Signal warns it would pull out of Canada if made to comply with lawful access bill
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-signal-warns-it-would-pull-out-of-canada-if-made-to-comply-with-lawful/Open linkView original on sh.itjust.worksSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on sh.itjust.workshttps://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-signal-warns-it-would-pull-out-of-canada-if-made-to-comply-with-lawful/Open linkView original on sh.itjust.works
26 replies
Good, not for us, but good that Signal is not backing down to the clowns who run this maple scented circus.
For added context, a major user of Signal is the CAF. They're literally required to have it on their phones, it's a primary method of distributing critical information. Signal leaving Canada would be a very big deal.
Good, maybe it will highlight the myopic decision making of Canada's leaders.
Maybe before it comes to that we can contact our reps and tell them to put a stop to this stupidity.
Call them out on wanting to be the 51st state. This bullshit is about sigint that the US wants to run through "AI"(grok)
That makes it even funnier that they want a backdoor added to it... Don't they realize that a government mandated backdoor is still a backdoor anyone can use?
Yeah, this is exactly Signal's objection; it makes the product inherently less secure. That's a really bad idea under any circumstances, but doubly so for a product that is used for secure government communication.
Kinda sad how our armed forced are that dependent on US tech. Like yeah it's E2EE, but it gives the US the ability to brick our communications if they really want to.
Surely the CAF has the resources to spin up their own secure xmpp service or something.
Do they have the resources? Sure. But that would be fiscally irresponsible. Why would they try to replicate proven tech that works well and offers everything they need? Signal is available, accessible, and easy to use.
I also should clarify that when I say it's a primary method, that does mean one of many. We have fallbacks. Losing access to Signal wouldn't cripple us, but it would be an incredibly stupid self-inflicted injury. Having easy and accessible means of secure communications is important because it prevents people from resorting to insecure means. People are lazy and the best security is always the security that people least mind using. That's why Signal matters. Not because wec somehow wouldn't be able to hold secure communications without it. I apologize if my previous comment was misleading on this.
This also strikes me as being bad for businesses, such as Canadian cloud providers and email companies - I have to imagine that a number of people will start looking elsewhere if this passes.
Why would anyone care would increase power asymmetry better than money could
And this is why we can’t have nice things.
This stuff infuriates me beyond belief. The people writing these laws are either to old and dumb to see the similarities between older tech, or purposely grabbing for more power over the populace.
Imagine if physical mail needed to be sent opened. The post office would then need to scan and keep a picture of your envelops contents for a year for any national security reasons.
https://simplex.chat/downloads
Get fucked five eyes. PQC, best metadata countermeasures available for chat, it's had a couple audits by trail of bits now. Works with tor onions only or i2p if you're so inclined. Join us lemmings. Check out the white papers and code if you're into that kind of thing
Mirror:
https://archive.ph/laiKz
Thanks.
I've been expecting this. My plan is to switch to Briar which has no servers to take down or block.
Is Briar stable now ? We've never able to make it run properly
I didn't know Briat had a bad rep for stability.
I've tested it with a tablet and phone at home.
I'll have to get my sister involved to see it works at a greater distance.
Never had stability issues. It doesn't do asynchronous messaging without the mailbox app though. IIRC, it also doesn't have an iOS app due to apple's insistence that no apps run in the background
https://simplex.chat/Downloads
Can run entirely with tor onions or clearnet. Has no intention of compliance with any country's bullshit laws. PQC and fairly stable now. The main downside is it's heavy for large groups and latency can be higher.
Headsup, that uppercase D is causing that link to 404
Turns out Briar is a battery hog. I may have to try Simplex. Wait and see if C-22 passes.
Simplex is too if you don't have it set to periodic. You're sending to everyone in every group individually and it needs more optimization on mobile.
I opt for a mix of signal/molly, irc and simplex.
Thanks for the tip.
Signal/Molly will not be an option if C-22 passes.
For low latency and not super high security there are the discord alternatives like jabber, matrix, flux and stoat. Also meshtastic and friends