(Please see comments) Alternatives to Signal if they exit EU due to ending E2EE
Like the title states looking for E2EE apps (Android and iOS) without going into much details or needs to be robust enough and easy to use for anyone and stable for operations that are susceptible to constant electronic warfare. I did some research and thought about replacing Signal with Molly and wondering if it will still work if Signal leaves the EU, but am also worried about its updates to patch vulnerabilities in a timely manner. I appreciate the help I am a “Jack of all trades and master of none” when it comes to these types of programs, but am also the go to currently in my unit since I am somewhat knowledgeable about exploits and attacks that can compromise systems would be great if there was an desktop as well (like Signal) and would also be nice if it was FOSS and auditable ( I know that’s kind of redundant ) I know it’s a tall order to ask but figured I would try. I really appreciate the help so much and hope I did things by the rules here and don’t get flamed if this has already been covered ( I searched but my skills with searching the fediverse is low
Can you please link an article or something explaining what you're going on about? When was this announced?
Edit: guessing it's related to this. https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2023/06/eu-member-states-still-cannot-agree-about-end-end-encryption
If so, banning E2EE because of CSAM is like cutting off your hand because you stubbed your toe. Banning E2EE won't stop child porn nor will it prevent the use of E2EE.
Unfortunately, It's not about ending CSAM. It's about ending encryption.
If they cared about ending CSAM they'd ban...checks headlines...police officers
What? Why?
lots of headlines recently of cops getting busted. reading through the articles, it looks like some cloud backup provider for verizon phones started scanning, and filed reports, which led to investigations, which lead to tracking down the phone, which led them to a cop's house. many such cases follow that same pattern.
police work attracts people who like to abuse power, so we shouldn't be to suprised tbh
Yes, [https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/chat-control-2-0-eu-governments-set-to-approve-the-end-of-private-messaging-and-secure-encryption/](https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/chat-control-2-0-eu-governments-set-to-approve-the-end-of-private-messaging-and-secure-encryption/ This is exactly how I feel I don’t understand the logic behind this at all.
Understanding is simple. Every few years, 5 or 8 or 10, there's a big marketing push and brain wash around trying to destroy encryption by using the excuse of CSAM. Nothing new, a play as old as ever. It's basically (and really the whole point) trying to pass mass surveillance into law hoping that people forget the arguments of the last time or that people are not paying attention or trying to put it wrapped into a different gift wrapping and see if it goes into effect before anyone notices. The time frames for these things are getting smaller and smaller and more and more people don't care at all about privacy and basic rights and are ok with things like mass surveillance. It will eventually pass.
It's a real shame the eu is doing this. I've agreed with most of their policies recently regarding IT and phones.
I don't agree with that stupid cookie shit though.
I just felt that there was a lone voice of reason trying for a better future but I guess we are on our own.
As a fellow cookie warning hater, the Firefox extension "I don't care about cookies" is great. It'll dismiss the box.
And please keep the reminder that most cookie popups are not required and it's mostly bad actors/companies that keep insisting on being annoying by saying they are just complying when in fact they are forcing all that on purpose on us users so we turn out heads to hate on the law instead.
EU is not doing it yet, however there is strong push from interested parties within and outside of the EC:
https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the-eus-fight-over-scanning-for-child-sex-content
Including illegal use of targeted advertising / misinformation campaign:
https://eupolicy.social/@ilumium/111226868912928077
Pretty sure signal won't be forced to do anything:
this is from May this year, when Spain proposed this. How in the everliving fuck the EU can get away with violating human rights?
So yeah I'll eat my hat unsalted if this actually will break encryption
If they actually ban E2EE, I’d like to see all banks, for a start, and most web sites, downgrade https to http. See how long the ban will last then.
“I was just following the law!”
It’s ok the banks have a “too essential to be punished” card
I give it a month before either the ECJ steps in or they quietly change the law/interpretation (Article 13/17 says hi)
you should eat it hashed and salted in protest.
Best comment in this thread
Genius.
So encryption was always a recipe for potatoes
Hashes are not encryption
Well, they don't need to break encryption, since the scanning of messages is supposed to happen client-side.
And by defenition breaks e2ee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_encryption
Technically not touching your valuable encryption would still be an excuse they'd make, wouldn't it
Even though it functionally does break encryption
They want to also check them with ai. Hash alone would be bad. But ai is worse. Ya got/are young looking gf. Well if ya send nudes some cop will most likely see your nudes if chat controll really comes.
Source: the new law proposal
Yes.
They will check their own images and police themselves lol (actually there will be an extra committee for this so just joking)
AI is the solution to all our problems... /s
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:13e33abf-d209-11ec-a95f-01aa75ed71a1.0001.02/DOC_1&format=PDF
Here. On page 52, Article 10 3.a
They are explicitly talking about known or new material. Even though they don't state the technology, AI is the only possible one (maybe there are more but they WILL have the same issue, ai has)
They also go indepth in a centralized db, where all this shit will be stored, to retrain this model.
Yea it is fucked up.
I would guess it rather refers to images. But it doesn't matter if it is too expensive. Ai is the only thing that can do the stuff they want.
O God, the hash one isn't bad, just stop there for the sake of all that is holy
The hash one has the one issue of you could simply put political shit in the db and find out your political opponents, but the hash one is debatebal.
I'd just like to point out that if Signal leaves the EU, it will most likely just mean that it's not available through the official app stores. With Signal updating itself, it's just a little inconvenient to install it on a new device, though, they even said that they'll try to make it as easy as possible.
Yup. At most, Signal gets removed from the Play Store. There's no meaningful way to block Signal, especially now that big CDN providers are starting to rollout Encrypted Client Hello.
"If it's not allowed in the play store and we need to click away a Google warning or 2, maybe it's dangerous and we shouldn't use it" - average Joe. Next step: "... suspect was using signal, so we decided to ..." yada yada yada same as it already is perceived in general for tor and even with VPN in some countries. Just the fact you're not using the thing most other people use makes you stand out.
Molly has its own F-Droid repo, it's one of the default available in Droid-ify.
He didn't want Signal on FDroid because surprise surprise he just wanted to roll their own crypto coin with insiders knowledge. You can't do that with open source so easily. There's a reason they didn't publish code for years. That people still support those crooks, who have lost all credibility, for a privacy app, baffles me.
Thank god we have Matrix now.
Much has been said about the idea of 'signal leaving UK or EU'. Little has been said about how exactly that would happen.
AFAIK, Signal has no business presence in the UK or EU. IE, no offices, no registered corporate entities. Thus, they (arguably) have no more requirement to comply with UK's or EU's regulations than, say, Iran's or China's or any other jurisdiction where they do not do business and have no presence.
Signal's leadership has a record of giving any regional restrictions the middle finger, so I doubt Signal would voluntarily block EU countries. So that means the EU would either pressure Google and Apple to delist Signal (easily worked around, at least on Android, and soon on Apple too as EU is trying to force sideloading) or they'd pressure ISPs to block connections to Signal (more or less impossible).
If EU tried to do that, it'd just create a giant game of whack-a-mole. And people doing real CSAM shit would just move to even more private distributed systems.
expired
XMPP or SimpleX. It's easy to block signal, given they require a phone number and the servers are centralized. But it's quite hard, potentially impossible, to block the federated XMPP network or the decentralized relay structure of SimpleX
You need to add encryption on top with OTR plugins or equivalent
Or use Matrix where it's on by default
i would argue that matrix is not decentralized enough (almost everybody is on matrix.org)
also all popular XMPP clients (conversations, gajim etc.) supports OMEMO and OpenPGP/PGP out of the box
thats actualy one of the reasons i stopped using matrix - synapse kept crashing my server lol
but i should also mention that XMPP servers have less documentation/tutorials, i spent an entire week just to get prosody to work as i wanted it to
In my experience prosody is pretty easy to set up, but there’s also Snikket now which is built on prosody and hopefully makes setup even easier (but I haven’t used it).
