Are right wingers creating FUD around Signal? (hachyderm.io)
from DaseinPickle@leminal.space to privacy@lemmy.ml on 14 May 2024 11:41
https://leminal.space/post/6577685

#privacy

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friend_of_satan@lemmy.world on 14 May 2024 14:40 next collapse

Talks about other people creating FUD, then links to a post asserting telegram is compromised without citing any sources about anything discussed in the post. 🙄 FUD indeed.

theterrasque@infosec.pub on 15 May 2024 05:08 collapse

I’m not saying it’s broken, but it has some design choices and functions that makes even Whatsapp a better choice for privacy minded people. Like rolling their own crypto and not having e2ee as default.

autonomoususer@lemmy.world on 15 May 2024 11:30 collapse

Anti-libre software, WhatsApp, bans us from proving it has E2EE, bans us from proving any of its claims and bans us from removing malicious source code.

jet@hackertalks.com on 14 May 2024 13:39 next collapse

Yes there is FUD around signal. But they are not offering any better solutions.

Signal has some structural issues, and isn’t a good solution for all threat models (i.e. if your a government who doesn’t fully trust the USA, then signal isn’t for you)

Any conversation that doesn’t talk about briar, simplex, etc is deeply flawed since only they attempt to address the fundamental structural issues with signal.

Don’t use that centralized chat service, use THIS centralized chat service - is just FUD… and isn’t a helpful conversation.

umbrella@lemmy.ml on 15 May 2024 01:15 next collapse

if your a government who doesn’t fully trust the USA, then signal isn’t for you

how? i tought it was e2ee and open source?

jet@hackertalks.com on 15 May 2024 01:54 collapse

hackertalks.com/comment/1056851

Forbo@lemmy.ml on 15 May 2024 03:12 collapse

The security of your key is determined by the strength of your passphrase. Am I missing something?

jet@hackertalks.com on 15 May 2024 05:31 collapse

hackertalks.com/comment/3441244

Uploading your private key to the cloud is a very risky thing to do regardless of your threat model. And there are many threat models that absolutely cannot do that. So it is worth indicating as one of the weaknesses of signal

TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml on 15 May 2024 10:17 next collapse

Any conversation that doesn’t talk about briar, simplex, etc is deeply flawed

I can take you seriously amidst this comment section. Thought all comments were crap😂

Count042@lemmy.ml on 14 May 2024 15:37 collapse

Don’t use a centralized chat service. Use a decentralized chat service. XMPP uses the same encryption for it’s e2e encryption, is decentralized, and super light weight for both the server and the client.

onlinepersona@programming.dev on 14 May 2024 17:24 collapse

And “super easy” to use. To get your friend onto it, first you have to host a server, then they have to install a client with an interface from the 90s, activate the XEPs for encryption on their client and ensure the server supports it too, exchange usernames, create an encrypted connection and exchange random codes over another medium to ensure you’re talking to the right person.

NOW you can start chatting with the other person and hope the server doesn’t crash. ECPC

Anti Commercial-AI license

drwho@beehaw.org on 14 May 2024 18:26 next collapse

XMPP is nice, but OMEMO is brittle.

EngineerGaming@feddit.nl on 15 May 2024 11:12 collapse

Haven’t ran into issues with it yet, and this is my preferred PM method. When does it break?

drwho@beehaw.org on 15 May 2024 18:05 collapse

One account, multiple devices logging into it (in my use case, personal laptop, work laptop, two phones).

Count042@lemmy.ml on 18 May 2024 00:35 collapse

Or, you can skip the unhinged rant, use monocles or dino, and a public server.

Also, hosting a server is much simpler than something like matrix. You can host an xmpp server on a pi and that is more than enough. Or, just use a public server.

So difficult.

I like how you included steps that absolutely aren’t required and haven’t been for like a decade to make your statement more hyperbolic.

InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world on 15 May 2024 05:54 next collapse

When do they not spread FUD?

CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world on 14 May 2024 13:14 next collapse

Telegram isnt really e2ee so he wants to champion the less secure option. Gee, I wonder why???

Rose@lemmy.world on 14 May 2024 16:04 collapse

Its Russian founder recently praised Musk in an interview for Tucker Carlson.

fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works on 15 May 2024 02:10 collapse

Is narcissistic disorder a prereq to be a billionaire or is it just a common symptom of having too much wealth for some.

DrJenkem@lemmy.blugatch.tube on 15 May 2024 07:55 collapse

Yeah sort of. I think those types of disorders get rewarded in many cases. It’s exceptionally profitable to exploit labor, mislead the public, and plunder the planet. When you have a conscience and empathy, that’s a lot harder to do, especially if you already enjoy a certain level of financial security.

umbrella@lemmy.ml on 15 May 2024 01:17 next collapse

telegram is the real FUD here. its closed, not encrypted by default and all messages go through a centralized server.

rdri@lemmy.world on 15 May 2024 07:27 collapse

not encrypted by default

Not e2e encrypted ≠ not encrypted.

its closed

Client is open source and you can use your own client with custom functionality if you like. I imagine nothing stops anyone from adding their own e2e implementations on top of it.

