> The Armed Forces, on the other hand, are negative and write in a letter to the government that the proposal cannot be realized "without introducing vulnerabilities and backdoors that can be exploited by third parties First time I am seeing an organization against this. Kudos to them for standing up.
I question the use of an instant messaging service hosted in another country for your armed forces, is that a good idea, especially now? As good as Signal is I mean, you will want something under your control.
Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
91–100 of 283 posts
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#92There 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, when we switched from letters to emails, the legal privacy protections we enjoyed back then, were not carried over do the digital realm. We're still suffering and have to use encryption to protect ourselves from the lack of legal protection.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#93While 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.)
Google ultimately did that for China. The outcome in that case is that the domestic market filled in the gaps, while complying to all relevant authoritarian legislation. I do not believe that the same would happen for every market where these stunts are being pulled off, at least not to the same level of quality. Why are European countries trying to pull one off from the China playbook, while simultaneously being sho…
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#94There 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…
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 of the straightjacket of strict protection of individual needs and interests for legitimate or illegitimate "greater good"; specifically, they will not resist the desire and the interest to spy on you. And the potential for government abuse of private information is quite high.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#95There 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…
> 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.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#96There 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…
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…
It very much can. In a battle between human force and physics, physics win every time. If I send an encrypted email to you, you have the choice to not give up the key, even if you'll be in jail. With physical letters, you don't have this option. Technology gives you the ironclad ability to keep a secret, only limited by the fortitude of your character.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#97You 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.
However, we shouldn't underestimate the desire for foreign intelligence agencies to bait one's own domestic agencies into "spying for them". So i imagine there's some pressure from, eg., the US sigint agencies to have the EU compromise EU citizens in ways that even those very agencies may today not wish to compromise their own.
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.
As an empirical matter, encryption makes agencies like EUROPOL's jobs extremely difficult -- i imagine also because they probably struggle to get coop from domestic police forces, so cannot easily do "the physical police work necessary" to get device access.
In the end, I imagine we'll have china to thank for the end to this nonesense -- since any backdoor will immediately be a means of mass corp/gov espionage.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#98Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#99Earlier 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…
This is not a knock against private industry in general. Capitalism's greatest strength is precisely that it harnesses corruption toward productive ends through private industry.
Nonetheless, it's unsurprising that people would take a chance at less-corrupt versions of key infrastructure. My preference would be to do this through charity, which worked pretty well for e.g. Mozilla for a while - but I wouldn't call other directions naive.
Re: Signal to leave Sweden if backdoor law passes
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Can you point out where it says it won't be a reproducible output? https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/main/reprod...
A significant improvement.
/s