Use a good XMPP client like dino/siskin/conversations and OMEMO just works. XMPP client OMEMO support status.
You can't argue "not all XMPP clients support e2ee" without arguing the same for matrix -- not all matrix clients support e2ee.
China manages to block XMPP pretty reliably in my experience. I've tried both AWS hosting and self hosting and they will work for a bit but eventually gets blocked. You can see from the logs that they just probe the server to get an XMPP bad auth response and then shut it down. Next time I am planning to set up an auth proxy on a different server entirely and really lock down the actual XMPP box and see if that makes any difference.
I would still use Signal. By ignoring bad laws you are turning the EU government into a laughing stock
You can just continue using Signal. All the alternatives will disappear from the app stores too unless they spy on you.
A recent alternative with even better privacy is SimpleX: https://simplex.chat/
the author has a lemmy community about it too: ![email protected]
How about Session or SimpleX?
Both are E2EE. Unlike Signal, they also have the benefit of not requiring a phone number, so your account isn’t linked to you that way. In my experience, Session feels more mature, having apps on more platforms and more reliable notifications. However SimpleX has some really nice features, like the ability to have multiple profiles (including hidden profiles).
SimpleX is definetly THE solution. One year from now and it will be truly awesome product!
What an awful name though. Why would you name a messaging app after herpes?
Horrible names seem to be a thing in open source projects.
Looks at GIMP
Its like a workshop for photos I guess
I remember on July a project named crackpipe launched
Yeah, at least the commercial stuff has great names! Like X, SpaceX and so on.
That's like one guy. And spacex is still better than simplex imo.
Does Microsoft sound any better? And no, Simplex is definitely better than imagining a grown-up man naming a company SpaceX because it sounds like "space sex".
Is it related to X?
I mean, X is kinda like a herpes sore
I'm sure you pronounce also those words wrong:
Hope this helps 🙏
What an uneducated red herring! Simplex is not named "Herpes".. in "Herpes simplex", "Simplex" is an adjective..
"Dude! why would you name a messaging app after a latin adjective dude!"...
Now can we resume talking about messaging protocols, and why Simplex is one of the most promising, way much better than Signal when it comes to privacy, as it enables communications without disclosing identity?
The word simplex is not common in normal everyday English, unless you happen to be talking about the Herpes Simplex Virus.
The association between Simplex and Herpes is not a hard one to make, as noted by all the other comments.
I’d rather not discuss Simplex vs Signal with someone who tries to give off ‘big brain’ energy instead of realising the social norms of holding conversations.
Not everything is literal my dude.
Fine. Then Signal for the English-native-speaking dudes who think herpes is funny bro, lol...
Simplex for the rest of us, who truly value our privacy, aonymity, and not having to trust Amazon for the safety of our meta-data, lol dude
Simplex is also used in communication channels as a single client to be able to speak at once as in amateur radio. A lot of internet links are duplex, where multiple machines can speak at once, such as Ethernet.
I never made that connection.
He who smelt it, dealt it! 🤣
Although I doubt that Signal would leave the EU (or that this dangerous regulation would even become something that could ever be applied in practice), SimpleX looks very promising as a possible alternative.
However, it would also mean that you have to convince all your contacts to make the move, too - which was already difficult when I told them to install Signal additionally to WhatsApp, which is virtually on almost every device.
it won't be easy, yes. but I think that with Signal everything will be ok 🙂
I'm not convinced by Session's decision to remove forward secrecy. I don't care if it's malice or incompetence, they shouldn't be in business of encrypted messaging either way.
And their lack of transparency on their share of underlying network and the associated costs for new entrants doesn't make them smell like a cryptoscam any less.
My personal advice is avoid. You'll be far better off with simplex, or xmpp+omemo for something not paired with phone number.
Thank you I will make sure to check both out and see if they will fit the profile we need.
Signal. Any restriction can be bypassed
Soo... this whole thing is about the eu not the uk. Which are (now) different things. The uk dropped their dumb idea with a "when this is technically possible" restriction, which it won't be because maths isn't changing anytime soon.
