Privacy

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

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Signal has been blocked by Venezuela and Russia (www.theverge.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

89 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"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..."

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[–] QuadratureSurfer 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Isn't the whole point of something like End-to-End Encryption so that not even the company themselves can read your messages?

In that case it wouldn't matter even if they did turn the info over.

Edit: I read more into the page you linked. Looks like those NSLs can't even be used to request the contents either way:

Can the FBI obtain content—like e-mails or the content of phone calls—with an NSL?

Not legally. While each type of NSL allows the FBI to obtain a different type of information, that information is limited to records—such as “subscriber information and toll billing records information” from telephone companies.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You can read my article, or Drew Devaults on why he doesn't trust signal, which get more into this, but the short version is that US security forces don't have time to read the content of everyone's message anyway, they care more about the metadata: message timestamps and social graphs.

Signal stores all that data (via required phone numbers, meaning its linked to your real name and address), and via the US's key disclosure laws, it would be illegal for them to tell you that the US government is hoovering up that data.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Most security experts who actually know what they are talking about do recommend Signal for most users, including [https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/661313394906161152](Edward Snowden), [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/06/russian_censors.html] (Bruce Schneier) and [https://linktr.ee/glenngreenwald](Glenn Greenwald). Eveyone should consider whether they would rather follow the advise of people who have literally fought the NSA and read the entire Snowden documents or belive in the FUD spread by some people here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

The company, or any middleman, can read your messages if they have the keys. In many services, the keys come from the company. EEE is only as trustworthy as the clients and processes you use.