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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

#121

Post by Dahoon »

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.

To be secure step one should always be "Pick a service not controlled by your adversaries' law or intelligence community". Skipping step one has nothing to do with a perfect solution fallacy but is more like "Pissing in your pants for warmth".

A half-broken service would be better than one under US control as the US is the one doing the most snooping on EU. Getting everyone to switch if Signal ever stops being secure would be way harder than to pick a better service now and help secure it.

Matrix would be a better choice for one. Saying EU services isn't secure is hyperbole.

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

#122

Post by newscracker »

Now the staff who use iOS are going to be pissed when they find out chats cannot be backed up or transferred to another device and that rejoining groups on a new device is going to be painful. That’s assuming message delivery works fine and that inadvertent “device changed” notifications don’t pop up when nothing has changed. I’d bet that these people will soon find different ways to communicate just to avoid some pains and probably put up a pretense of using Signal.

Anecdote: Personally, I’ve been using Signal for some years with a few different group chats. The number of times people in those groups talk about how bad Signal is and want to avoid it hasn’t changed much (these people use a mix of iOS and Android). All those groups are quite silent because people don’t want to use it.

Edit: Security without ergonomics doesn’t help. And Signal is still behind on that front. As someone else here pointed out, they could’ve chosen Wire, which has a better UX and has E2E chats syncing across devices.

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

#123

Post by Dahoon »

cpach wrote: post #79
pgeorgi wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't help figure out if the signal update of the day that comes from the store is any good.

That is true. But given how much interest there is to find vulnerabilities in the Signal app, I would be very surprised if anyone would succeed in putting up a compromised Signal app on the App store and also be able to fly under the radar.

The "anyone" in this case would be Signal. No need to fake it when Signal is under US law.

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

#125

Post by literallycancer »

blunte wrote: post #112

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.

Wire is owned by a US company now: https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/13/messaging-app-wire-confirm...

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

#127

Post by literallycancer »

dependenttypes wrote: post #88
xmdx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> doesn't store data, not even metadata Isn't that just a promise? Also, even then, it is based on your contacts, which are seen by google.

You can use some of the gapps alternatives. Google only sees contacts if you sync them through your Google account or use Google contact book app, right?

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

#129

Post by marcosdumay »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #115
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)…

> 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

The big thing for intelligence is that now they track everybody. It doesn't matter if they think you are relevant or not, if at some time you become, they already have plenty of material to blackmail you.

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

#130

Post by nicky0 »

Blaiz0r wrote: post #69
sschueller wrote: post #65

This is a mistake. They should at least compile their own version and not something that comes from an US based app store under US law. At any point the US can force a change. This is as secure as purchasing a machine from Crypto AG. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG

It's not as though staff will be installing it from the App store on their phones.

How else would they install it on their phones?
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