On its 10th anniversary, Signal’s president wants to remind you that the world’s most secure communications platform is a nonprofit. It’s free. It doesn’t track you or serve you ads. It pays its engineers very well. And it’s a go-to app for hundreds of millions of people.
I’m not speaking of hard dependence as in “the app can’t work without it.” I’m speaking to the default behavior of the Signal application:
It connects to Google
It does not make efforts to anonymize traffic
It does makes efforts to prevent anonymous sign-ups
Molly FOSS choosing different defaults doesn’t change the fact that the “Signal” client app, which accounts for the vast majority of clients within the network, is dependent on Google.
And in either case – using Google’s Firebase system, or using Signal’s websocket system – the metadata under discussion is still not protected; the NSA doesn’t care if they’re wired into Google’s data centers or Signal’s. They’ll be snooping the connections either way. And in either case, the requirement of a phone number is still present.
Perhaps I should restate my claim:
Signal per se is not the mass surveillance tool. Its dependence on Google design choices of (1) not forcing an anonymization overlay, and (2) forcing the use of a phone number, is the mass surveillance tool.
I’m not speaking of hard dependence as in “the app can’t work without it.” I’m speaking to the default behavior of the Signal application:
It connects to Google
It does not make efforts to anonymize traffic
It does makes efforts to prevent anonymous sign-ups
Molly FOSS choosing different defaults doesn’t change the fact that the “Signal” client app, which accounts for the vast majority of clients within the network, is dependent on Google.
And in either case – using Google’s Firebase system, or using Signal’s websocket system – the metadata under discussion is still not protected; the NSA doesn’t care if they’re wired into Google’s data centers or Signal’s. They’ll be snooping the connections either way. And in either case, the requirement of a phone number is still present.
Perhaps I should restate my claim:
Signal per se is not the mass surveillance tool. Its dependence on Google design choices of (1) not forcing an anonymization overlay, and (2) forcing the use of a phone number, is the mass surveillance tool.
It literally is though.
If that were the case Molly FOSS wouldn’t exist
I’m not speaking of hard dependence as in “the app can’t work without it.” I’m speaking to the default behavior of the Signal application:
Molly FOSS choosing different defaults doesn’t change the fact that the “Signal” client app, which accounts for the vast majority of clients within the network, is dependent on Google.
And in either case – using Google’s Firebase system, or using Signal’s websocket system – the metadata under discussion is still not protected; the NSA doesn’t care if they’re wired into Google’s data centers or Signal’s. They’ll be snooping the connections either way. And in either case, the requirement of a phone number is still present.
Perhaps I should restate my claim:
I’m not speaking of hard dependence as in “the app can’t work without it.” I’m speaking to the default behavior of the Signal application:
Molly FOSS choosing different defaults doesn’t change the fact that the “Signal” client app, which accounts for the vast majority of clients within the network, is dependent on Google.
And in either case – using Google’s Firebase system, or using Signal’s websocket system – the metadata under discussion is still not protected; the NSA doesn’t care if they’re wired into Google’s data centers or Signal’s. They’ll be snooping the connections either way. And in either case, the requirement of a phone number is still present.
Perhaps I should restate my claim: