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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

#71

Post by mantas »

tokai wrote: post #63
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 is having an epidemic of Crime as a Service, where minors are recruited online to do killings etc for cash. Secure messaging makes it very hard to find the leaders of these crimes.

Bullshit. Crime gangs had myriad of ways to hire youth before. There could be other ways to make sure there’s no huge pool of youth waiting to be hired. But that may be politically too hard.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#72

Post by arcbyte »

diggan wrote: post #53
pr337h4m wrote: post #41

Signal is headquartered in the US and presumably has no employees in Sweden (and perhaps the entire European Union). There is utterly nothing the Swedish government can do to stop Signal except for pressuring app stores and/or ISP-level censorship. Preemptive surrender is extremely disappointing, especially for a non-profit - there isn’t even any revenue that can be ‘fined’ by the EU!

I keep seeing this idea that because a company is headquartered in some place, means they don't have to follow the laws of the countries where they operate. Yes, Signal may be headquartered in the US, but that doesn't mean they can just ignore the laws of other countries, which is exactly what may happen here, depending on the outcome. Sweden may propose a backdoor (a utterly shitty idea, I agree) which Signal may de…

There are only a few instances where institutional powers pass judgements that they cannot enforce. Generally doing so makes that institution look weak because it puts them in a position to have their rulings openly flouted. That's at the core of what jurisdiction means.

Sweden can fine Signal all they want but if they can't enforce the collection, they weaken their power and foster disrespect.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#73

Post by mrweasel »

JmsPae wrote: post #2

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

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.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#74

Post by kikokikokiko »

smokel wrote: post #48
vaylian wrote: post #10

There is a reason why Free Software (as in freedom) was invented: To ensure that those who create the software do not overpower those who use the software. The idea, that companies or politicians can force the user's machine to work against it's owner, is wrong. And it is wrong, because to be a human in the 21st century means in most cases, that your digital devices and your digital interactions are a core part of wh…

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 goverment = good that you see people believing these days is such a childish view of reality.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#75

Post by Tepix »

lokar wrote: post #9
mathfailure wrote: post #5

[flagged]

There is no evidence or reason to believe that US intelligence agencies can access signal messages when used properly. It would be much simpler for them to compromise the phones of targets vs break the signal protocol. This is generally true of secure communication systems, the flaws tend to be in usage and endpoint security, not in the protocol implementation.

Right. I have zero illusions about the presence of many critical security vulnerabilities in my smartphone. Just look at how many are fixed each month.

However, i have also reason to believe that the cryptography of my encrypted messaging app Signal is sound and there's no backdoor.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#76

Post by dijit »

tuukkah wrote: post #52
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…

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 mobilecoin (somehow) from us for nearly a year. To be clear: There were updates to the Signal app on iOS and Play, otherwise there would have been security bugs, but those patches did not make their way into the repositories.

Signal operates on a "trust us bro" mentality, and no matter how trustable they seem to be- something about that doesn't sit right with me and never has.

EDIT: I don't really care if bots or shills downvote me, can you really, with a straight face, say it's NOT "trust us bro" ideology that makes people use Signal?

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#77

Post by tokai »

mantas wrote: post #71
tokai wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden is having an epidemic of Crime as a Service, where minors are recruited online to do killings etc for cash. Secure messaging makes it very hard to find the leaders of these crimes.

Bullshit. Crime gangs had myriad of ways to hire youth before. There could be other ways to make sure there’s no huge pool of youth waiting to be hired. But that may be politically too hard.

Please do your research before throwing that term after me. I don't care if you think its markedly different for crime recruiting earlier. Point is contracts for killings are put online and planned through Signal. The Swedish police find it annoying as it makes it hard to find the money men. That's the reason for why Sweden want the back door. If it makes sense or not has no bearing on what I wrote.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#79

Post by throwaway28409 »

diggan wrote: post #53
pr337h4m wrote: post #41

Signal is headquartered in the US and presumably has no employees in Sweden (and perhaps the entire European Union). There is utterly nothing the Swedish government can do to stop Signal except for pressuring app stores and/or ISP-level censorship. Preemptive surrender is extremely disappointing, especially for a non-profit - there isn’t even any revenue that can be ‘fined’ by the EU!

I keep seeing this idea that because a company is headquartered in some place, means they don't have to follow the laws of the countries where they operate. Yes, Signal may be headquartered in the US, but that doesn't mean they can just ignore the laws of other countries, which is exactly what may happen here, depending on the outcome. Sweden may propose a backdoor (a utterly shitty idea, I agree) which Signal may de…

> they operate?

How are they operating? It might as well be viewed as citizens of Sweden interacting with a foreign service out of their own volition.

In general, laws are backed up by the threat of violence. To the extent that Sweden's police can't confiscate Signal's assets in the US, they do not have to comply with anything. The only leverage Sweden's government may have is ISP level censorship, which is likely to cause unintended disruptions. Signal is in turn free to attempt to circumvent the censorship.

Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes

#80

Post by veeti »

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/

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