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Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

swedenherald.com

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Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#11

Post by mcherm »

mathfailure wrote: post #5

[flagged]

The US does not have a law requiring all messaging applications to store historical messages and provide access for law enforcement to decrypt and view all messages.

The US may (or may not) be capable of decrypting Signal messages themselves -- but that is a different issue. The US does not (currently... it HAS been discussed previously) ban the use of any particular encryption techniques because US agencies are incapable of breaking those techniques. And there ARE techniques that US agencies are incapable of decrypting.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#12

Post by bad_user »

JmsPae wrote: post #2

You know it's a banger proposal when even the Swedish armed forces tells you "Please don't".

European armed forces should know best, given that Signal has seen actual use by Ukrainian military personnel, with Russian forces trying their best to target those encrypted communications (right now mostly by getting those smartphones from dead bodies).

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#13

Post by BoredPositron »

While I don't personally agree with the law, I genuinely hope we witness a major corporation withdraw from a market just so we can finally observe the concrete impact of these types of threats. (Even though their position is understandable in this particular case.)

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#15

Post by qwertox »

Apple did the right thing in the UK. This means that neither politicians nor the military will benefit from E2EE, while it's clear that they wished that just the plebes would be affected by this.

Maybe all IMs should then drop encryption altogether, bringing us back to the stone age of clear text messaging (email sent unencrypted between MTAs).

Because this "please let them use encryption, but let us peek around it" just doesn't feel right.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#16

Post by diggan »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #8

It seems like a lot of these proposals are coming out of Europe—assuming I’m not mistaken (and I may well be), why is Europe cracking down so much on privacy?

There is a huge section of the population who believes it's possible to strip the security of criminals using apps like Signal without it affecting everyone's security. Same in Sweden as the rest of the world.

The military of Sweden seems to get it at least, they "write in a letter to the government that the proposal cannot be realized "without introducing vulnerabilities and backdoors that can be exploited by third parties"". The military also recently advocated for more use of Signal, so clearly they've reviewed it and find the current security good enough.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#17

Post by bramhaag »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #8

It seems like a lot of these proposals are coming out of Europe—assuming I’m not mistaken (and I may well be), why is Europe cracking down so much on privacy?

On the surface it's mostly "think of the children" and "terrorists use encryption" type arguments.

I'm sure some of the politicians advocating for this have ulterior motives, but I hope we won't get in a position where we find out what those motives are.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#19

Post by diggan »

metayrnc wrote: post #3

> The Armed Forces, on the other hand, are negative and write in a letter to the government that the proposal cannot be realized "without introducing vulnerabilities and backdoors that can be exploited by third parties First time I am seeing an organization against this. Kudos to them for standing up.

According to the original article (Swedish: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/signal-lamnar-sverige-om-...), the reason for the armed forces to be against it is because they recently started advocating for its personnel to start using Signal to reduce eavesdropping, so backdooring Signal would decrease the armed forces security.

> Men Försvarsmakten är negativa och nyligen uppmanade försvaret sin personal att börja använda Signal för att minska risken för avlyssning.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#20

Post by paganel »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #8

It seems like a lot of these proposals are coming out of Europe—assuming I’m not mistaken (and I may well be), why is Europe cracking down so much on privacy?

Because we’re cuckolds and a politically dead society. Also very old. After you’re passed the age of 40 you’re more interested from your pension is going to get paid for when the day will come, not in abstract things like “freedom” and what have you.
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