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95

This same thing has been reposted here so much. So I am going to copy-paste my original response once again.

Governments routinely fund the development of secure and open communication systems because they themselves benefit from having such communication tools which can be trusted. By the logic presented in this “essay”, one shouldn’t be using the internet at all. What you need to check is whether Signal’s technical claims about its encryption is true or not. There is nothing in this article that raises any question on Signal’s encryption. We already know how much data Signal has on its users through their responses to various legal subpoenas over the years (spoiler: its pretty much nothing).

Here are some cool links for you to check out:
https://signal.org/bigbrother/
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/new-documents-reveal-government-effort-impose-secrecy-encryption

FarLine99
creator
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fedilink
-21Y

Why is it beneficial for the government to have these tools? They already have such for internal use. I am sure that the officials do not use Signal. Why not kill Signal as an organization so that users don’t even think of leaving WhatsApp?

You are really underestimating how hard it is build and maintain such easy to use and secure services. So using a trusted service like Signal is convenient. And government officials across the world use it:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/in-encryption-push-senate-approves-signal-for-encrypted-messaging/
https://theprint.in/tech/netanyahu-zelenskyy-join-world-leaders-to-signal-each-other-why-is-encrypted-app-popular/1204419/
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-commission-to-staff-switch-to-signal-messaging-app/

And moreover, the essay by the tankie creator of Lemmy does the mistake of assuming everything the US government funds or has funded at some point as nefarious. The US government is not unified by any stretch of the imagination. It is full of competing interests and some agencies do want to support ideas like freedom of information and right to privacy. If you look at the things that the Open Technology Fund has donated to, you will see that it has pretty much stuck to its objective of supporting “open technologies and communities that increase free expression, circumvent censorship, and obstruct repressive surveillance.”

And I still fail to see any real evidence for the claim that Signal’s privacy is compromised.

FarLine99
creator
link
fedilink
01Y

Very good answer, thank you! Why some agencies in the US government may want world to be more private? It is not in their interests as I understand.

The interests of government agencies are not aligned and quite often contradict each other. Not all of them want to snoop on you.

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

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