- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
“We’re aware of reports that access to Signal has been blocked in some countries,” Signal says. If you are affected by the blocks, the company recommends turning on its censorship circumvention feature. (NetBlocks reports that this feature lets Signal “remain usable” in Russia.)
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I take that as a compelling recommendation for Signal.
Agreed. Clearly it must do simply what is said on the tin, otherwise why ban it?
You could also take it to mean that it’s compromised by the west.
You could. It depends on whose narration you trust
Legitimate countries don’t need to ban communications platforms.
Is tiktok ok?
I’d say social media platforms are an entire different beast.
Facebook is not the same as Facebook Messenger for instance.
We should allow the US surveillance giants into all countries, and let US companies control all world social media and communications platforms. Signal too, since it’s a US-hosted centralized service that must follow its NSL laws /s
I find these absolutist arguments particularly hilarious in face of UK now actively talking about restricting social media, and arresting people for posts. When people use media to incite violence and social unrest in countries the west considers to be adversaries, free speech stands above all other considerations. However, as soon as these things start happening in the west, then the restrictions on speech are immediately put into place.
Worth highlighting that Telegram in Russia and WhatsApp in Venezuela - both with vastly larger user bases than Signal - are not blocked…
But they are not as secure as Signal
Believe that’s the point.
I don’t think anyone took those seriously as private messengers. On another note, I think Maduro cracked down on WhatsApp as well, and called Venezuelans to cancel Meta altogether. Or something.
The session keys for WhatsApp are stored on Meta servers, so the encryption is meaningless. Meta can read everything everyone types. Yet all of the eastern hemisphere seem to worship it like it’s pure platinum.
WhatsApp is the most popular messenger in Russia, not Telegram.
Just turn on the censorship intervention feature
based
Fetch
That’s a glowing recommendation of Signal. And a good reminder to donate. I’m doing it right now.
Thankfully there are Signal proxies, VPNs and Tor (which can be used on mobile devices through Orbot.
This means it’s working.
Client/Server apps will do that in hostile countries, that’s why people are moving to decentralized messaging platforms such as Matrix
Matrix has the unfortunate problem right now where all the big clients have matrix.org set as the default homeserver. Yes, it is a decentralized and federated protocol, but I wonder how many users are registered on matrix.org vs other servers.
You can just as easily identify servers of a decentralized platform and block them. The disadvantage of a central service would come into play if say the US were to intervene, though Signal has already said they would move abroad if that was the case. For network level blockage it makes no difference if the service is central or not
It makes a difference in that you have to play perpetual whack-a-mole not only with VPN’s but with hosting servers.
That is true for both cases as well. One thign to add though is that signals own cencorship circumvention makes it even better at resisting this kind of blockage then an arbitrary decentralized protocol, though for an objective comparison it would take some research.
I wasn’t just talking about blockage but also servers being taken down physically or via ISP. I don’t think I’m nearly as well versed in Signal as you are to go into depth of how it circumvents blockage via protocols but I assume they don’t decentralize their hosts.
Signal Servers are using AWS and are spread throught the world. The entire protocl is build to remove any need for trust in those servers, so they migth as well be places in the datacenter of the NSA. So in the end it will be the same result. With decentralized protocls like Matrix you may get lucky and not have your small server taken down because it only hosts a few users, but if we are using the number of users as a metric, Signal would fare better against server takedowns, since all users are replicated throght the world, while my matrix server is the only place where my user data is stored. Then again both can deal fairly well against takedown ins single countries.
Matrix is nice
Matrix lacks metadata encryption
oh
And before lacked this and that. It keeps improving, contrast to Signal having the server code closed source for more than a year so the Signal devs could get a headstart and insider knowledge in their Signal-included crytpo coin grief.
How one can trust Signal after them showcasing what they truly stand for is mind blowing.
Whats mind blowing is the BS people like you come up with to shit on a non profit open source project.
