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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

#191

Post by ranger_danger »

dijit wrote: post #76
tuukkah wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also only possible because we use Signal as compiled by themselves and not by trusted third parties from a source kept clean of any future client-side backdoors. The client is open source, right? https://github.com/signalapp (Reproducible builds is a cool technique.)

I have unpopular opinions about this, because Signal has been so hostile to anyone other than Signal themselves being involved. But to be specific: "open source" claims go out the window when they're; 1. Not reproducible (before anyone links me to the "reproducible steps" please actually read them because they tell you directly that they will not create a reproducible output). 2. Able to hide development of mobilecoi…

https://molly.im for a more FOSS and safer fork of Signal

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#193

Post by skybrian »

blueflow wrote: post #183
skybrian wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This principle seems out of touch with most people’s reality: products hardly ever do everything you want and often work against you. If someone has a device that doesn’t do what they want and there’s no setting to change its behavior, replacing it is usually the only practical option. (Or if it’s a problem with an app, they might be able to install a different app.) If there is a free software license, it’s of no di…

I can speak for german law: If you buy something, it becomes your property, and you have full power of disposal ("Verfügungsgewalt") over it. If vendors deny you from exercising this right, they are violating their part of the purchase contract.

Rights are of limited use if there's no practical way to exercise them. Hiring a software developer to change an OS or an app is rarely a practical option for most consumers.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#194

Post by tremon »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #74
smokel wrote: post #48

Earlier 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…

you know that it is always the government that will put you in prison, or send you to war

You're merely playing word games here. A person keeping another human being against their will is called slavery or abduction instead of prison. Similarly, it's only called war when it's a government doing it, otherwise it's called activism, terrorism, or gang warfare (note the overload of the term).

The main difference between a corporation and a real democratic government is that a government is accountable to all its citizens, instead of its shareholders. I understand that this is a difficult concept to grasp for US citizens, but the rest of us living in actual European democracies don't deserve your childish derision. No system is perfect, but don't make the mistake of thinking that the US government is the best (or even a good) example of democracy out there.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#195

Post by Ajedi32 »

skybrian wrote: post #189
Ajedi32 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because we largely don't have Free Software. > If there is a free software license, it’s of no direct use to them. It's of indirect use; they could use a modified version of the software that does what they want, created by someone else. This is why you generally don't see user-hostile features in Free Software; someone would just fork the project and edit them out.

The problem is that some forks are malware [1], so switching to a fork by developers you don't know is risky. How do non-technical users learn which software developers to trust? [1] https://www.securityweek.com/malware-delivered-via-malicious...

Worst-case, they could hire someone they trust to review the source code.

More realistically, you generally don't have to switch to a fork in the first place because the mere threat of a fork is enough to prevent the deployment of user-hostile features. And when a project does get forked it's often a highly publicized affair with a lot of community drama which produces no shortage of information about who's trustworthy and who's not.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#196

Post by dijit »

Angostura wrote: post #186
throwaway28409 wrote: post #42

Earlier 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…

> 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. Let’s explore that. If the law says I can’t ride my motorcycle the wrong way down the street, does that mean I don’t own it? What about if we add traffic cameras that absolutely guarantee I will be prosecuted? What about it if we add a black box that reports transgressions automati…

You don't own the streets.

You can do what you want with the bike, but your analogy falls flat because it implies that despite you owning the bike you get to drive through your neighbours living room: because your right to own a bike somehow trumps their right to own land and a home.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#197

Post by blueflow »

skybrian wrote: post #193
blueflow wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can speak for german law: If you buy something, it becomes your property, and you have full power of disposal ("Verfügungsgewalt") over it. If vendors deny you from exercising this right, they are violating their part of the purchase contract.

Rights are of limited use if there's no practical way to exercise them. Hiring a software developer to change an OS or an app is rarely a practical option for most consumers.

You can install Linuxor a custom ROM. And if the manufacturer has DRM like SecureBoot in place to prohibit that, you can file for damages and basically get the device for free.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#198

Post by Gareth321 »

veeti wrote: post #80
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?

Sweden has rapidly devolved from a high trust society to one where firearms and grenade attacks are a weekly occurence [1]. It is the perfect opportunity for law enforcement to demand more surveillance capabilities. [1] https://la.stnight.in/Sweden/

Step 1: allow a million people from low trust societies to immigrate to a nation of 10 million in a short span of time.

Step 2: Sweden becomes the gun crime capital of Europe.

Step 3: Change your society to a low trust society, dismantling all the wonderful things social services and liberal institutions.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#199

Post by esafak »

Havoc wrote: post #163
BoredPositron wrote: post #13

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.)

Someone is always willing to bend towards what the market requires - including complying with whatever insanity gov wants

Let them. If you bend you reduce the options for people who do not want that.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#200

Post by marcinzm »

hedora wrote: post #116
marcinzm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Invading the privacy of one's digital space is a violation that goes as deep as reading someone's diary when we look back and the time when life was more analog. Which police with a warrant can very much do.

There’s no warrant protection in this bill. They want to keep a copy of everyone’s data so they can look back at old stuff after the fact. Even if there was warrant protection, I’d still be against it. People have traditionally had the right to speak to each other without giving a transcript to the police. I think it’s unreasonable to make that illegal.

Sure but I was responding to the point that a diary can't be searched. It can be. The key difference is that doing this for analog conversations was expensive for the police as it required them to devote finite human time. Digital is not the case.

Comparing to analog is I think flawed because even if it mapped 1-to-1 it does allow for a level of search that is problematic given the low cost of digital surveillance.

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