asutekku »

throwawaylolx wrote: post #104
pergadad wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty selfish view. On the other hand such a serious backer means political clout and attention in case there are attempts to compromise it. E.g. Whispers Systems could quickly relocate to Estonia or Germany if US law becomes untenable.

Not so much selfish as realistic: now intelligence agencies like NSA can justify spending much more resources to exploit potential vulnerabilities in Signal, so—with Wikileaks in mind—it practically makes Signal less safe long-term.

I believe signal had been on the radar of NSA since it has been the main topic of secure communications for few years already.

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

#112

Post by blunte »

In previous discussion here on HN, Wire was claimed to be more secure than Signal (something related to initial key sharing?)

I don't understand why there's so much publicity behind Signal, and Wire is never mentioned. I've been using Wire for years, and it doesn't require a phone number to setup.

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

#113

Post by Dahoon »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #99
Arbalest wrote: post #72

That's a tad unfortunate. Signal was just low profile enough that my wife and I could use it in China. This raises the profile of it just a bit higher than I'd like. Further, with the likes of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22202110 having a higher profile makes the organisation more vulnerable to harassment from the government.

My understanding is that US Senators already use it. At least there was a headline on HN ages back. The main issue with apps like Signal in my opinion comes from apps that snoop on your screen. I wouldnt be surprised if there are rogue custom keyboards that do this. I would be more worried if only communist / socialist nations (you all know the ones I am talking about, not sure of a better name so calling them what t…

It would be more likely that the NSA would advise against Signal if it doesn't have access and want to scare people to use something they do have access to.

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

#114

Post by lifeisstillgood »

imtringued wrote: post #85
101404 wrote: 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.

I always wonder how these projects can be so expensive. Heck, they are so expensive you could just order two companies to deliver a product and pit them against each other so that there is a strong incentive to deliver a working product.

Now that is a good idea!

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

#115

Post by dsfyu404ed »

netcan wrote: post #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 growi…

This probably antagonizes law enforcement more than intelligence.

If you are interesting enough to be a target to the CIA's of the world then they will probably find a way to get at you, if not through your phone then through your spouse's or maybe your Echo or whatever. These people would do well to distance themselves from devices in general

For the masses who do nothing too wrong yet still engage in WrongThink(TM) (relative to the politics of the time and place) these apps are great because they astronomically increase the effort requires for law enforcement to rifle through your private communication which greatly reduces ability of police to have the power of arbitrary enforcement over the common man. A consequence of this is that tracking down drug dealers and other petty criminals requires "good old fashioned police work" as opposed to hooking their phone up to a black box like police have grown accustomed to.

I agree with you that the distinction between law enforcement and intelligence is blurry but it's the folks solidly on the law enforcement side that are hindered by E2E encrypted messaging because it diminishes their power over people who have done nothing wrong and makes their routine work marginally more difficult.

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

#116

Post by upofadown »

nico_h wrote: post #18
akie wrote: 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 is always boring old XMPP as commonly used for corporate stuff. But then they would have to try to explain to people what a protocol is. That ends up being a problem with IM stuff where people think of the client as the service.

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

#117

Post by feanaro »

stingraycharles wrote: post #26
nico_h wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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” !?

This is the “perfect solution fallacy”; just because Signal doesn’t check all the boxes, doesn’t mean it isn’t an improvement over the existing situation. Secure communications is the immediate goal, nation sovereignty secondary. Looking at the other comments, the European alternatives don’t look very secure, so it looks like they prioritized security here.

> Looking at the other comments, the European alternatives don’t look very secure, so it looks like they prioritized security here.

In what way are Wire and Matrix not very secure, though?

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

#118

Post by neuronic »

DelightOne wrote: post #81
101404 wrote: 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.

Thats why it should be done like darpa, choosing the best in the end.

Yes, selection should happen after the fact. Build at least an MVP with all critical functionality implemented in working stages.

Then use that for the competition to get the contract.

Preselection is hot garbage, as proven time and time again. Of course mechanism to mitigate the upfront cost of participating in such a competition should be implemented but in the end it should turn out cheaper/more worthwhile since a working MVP already exists by time of selection.

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

#119

Post by simias »

proactivesvcs wrote: post #58
Zenst wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a wheel that they do not have any control over, from source, hosting and distribution.

But for an entity like the EU they could have complete control over the lot, with relative ease. The client, server and protocol are all open.

Is the server really open? I was under the impression that it was not. That's my only issue with Signal honestly, you can't rehost/fork easily if you're unhappy with the way the project is going.

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

#120

Post by neuronic »

nico_h wrote: post #18
akie wrote: 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 is Threema. Does it have drawbacks?
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