“Signal is being blocked in Venezuela and Russia. The app is a popular choice for encrypted messaging and people trying to avoid government censorship, and the blocks appear to be part of a crackdown on internal dissent in both countries…”

  • DessalinesA
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    3 months ago

    I wrote this, but I’d also like to add Drew Devault - Why I don’t trust signal. There’s a huge disconnect between what privacy advocates are saying about signal, and what reddit “privacy” communities think about it. If you read the article I linked, you’ll see its because the Open Technology Fund (a US state-run entity), actively pushes signal in privacy spaces.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      3 months ago

      Signal is secure and anyone who says it isn’t needs to have very strong evidence. It has been audited by hundreds of people at this point.

      • DessalinesA
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        Source: trust me bro.

        Seriously tho, that’s been most of the defense of signal advocates, with zero backup other than signal’s own claims. Signal is not self-hostable, and all the data lives on a centralized, US-domiciled server, subject to NSL requests (the US issues ~ 60 of them per day).

        Unfortunately you can’t verify what their server stores, nor the metadata that they are legally required to share with the US government (which includes phone numbers, and your name and address).

        BTW if signal is secure, can you give us your phone number, so we can use it with you?

        • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          3 months ago

          Signal is end to end encrypted. Everything related to encryption happens inside the app. It doesn’t matter if the server is in mainland China it would still be secure. However, that doesn’t mean it is anonymous. Signal is pretty bad from that perspective.

        • ivn@jlai.lu
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          3 months ago

          You don’t need the phone number to contact someone with Signal.

          • DessalinesA
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            3 months ago

            Wrong, you need a phone number to create a signal account.

            • ivn@jlai.lu
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              edit-2
              3 months ago

              Yes, to create an account, but not to contact someone. You have an habit of being off the mark.

              Also there is a difference between giving your phone number to some service and giving it to some random on the internet.

              • DessalinesA
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                5
                ·
                edit-2
                3 months ago

                They must’ve added that recently then, but still doesn’t get around the fact that they’re required, which means signal (and likely the US government) knows exactly who you talk to and when.