umbrella@lemmy.ml on 15 May 2024 08:25 next collapse

i know but neither encryption, nor foss clients matter much if it has to go through a closed server. thats kind of half the point of encrypting stuff. at least telegram supports it but cmon.

its like saying facebook is private because your browser is foss and you use https.

rdri@lemmy.world on 15 May 2024 08:57 collapse

Anything goes through closed servers. Even more, serverless chat protocols tend to go through multiple users PCs (they are not open to you).

point of encrypting stuff. at least telegram supports it

I’m pretty sure telegram doesn’t support plaintext transfers.

its like saying facebook is private

I didn’t call telegram private.

brayd@discuss.tchncs.de on 15 May 2024 14:13 collapse

SSL on websites also is encryption. Still you can post your precious pictures “encrypted” via SSL for the whole world to see. I think everyone knew what was meant with encryption in this context.

rdri@lemmy.world on 15 May 2024 15:18 collapse

I think everyone knew what was meant with encryption in this context.

I think not.

[deleted] on 14 May 2024 12:51 next collapse
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cyrus@sopuli.xyz on 14 May 2024 13:33 collapse

Musk himself hasn’t actually provided any sources either, all his statements made on Twitter recently are basically pulled from thin air, almost like vague references

wagoner@infosec.pub on 14 May 2024 16:23 collapse

I’m sure it has nothing to do with musk planning his own encrypted Twitter DM feature.

cyrus@sopuli.xyz on 15 May 2024 08:12 collapse

That already exists, but it’s weak in terms of encryption.

TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml on 15 May 2024 10:14 next collapse

I will throw shade at this liberal article writer by saying Elon Musk also promoted Signal. Does this make Signal actively compromised? Absolutely as much as Telegram.

This way of judgement of things is pure mental illness. I refuse to sugarcoat this, because now suddenly this Telegram vs Signal shitshow will become a trend if it is not nipped in the bud.

Signal/WhatsApp are different from Telegram/Discord. Former aim to be E2EE messengers while latter aim to be realtime public forums. Comparing apples to oranges is dumb, and falling for this Durov whining and counter-whining of Signal sheeps is even worse.

Let me ask Signal stans, since they are so proud of it, why is it that they kept delaying the username feature, and still require phone number to this day? Signal is not anonymous or private. Their servers are all Amazon and Google. What is private is the message contents, and even WhatsApp has that. Most people never even install Signal from their website’s APK, instead Play Store or Aurora frontend (same thing) or some APK website. So how is Signal this messiah? Matrix is a whole lot better, XMPP and SimpleX are even better. Briar is an extreme step further.

Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml on 15 May 2024 11:20 collapse

Signal isn’t owned and run by Meta though is it.

TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml on 15 May 2024 12:14 collapse

Is Meta ownership the singular thing that needs focus? Google, Facebook and Amazon are nearly equally evil, considering all of them are US military contractors. Other Big Tech companies are too, but Signal uses them as server hosts.

Consider the fact that a lot of probabilities that surface as criticism are valid, because Signal prioritised things like stickers, statuses and fucking MobileCoin crypto over username pseudonymity functionality, and even then you need the phone number. Do you know who did this since day one? TELEGRAM. Telegram has pseudonym username option to hide phone number from people from the very start. Signal did not have it for 9 years until recently.

Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml on 15 May 2024 19:12 collapse

I was comparing Signal to WhatsApp, not to Telegram

The_Dark_Knight@lemmy.sdf.org on 15 May 2024 10:29 next collapse

Idk how secure telegram is but cmon signal is shady AF . They won’t let fdroid have it cause they want to sign their own keys or some shit but there is a speculation its because they can roll out custom apk to targets which governments want which is just not possible if it is hosted by someone like fdroid . Even telegram allows that and they even allow third party apps which signal won’t .

SimpleX and briar is the best option if your actually worried about privacy .

Asudox@lemmy.world on 15 May 2024 10:31 collapse

I do see it weird but publishing on F-Droid means almost nothing. If you are scared of their pre-built apks, compile from source instead. If Telegram and Signal are bad, use SimpleX.

The_Dark_Knight@lemmy.sdf.org on 15 May 2024 10:47 collapse

It means a ton to me and a lot others and no one has to compile from source every time .

CatTrickery@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 15 May 2024 18:20 next collapse

It think there are a lot of factors at play. Musk wants Twitter* to be an everything app and has mentioned plans to add e2e encryption to the dms. Telegram already had an iffy relationship to people who look for encrypted platforms so he probably wants to set up that idea to get people onto Twitter instead, especially as the right’s relationship to the platform is absolutely getting worse.

A big chunk of far right Telegram has moved off the platform recently after quite a few of the groups that got their start from anti-lockdown demos had members get arrested for terror charges. They seem to blame the fact that Telegram is backdoored but they constantly fed-post in open unencrypted channels anyone can read anyway. The police probably do monitor those channels but if I were to guess how they got caught, my bet is honestly that they just put in reports to the cops about each other because being fascists usually goes hand in hand with being horrible people.

I’m not sure how much he actually reads on far right Telegram but there is evidence of him at least following some channels where this sentiment can be seen. If I were to guess he saw oppotunity in bringing that audience back to Twitter.

* I refuse to call it X

EDIT: fix early accidental submission

beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 15 May 2024 21:21 collapse

Yes.