@timbray My biggest issue with Signal is it's not federated. Signal won't let third party clients on the network.

Also, the protocol does have flaws around metadata.

But these are minor complaints. The overall message is good. We must have end-to-end encrypted communication. Signal is a great start!

P.S. I wrote my own p2p end-to-end encrypted communication system. love p2p and encrypted communications 🙂

@timbray Point number 1 is very funny. Of course, according to Reid Blackman, “law enforcement” means “the good guys”. The only good country with good guys being the U.S so therefore basically any U.S government official who carries a badge counts and they get unlimited power to look at anyone’s phone at any time.

They are the good guys so therefore it is impossible for them to abuse that power.

@timbray There's _always_ an XKCD for it:

https://xkcd.com/538/

@timbray

I live in a country where when some policy was being reversed that hurt the people the original policy was intended to help, the Prime Minister was quoted as saying, off camera, "We'll write an Op-Ed."

The article you criticize justifiably, is a lobbyist's or representative's op-ed about something about to be attacked.

Lets fight it, refutations should include warnings about the actions implied by the excuse. [ The article is an excuse for a planned for action ]

@timbray Ofc Banning signal wouldn't stop the bad guys from using e2e.

I think it is feasible for nation-state-scale surveillance to determine who is talking to whom, from message size and timing correlations alone. Occasionally I wonder if these ridiculous pieces are a counter-op to "reassure" criminal or terrorist networks to stay on signal.

It'll be interesting to see if any messaging e2e platforms escalate to using noisy channels and mix-networks or Tor tricks to evade even that.

@timbray It’s indefensible. But to be absolutely fair, it is an opinion piece not news … and not even an NYT columnist. Which is a mild surprise. Anyway. Just clarifying.

(Also adding this to my list of reasons news orgs should ditch op/ed.)

@timbray Well said.

As a famous NSA whistle-blower once said:

"Saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."

@timbray
doesn't look to me like that.

more like another piece trying to explain apparent illiteracy about democracy, communication and basic civil liberty rights things, when in reality it refers just to another intent to maintain actual power structures and in any case expand those because "they can".

The NY peace is just another pay'd hit job, #mercenaryJournalism to stay in power and expand existing power structures.
#journalism

@timbray People have been communicating in secret codes for centuries.

The "personal columns" on the local paper was a common way for people to communicate in secret -- long before Western Union and friends started stringing wires across the US continent.

The International Telegraph Union waged a cat-and-mouse war on "secret codes" over telegram services for decades.

Me choosing to reply to this message, or phrase it the way I have, "could" be a signal to someone. How would you know?

@timbray Most everything I've seen criticizing Signal as dangerous has a story like the following. We know what happened, the FBI did police work and a suspect turned over their phone. Encryption isn't stopping the police from catching criminals - if they want to.

"When the F.B.I. arrested several Oath Keepers for rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, one of its primary pieces of evidence was messages on Signal. (It’s unclear how the F.B.I. got access to the messages in this instance...)"

@timbray People at #NYtimes don't realize that #PrivacyIsAHumanRight and not negotiable.

Period!

Fecking #TechIlliterates....