The eu thing is different and technically possible.
At least the UK is willing to acknowledge they want something impossible, haha. In the US they'd just say "do it, math be damned".
"The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia." ~ Malcolm Turnbul, former Australian PM.
Turnbul has done less study on the matter than king Cnut.
Yeah, Signal should work on its reliance over phone
It's a feature that keeps being said to be "almost ready", but phone number for registration will continue to be required from what I understand. What they were working on was the ability to have usernames to connect to strangers and other people without the need to share the phone number.
They could. If they wanted to. But they don't want to. They could charge a little bit of money to initiate contact with somebody if you don't have your phone number registered. To keep the spam down. They already have their own mobile coin, they could just ask initial contacts to send a penny for that contact. Something not too intrusive. They could do that, if they want to, but they don't want to.
Have you looked into Matrix / Element?
https://matrix.org/
https://element.io/
I caution mentioning both Matrix, and Element as if they are synonymous -- they are not (I'm quite certain that that wasn't your intent, but the usage of the forward slash could be interpreted as such). It may lead to confusion for newcomers. It would essentially be the same as saying "I recommend ActivityPub/Thunder" to someone who you want to introduce to Lemmy. Matrix is the protocol, and Element is simply a client that interacts with the Matrix protocol.
I personally think that it's sufficient to recommend Matrix if one is mentioning chat-app alternatives. Of course, nothing is stopping one from also recommending a client, but I don't believe that it's entirely necessary.
very happy about matrix v2 future. it will be awesome then!
Seems to be getting recommended by other users as well I will check it out and thanks for the reply.
Yep. One can even self host so no one can really
force removingdo something to e2ee@blkpws @XpeeN the EU is planning on forcing backdoors in E2EE via the proposed Chatcontrol. It seems like the are backtrailing at the moment though.
I have not, but will read up on these two and thank you for your reply.
Take a look at the matrix network. Its decentralized like lemmy and the cryptography is on point. And it cant really be cencored due to this reason.
Unfortunately its possible to send messages on Matrix that are not encrypted
Yes its possible, but you are free not to send unencrypted matrix messanges.
Human error is possible. Happens to our users PGP emails all the time.
As an org we dont allow any software where its possible to send unencrypted messages. It too much risk.
I completely agree. Though pgp emails usually have to be set up. At least when using element nothing has to be set up and it is enabled by default. But this doesnt change the point.
As an org self hosting a matrix server would be an option. But the issue would still remain. So its a tradof
this seems easily fixable by choice of end user app, Element surely defaults to sending encrypted messages, if a user goes out of their way to figure out how to send clear text good on 'em
Yes, because for large public rooms it makes no sense as anyone can leak the message contents anyway and e2ee is expensive for large rooms.
Also DMs
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/real-time-communication/
If signal is banned all of these other apps will be banned, but maybe they'll not enforce it completely
Your best bet is to start using a privacy respecting VPN today, always on on your phone. Like Mullvad
This, I already set Mullvad as an always on VPN and turned on all the content blockers there.
VPNs won't fix all of your issues. In fact, I don't think it will do much in this situation
That’s what I’m hoping some consideration considering it would undermine everything in regards to the lifes at risk. Currently using Proton but think Mullvad now it keeps coming up. Does it offer other services as well similar to Proton and if so how are they? Thank you for your reply.
No mullvad is a vpn. For mail use some other providers not in your country, switzerland for example. For cloud I would say selfhost.
Roger that thank you for the input.
No maybe Dont do that!
See any VPS provider you can pay by crypto. Access it over the Tor browser. Either do some Linode oneclick stuff or follow some setup to setup a server and wireguard VPN.
I can help you if you want.
Mullvad is easy to block, as every servers IP is known. Custom servers not so likely.
If that fails, Tor network with bridges...
