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 think that the operations of US government are very opaque, and it’s perfectly possible that Signal has to work with authorities like the NSA, while they don’t have to cooperate with other authorities. However, even in case they currently don’t cooperate that can’t be used as a guarantee that this will continue to be the case going forward.
The key point here is that if data is leaked it has to be assumed that it is used maliciously, privacy assessments cannot be trust based. And the motivations of the government funding and promoting Signal do matter in the calculus.
I think that the operations of US government are very opaque, and it’s perfectly possible that Signal has to work with authorities like the NSA, while they don’t have to cooperate with other authorities. However, even in case they currently don’t cooperate that can’t be used as a guarantee that this will continue to be the case going forward.
The key point here is that if data is leaked it has to be assumed that it is used maliciously, privacy assessments cannot be trust based. And the motivations of the government funding and promoting Signal do matter in the calculus.