Alice StollmeyerA private phone call between an EU official and a journalist talking about Hungary and Ukraine was intercepted and published online.
An internal security review “found no evidence that any devices, networks or systems have been compromised.”
With only 40 minutes between online publication of the recorded call and Hungarian news publishing about it,
"Alice Stollmeyer, from the NGO Defend Democracy, said the timing suggested the Hungarian media outlet had prior knowledge."
https://www.euractiv.com/news/rapporteur-mette-frederiksens-bad-win/
This is not about which EU official or which EU media.
This is about intercepting and leaking private conversations between journalists and their sources ahead of Hungary's elections — that will be crucial for EU's functioning.
This is about the security of our online conversations.
This is about defending our democracy.
DebacleSuggesting federated apps, like Lemmy, Mastodon, Pixelfed, Friendica, Peertube, and Loops for more #digitalSovereignty makes sense. Not only for the #EU, but for every country or #NGO.
Mentioning Signal, however, does not help. It's a centralized service on the Amazon cloud, also depending on Google. If DJT wants to shut it down, it's gone in a second.
Bettter suggest federated chat, like #Jabber/#XMPP. It's the fediverse of chat since 1999 🙂
Mindaugas@debacle but Signal is very secure (gold standard), and more people used it (and still little compared to messengers of META corp).
About digital sovereignty, yes, but I am confused with all those different many messengers, and words "Jabber/XMPP" have little meaning, but will pay more attention if you recommend (to replace Signal with)?
And I see that your suggestion (since 1999) is not even listed here: https://www.securemessagingapps.com/, why?
That's two issues: One is #security (Signal is good regarding #confidentiality and #integrity, but not necessarily #availability) and the other #digitalSovereignty, which calls for #federation.
My comment was about the chart by @AliceStollmeyer, titled "take back control". Signal is partially controlled by AWS, i.e. they can switch it off.
Not mentioning #Jabber/#XMPP among secure messaging apps is wrong, of course 🙂 Just don't take that site serious.
There are, of course, more reasons to avoid Signal:
1. They still require a phone number for creating an account.
2. They don't provide a fully functioning app for any other OS than Android and iOS. Their so-called "desktop app" still requires the smartphone app.
Neither do I like to use my phone number for registering a chat account in the US nor do I have or want an Android or iOS device 🤷
@debacle @mindaugas But the phone number is only used for verification purposes. And it does not have to be the same as on the device's SIM card; it can be a VoIP number or even a landline. And the number can be hidden from other users.
Regarding servers: Signal has created a global server network, using large providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Engine, Microsoft Azure and others around the world. As s a small nonprofit organisation, this is a smart strategy to minimise risk.
Sure, my #smartphone doesn't have a SIM anyway 🙂 But it also has an OS, that is not supported by Signal, #Mobian.
The problem with phone number requirement is, that e.g. here in DE, it's not very easy to get a free, let alone anonymous phone number.
If I want to separate various areas of my life also for chat, I would need multiple phone numbers. E.g. I have four #Jabber accounts: work, my #freeSoftware project, social media use, and a private one.
tbc.
Having accounts separated is not only #security measure, but also means, I can activate e.g. my work account only on working hours, the social media one only outside of working hours, etc.
Note, that as a user you need to stay in control of the phone number "forever". If it is only temporary, the next user of that phone number could kill the Signal account by creating a new one.
tbc.