Mullvad is a non-profit focused on privacy as a human right. They provide anonymous VPN services, you can pay with them with crypto, cash, a lot of different things that help distance you from the service. They also provide a Firefox fork, called mullvad browser which is like a mix of the tor browser, arkenfox with all the privacy respecting options set correctly out of the box
The only alternative that's FOSS and not centrally controlled is Matrix. By being decentralized, anyone can run their own server and good luck stopping that.
There may be 200 other "alternatives", but they're irrelevant to the point where I consider then non-existent. Nobody has heard of them. Nobody is using them. Trying to push them on normal people will most likely result in them no longer talking to you as often or at all, and none of the other ones has any chance of reaching a critical mass. Matrix at least has some recognition among nerds and some, tiny amount of adoption outside.
Stop pushing random niche shit, it does privacy a disservice.
That's not true, there is also XMPP which is lighter and far more decentralized than Matrix
I don't understand why people think downloading s fucking app is so arduous. I truly don't. Their stalwart refusal. To do it puzzles tf out of me.
If I installed a different app for every friend I had, I'd have a homescreen full just of chat apps. What's worse, those niche privacy friendly apps go under or out of favor often.
You might be able to convince some of your friends to install an app just for you once, but by the time you're telling them "this one now sucks, I'm on other app now" for the second time, they'll just stop chatting with you, and if you ask them repeatedly, likely shun you even IRL because most people want to live their lives, not chase chat apps for their friends' weird interests.
And even if they do that, they'll have one app that they use every day, and one that sits in the bottom of their app drawer. Guess who gets invited to do something on the weekend, the person who shows up on their main contact list, or the person that would show up if they dug out that dusty app? And guess what the phone is gonna do with that app once it hasn't been opened for a week... it's going to deprioritize it so it won't even work properly, while their main daily-opened app always gets push notifications immediately.
You don't have to like it. You can pretend it's not happening. But it will happen.
Briar, xmpp with omemo, matrix, jami...
I've been using DeltaChat (available on F-Droid) for a few months now.
What I like about it is that because it's email based, it uses OpenPGP for encryption, making it easy to have compatibility with other email-based solutions.
If you want to go the extra-secure route, you and your contacts can even self-host your emails - as long as you're not going to send messages to people on Gmail or other big providers, you can avoid your messages being treated as spam.
The multi-device support is still a bit rough around the edges, but has gotten better in the last few months since the app is under active development.
deltachat uses autocrypt which apparently doesn't support key verification yet. how secure is it if you can't even verify that your messages aren't being intercepted? I also didn't see anything about rotating keys after every message like Signal does, so anyone sucking up your encrypted messages just needs one key to see your entire message history. that doesn't sound very good.
https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/com.amnesica.kryptey/ This looks like a good backup plan that can't be banned very well.
There are over 200 alternatives to Signal, Open Source and encrypted, out there. The attempt by governments to ban them all seems a little far from reality to me. https://alternativeto.net/category/social/encrypted-chat/?feature=end-to-end-encryption&license=opensource
It depends on what you want. I encourage people to use Jami (distributed, so might be a thing, if not self-hosting your own service, since what is said decentralized in reality is a set of centralized services). If too hard, then XMPP + OMemo. And only then, Matrix (by design it gives up more meta data than XMPP).
Matrix
Is there a reason no one has mentioned Telegram yet in this thread?
https://g.co/kgs/TTe2mp
possibly because Telegram is as "private" as Facebook.
It has end to end encryption though, so could you clarify why you think that it's not private?
I'm not saying it can't be private, but defaults matter and by default every message sent on Telegram (unless you opt into a "secure chat") is viewable by anyone with access to Telegrams infrastructure and you have no way to know your message history has been compromised.
In contrast, everything within Signal is completely private and end-to-end encrypted with no compromises. Your groups, group names, profile pictures, stickers, reaction, voice/video message etc are all private without anyone having to make do anything. Privacy is enforced, not an option.
Telegram does have secure chats, but - either intentionally or not - they have made them incredibly inconvenient to use as they are not enabled by default, don't work in group chats, and don't sync across your own devices.
So yes, Telegram is private, just as private as a PGP encrypted email.