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Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

signal.org

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Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#91

Post by xirbeosbwo1234 »

danenania wrote: post #73
djl0 wrote: post #69

If Iran is blocking Signal but not other apps, namely Whatsapp, does this mean Iran has access to Whatsapp data? I fully expect the US govt to have access to fb/whatsapp data (at least the metadata), but it's a bit surprising to me that Iran would too.

I think FB’s policy is to comply with local laws regardless of ethical concerns?

I think FB's policy is to _____(verb)_____ regardless of ethical concerns.

They certainly aren't complying with U.S. antitrust laws. They comply if it makes them money and don't comply if it doesn't make them money.

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#92

Post by eeZah7Ux »

hospadar wrote: post #25
JohnBerea wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just use Element/Matrix which already lets you do that.

I feel like this answer to "how to make government censorship of private communications over the internet impossible" is more complex though than just "use element/matrix" It seems like both signal and matrix choose "Human-meaningful" over "distributed" on Zooko's Triangle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle Matrix is federated which I'd argue is pretty different than "distributed". Certainly the fact t…

> Wouldn't a truly distributed/secure/really-super-hard-to-block protocol rely on non-meaningful addresses (i.e. public-key-derived like a tor hidden service) and some kind of interesting mesh setup (i.e. like tor) to route and deliver messages?

Yes. You just described Briar.

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#94

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

fourthark wrote: post #23
sa1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of purposes but dismantling mass surveillance is a major one. This requires 'taking over the world'.

... Creating a central point of failure / censorship?

Yeah so this latest attempt seems to want to “fix” that.

“Hey, let’s distribute connections (proxy servers) to our central point of failure so that we can get around the central point of failure. Genius!” /s

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#95

Post by nrvn »

Signal could learn a lot from Telegram in this regard.

Russian govt had tried to block Telegram but telegram servers just keep jumping over various cidrs and users got the ip addresses for connecting over push updates and the only thing the govt succeeded in was blocking a wide range of subnets including AWS ranges and GCP ranges thus disrupting a whole lot of businesses and even some government services.

They gave up and lifted the ban eventually.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/06/russian_censo...

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#97

Post by awestroke »

pmlnr wrote: post #67
awestroke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're welcome to either use such a decentralised service or fork signal and add decentralisation / federation. Centralised services get more users by having a lower threshold of adoption.

> You're welcome to either use such a decentralised service or fork signal and add decentralisation / federation. It's called XMPP. It predates Signal by ~15 years.

And yet it hasn't become big yet.

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#98

Post by beermonster »

djl0 wrote: post #69

If Iran is blocking Signal but not other apps, namely Whatsapp, does this mean Iran has access to Whatsapp data? I fully expect the US govt to have access to fb/whatsapp data (at least the metadata), but it's a bit surprising to me that Iran would too.

Well...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/world/middleeast/iran-hac...

Re: Help users in Iran reconnect to Signal

#99

Post by derbOac »

rthomas6 wrote: post #96

This is one of the best arguments for federation/decentralization, is it not? It's not impossible to block a protocol, but it's harder than blocking an IP.

Yeah I was thinking this is awfully close to some kind of federated system. It's not the same but it's pretty close to Signal asking for people to decentralize their service a bit to overcome censorship, which is one of the main arguments for decentralized systems.
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