France bans ministers from WhatsApp, Signal; demands French alternatives
Archived version: https://archive.ph/vv3Ce
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20231130105740/https://www.politico.eu/article/france-requires-ministers-to-swap-whatsapp-signal-for-french-alternatives/
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-requires-ministers-to-swap-whatsapp-signal-for-french-alternatives/Open linkView original on lemmy.zip
Ah, because government-funded software is obviously safer. /s
I bet, if they develop their own messager, they won't make it open-source.
I'm all for governments using taxpayer money to develop good software as long as they make it open source, sadly that's rarely the case. Germany made some progress in that area, but that's about it.
I bet the idea is that the data stays in France, and I fully understand and support this. Even if it is not open-source, but of course it would be preferable.
According to the article they are using olvid. Doesn't look open source
And is, surprise surprise, French.
Hon hon hon 🧄
clients are, but not the server-side parts
When you are the said government, you obviously know who is spying the app you know.
It seems to be a proprietary product. And there's no Linux version. So yeah, not great.
Time for them to run a matrix server?
Matrix is not the best encrypted messenger, it's more focused around public groups with E2EE being an optional feature as that doesn't work with most bridges, which is the selling feature of Matrix.
But they could host it locally, right? And E2EE is available?
Yes and yes. But Matrix falls under the same group as WhatsApp and Signal, it's UK not French based.
However, Matrix as a service isn't reliant on a parent company's servers like WhatsApp and Signal are.
They are already doing that
https://element.io/case-studies/tchap