Signal having the server code closed source for more than a year so the Signal devs could get a headstart and insider knowledge
That argument makes absolutely no sense. This server-side code does almost nothing. The only task it really has is passing around encrypted packets between clients. All of the encryption is client-side, of course including metadata encryption. That’s how end-to-end encryption works. The server code really doesn’t matter. The Signal protocol, which is used for client-side, local, on-device end-to-end encryption has always been fully open, and it can be used by any app/platform.
How one can trust Signal after them showcasing what they truly stand for is mind blowing
It’s very simple. The client is open source, and the encryption happens locally within the client application. You don’t need to trust anything or anyone except for the code and mathematics, which are fully open, so you can verify them yourself.
It’s mind-boggling how people attempt to spread so much misinformation while having absolutely no understanding of the topic their talking about.
That argument makes absolutely no sense. These server-side code does almost nothing. The only task it really has is passing around encrypted packets between clients.
So it knows about all metadata, plus registration with phone number, etc. got it.
The Signal protocol, which is used for client-side, local, on-device end-to-end encryption has always been fully open, and it can be used by any app/platform.
you conveniently leave out how you need to use the client built by Signal, with dependencies from Google Services and the like, and you can’t use one built from the source they provide. Which at that point means they can introduce whatever they want in whichever version.
Decentralisation is the only safe way.
So it knows about all metadata
Metadata is encrypted on the client-side using Signal’s sealed sender implementation. The client also removes as much metadata as possible. All of this is open-source and happens in the client application.
plus registration with phone number
Signal doesn’t store phone numbers. It derives a user id from your phone number along with other parameters. It’s in the open-source server code, you can check it out yourself.
you need to use the client built by Signal
No you don’t. I myself use a fork of Signal called Molly.
with dependencies from Google Services and the like
Not true again. You don’t need to use the official binary that includes Google libraries. These aren’t required for the app to function. You can use Signal-FOSS or Molly-FOSS, and it works just fine.
and you can’t use one built from the source they provide
If this was true, forks like Signal-FOSS or Molly wouldn’t exist.
Which at that point means they can introduce whatever they want in whichever version.
Stupid conclusion, because all of your previous points are false
Stop spreading false information, focus on the facts.
You can use reproducible builds to verify that the provided clients are the result of the source code and you can also use alternative clients like Molly
Can you please source this ?
They are refering to the crypto payment option that was build into the messenger a while back. Never used it and it never bothered anyone. It just isnt very well recieved as a feature in a secure messenger.
https://www.xda-developers.com/signal-updates-public-server-code/
Look into their MobileCoin and how they implemented it. They are just banking on people forgetting about it.
Anybody pulling these antics with a cryptography product loses my (and others) trust immediately. I’m a security soft dev, and my colleagues and I migrated to Element and Matrix network when it happened. I remember the disgust vividly.
Of course all of this is not going to be the Signal wikipedia page… It’s amazing how their fanbois work.
Why are you so keen on spreading misinformation around? A feature you dont like does not affect the trust in the restof the application at all. Also, the integration of MobileCoin is part of the wiki page as well.
Is it really that big of a deal? I thought it was only being exposed to room members.
Unencrypted means that it’s not just exposed to participants of the conversation, but also the server, as well as anyone who tries to snoop in on the conversation.
Oh, okay. Message contents are still safe right?
Yes, but metadata is still important.
We Kill People Based on Metadata
– Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA
Glad it at least seems easy to circumvent with a VPN
Their own solution is actually better than a VPN for this use case. It’s an encrypted proxy which anyone can download and run, so it’s much harder to block.
Thanks for sharing! I’ll get that up and running once I’m home.
I wonder why these 2 countries specifically.
Some time ago it was reported that Russian Wagner groups have been spotted in Venezuela.
Now these 2 countries have banned Signal.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Making up a guy to be mad at. Meanwhile the US is a bastion of privacy of course
you should let that strawman get out of your head; he’s living rent-free there.
Show me what Stalinism looks like
This is what Stalinism looks likeHow is that Stalinist? Censorship isn’t some unique rare policy, even 5EYES countries regularly challenge the legality of E2EE.
Ah, lemmy.ml welcome there xD
