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Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

swedenherald.com

261–270 of 283 posts

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else could they have done?

As Signal are doing here, they could have refused to do business (at least, with iCloud) in that country. That's a far bigger pushback than simply capitulating to removing a relatively unknown feature. To be clear, if they did this and the UK gov called their bluff, it'd affect me personally, but I'd rather that than swinging open the backdoors

You believe that the Apple Board of Directors would allow their CEO to do that? Who do you think would make that decision?

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would make that decision? What would happen next after they did?

That's beside the point. The question was what else could they have done. My comment is 100% correct. For some reason, people dislike facts.

I think the only way to change the decision a person or entity makes is to first understand what they are asking that person to do, and the consequences of that action.

Being unwilling to do that simply has no impact on the real world. You scream into the void.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#263
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).

They also have a social engineering attack using the Linked Devices features, which was on the front page of HN recently.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I skimmed and didn't see that but the "apkdiff" script extracting the apk because "diff doesn't work well on zips" made my gut twitch. Why can't I sha256sum the two apk?

It seems there are multiple reasons. For one, the apk files include a digital signature and you won't have Signal's and Google's private keys available to recreate their signatures.

Thank you for this nice response. Did you already know or did you look it up? please don't tell me you just copied and pasted my question into an input form somewhere and it gave a bunch of reasons...

i should have done that.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 99% of people the effect is the same as blocking the app.

You mean because users don't know how to sideload? Maybe so far, as there's been no need. On Android it's just one pref and then you download the APK in the browser.

Yeah, most people don't leave the easy path. Most people don't use Signal. Adding more friction won't improve that.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Could you substantiate this comment in any way whatsoever? I don't need more pithy adverts for authoritarian politicians in my life.

Vance's speech at the MSC criticizes Europe cracking on freedom of speech for its citizens.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a foreign company with not one bit of operations in the country. Borrowing from how tax & law is usually applied for companies trading outside of their incorporated country, at least in many places including the EU: If you have users/customers in a certain country, even if your product is purely software, you can be considered to have operations in that country.

> even if your product is purely software, you can be considered to have operations in that country Couldn't users in pretty much every internet-connected country use VPNs and other methods of cross-borders indirection to access even those US services which explicitly block non-US IP ranges? If this is the case, then is it not the case under the quoted reasoning above that any internet company should be expected to h…

I didn't say it was sensible policy. But yes.

It's the same reason Australia and now South Africa demand payment from Meta and Google for revenues related to links going to local news sites and the like.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#269
I know this is a very unpopular take on HN, but coming fra Scandinavia id like the police to have a system to scan for child pornography etc. We trust our gov. Hard to believe I know.. I’m not sure if it would be technically possible to design a system where the backdoor could really only be used by the gov somehow

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#270
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having their military strong enough That's not how Sweden remained "neutral" though, although I'm not sure I'd agree Sweden been neutral since 1814, wasn't exactly neutral before/during the second world war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_World_War_II

in your link there are numerous indications that Sweden keeps its military strong enough that it isn't worth fucking with, as in this quote >Georg Homin, a captain on the General Staff, stated: > Without a defensive force we cannot follow any policy of our own, our declarations become merely empty words and we leave the country's fate to chance, or to the decisions of others. With a defense as strong as Swedish condi…

Sweden is one of only 10 countries on the planet that has developed its own fighter jet (JAS 39 Gripen, plus retired predecessors).

(At least ChatGPT lists Sweden as one of 10 countries with indigenous fighter jet programs.)

GGGP:

> They haven’t been in a war since 1814

Geography plays a role too I'd think. In a way, located in an icy corner of the world (rather than f.ex. in central Europe)

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