Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of them?
Well, only some claim to "remain committed to offering our users the highest level of security for their personal data" while turning off E2EE cloud storage for an entire country.
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Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
121–130 of 283 posts
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, the philosophy of Free Software does not account for the scale at which software is being run now. Having the source code to a printer driver available is a completely different thing than being dependent on a platform, because all your friends and relations are using it. Personally, I'd only trust a governmental agency to provide such services, which makes the article we're discussing ironic at the le…
"Personally, I'd only trust a governmental agency to provide such services" I understand where you're coming from, "the ultimate goal of a company is to profit and so we can not trust it to protect their users/consumers interests instead of their own" but... you know that it is always the government that will put you in prison, or send you to war right? That it is a blob of power, controlled by people right? This gov…
So much this! The internet does not have to be a monolith controlled by the mega-corp/govt flavor-of-the-month. It originally was (and still can be) a network of smaller federated ecosystems controlled by individuals or smaller groups.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may be wrong, but it proves that technology can't beat politics and policy. The issue with Apple caving to UK demands regarding encryption, and now Signal being in a similar situation, shows that you can't just focus on technology and ignore policy and politics. And you'll find out that a ton of people here on HN will care, but most of the public won't. People should take XKCD 538 really to heart (The 5$ wrench on…
> technology can't beat politics and policy. It often only can't in a world of mandatory centralized app stores. That's not the only possible world.
We technologists will probably be able to circumvent any Signal-ban. But we don't exist in a vacuum, we are a small part of a larger society. Who's at the other end of your conversation?
Most 'regular/normal' people won't and most importantly - don't want to - jump through the technical hoops to keep using Signal.
Although the downside of the official app stores is clear, the alternative might result in a swift return to the '90s and '00s where malware and viruses were rampant. Pick your poison.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that proposals like this get this far, without anyone checking with the defence department and actual experts is really weird. It's not just Sweden, this is clearly a problem in many other countries. I'd really like to know why it's so hard for politicians and police forces to understand that backdoors are dangerous.
It will be waring factions within government (which is never unitary in any country) --- here these laws/proposals/etc. probably come from domestic spying agencies and police forces in most countries. I suspect that signals intelligence agencies and offensive forces have probably mostly moved to "encryption is good" stance given the number of foreign attacks upon domestic assets (gov, biz, etc.). However, we shouldn'…
> At a complete guess, I wouldnt be supried if, eg., the NSA (, CIA, et al.) were goading EUROPOL which was demanding domestic anti-encryption laws.
The exact purpose of Five Eyes?
I'm shocked, shocked! there's gambling going in here!
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you point out where it says it won't be a reproducible output? https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/main/reprod...
Ah nice; they got rid of that explicit warning - instead though we have the entire section about "bundlePlayProdRelease" including an externally sourced binary blob. A significant improvement. /s
I don't understand how the details of the build process matter if the resulting files can be checked to be bit by bit identical? I can only think of something like Signal and Google conspiring to backdoor the binaries during the build process via this external binary blob. But if Google is part of this, they could also do it within Android which is not fully open source.
If you don't like this, you use the non-Play Store build instead (which supposedly doesn't include any binary blobs, but I haven't checked).
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The idea, that companies or politicians can force the user's machine to work against it's owner, is wrong. You are hinting at something important here. Let me strengthen your point: to own an object means to subject it fully to your own will. If the object can act in a way that favors someone else's interests over yours, you do not own it. This is true of pretty much any device running proprietary software. A litmu…
> to own an object means to subject it fully to your own will Not by a long shot. Just a few counterexamples from the top of my head: Destroying currency, altering passports, reproducing copyrighted images. I'm not saying I'm a fan of even more exceptions of that kind, but I don't think there are any particular inherent rights arising from property ownership beyond from what society agrees on there are (e.g. the firs…
Note that I said "can", not "legally can". You can destroy currency, alter passport, reproduce copyrighted images if you want to. There may be legal consequences but you can. You can also stab a person with a knife you own, even if you will be punished for it. I'm not talking about rights, but capabilities.
You can't make your phone lie to an app developer about its location, rooted status, etc. You can't make your HP printer print with unsanctioned ink. Therefore, you do not own them.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#127Interesting that the Swedish military agrees it's a bad idea.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, the philosophy of Free Software does not account for the scale at which software is being run now. Having the source code to a printer driver available is a completely different thing than being dependent on a platform, because all your friends and relations are using it. Personally, I'd only trust a governmental agency to provide such services, which makes the article we're discussing ironic at the le…
> Personally, I'd only trust a governmental agency to provide such services, I can't see why you'd say that. Governments (and private corporations) are not operated to faithfully serve the public, certainly not the public as a set of individuals and small groups of people. It's not that "government services are bad", but rather, than governments, even democratically-elected ones, are practically certain to wiggle out…
Bakunin put it best:
"There is only one essential difference between a monarchy and even the most democratic republic—in the former, bureaucrats oppress and plunder the people in the name of the monarch; in the latter, they do it in the name of the people's will." - Statism and Anarchy
The core problem isn’t the form of government, but the concentration of power itself.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
European bureaucrats generally have little understanding of the technology they get paid to regulate, as we've seen with the their previous attempts to regulate the industry. It's very much a "vibes-based" approach. They can simply keep proposing the same regulation with a new name until it's voted through.
> European bureaucrats generally have little understanding of the technology they get paid to regulate I'd agree with you if you just put "bureaucrats" instead of European bureaucrats, what country isn't currently led by a bunch of bureaucrats who don't seem to understand even the basics of the technology they legislate about? I've yet to seen a country to lead the way, no wonder the rest of the countries don't seem…
While I generally agree, the bureaucrats in the US have been somewhat checked by nonprofits who will lobby against this kind of legislative overreach and sue if the legislation passes. Obviously we have all sorts of other problems, but mostly our bureaucrats and legislators aren’t making backdoors a policy as far as ai’m aware (who knows what the CIA and FBI and NSA are up to, though?).
I assume it’s just one of those things that Swedish society is having to grapple with abruptly and that they will adapt the appropriate institutions. I have more faith in Sweden than my own country lately.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#130It 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?
The population in europe is finally (if slowly) waking up to the fact that their elected leaders do not act in their interest. This is the establishment's attempt of staying in control of the narrative so they can keep suppressing any real resistance to their rule.