Even State Department-funded Human Rights Watch admits that authorities combine legal and illegal methods to obtain convictions: https://text.hrw.org/report/2018/01/09/dark-side/secret-origins-evidence-us-criminal-cases
Combining dragnet surveillance with device hacking is intended in the design of both tools. Hence, State Department-funded Signal dupes you into handing over your identity as part of the population-centric mapping. In custody, your phone will be hacked when it is taken away if it’s important.
https://xcancel.com/hannahcrileyy/status/2034273723667161480#m
A reminder that your phone number is metadata. And people who think metadata is “just” data or that cross-referencing is some kind of sci-fi nonsense, are fundamentally misunderstanding how modern surveillance works.
By requiring phone numbers, Signal, despite its good encryption, inherently builds a social graph. The server operators, or anyone who gets that data, can see a map of who is talking to whom. The content is secure, but the connections are not.
Being able to map out who talks to whom is incredibly valuable. A three-letter agency can take the map of connections and overlay it with all the other data they vacuum up from other sources, such as location data, purchase histories, social media activity. If you become a “person of interest” for any reason, they instantly have your entire social circle mapped out.
Worse, the act of seeking out encrypted communication is itself a red flag. It’s a perfect filter: “Show me everyone paranoid enough to use crypto.” You’re basically raising your hand.
So, in a twisted way, Signal being a tool for private conversations, makes it a perfect machine for mapping associations and identifying targets. The fact that it operates using a centralized server located in the US should worry people far more than it seems to.
The kicker is that thanks to gag orders, companies are legally forbidden from telling you if the feds come knocking for this data. So even if Signal’s intentions are pure, we’d never know how the data it collects is being used. The potential for abuse is baked right into the phone-number requirement.
In theory warrant canaries could have been used, but Marlinspike has an excuse for everything.
yeah that makes the whole thing even more sketch, I love how he never replies to the EFF link too
More anti-signal propaganda? Who is claiming it can’t be associated to a user. The messages are private, not anonymous.
Privacy is proof of terrorism. The state, and it’s corporate allies, need to have access to your innermost thoughts, the things about you even you don’t know, for national security reasons. This is totally normal and not something to resist. Vote republican.
The Prairieland case was an important case for the capitalist state of US Imperialism. It was a litmus test, a threat, to all people who dare criticize and challenge its rule within the belly of the beast. Just like the Iran war, which is about control over the region, and beating back any neo-colonial governments who don’t fall in line with the wishes of US Imperialism….this is the US government waging similar class war at home.
Some people are very protective of Signal.
- Reason: Disinformation
- Reason: privacy rule #3: “Try to keep things on topic”
- Reason: Misinfo, alarmism
- Reason: This is harmful disinformation
In custody, your phone will be hacked when it is taken away if it’s important.
Unless I turned off the USB port…
I wouldn’t bet my life on GrapheneOS in person despite being a fan of the project due to wanting to treat my phone as a computer
*actually forgot to mention they charged the duress password guy with destruction of evidence this isn’t speculative at all lmao
personally, my bet is that they don’t have anyone qualified enough to pull off an exploit like that (on me).
the problem with my bet: what we’ve seen is that they won’t care, and accuse individuals of terrorism based off the color of their clothes.
I just refuse to believe Google doesn’t have some kind of hardware backdoor, or that Motorola won’t once that is up and running.
hardware vulnerabilities undoubtedly exist, whether intentional or not. its simply the nature of designing these complex semiconductors.
that said, if one company intentionally creates a backdoor, won’t they all? what phone do you buy at that point?
any startup or small phone company may not have intentional backdoors, but I can guarantee their hardware security on all other levels pales to what apple and google can accomplish. I think the question then becomes are you more worried about google having a backdoor, or about third party compromises?
im not a fan of our choices, there is no silver bullet.
Yeah tails does have graphene beat, but a lot of folks see a phone as a necessity. Graphene is best if you’re gonna have a phone. It can turn off the USB port where it can’t even be charged without being off. It can reboot itself if not unlocked frequently enough, putting the phone back into a BFU state.
Now it’s possible that there’s some exploit a state knows that is not public, but the software they generally use does not work on graphene as long as you are not running a pre-2022 version of graphene. Someone else mentioned rubber-hose cryptanalysis, but like if I’m getting beat for my unlock, then what do I care about getting charged with destruction of evidence?
They will come for all colors one by one until disliking the government is illegal.
The places tyrants can’t see into is where the threats come from.
One reason to use Matrix on your own server.
Everyone should just wear all blue or some other colour
