“Signal is being blocked in Venezuela and Russia. The app is a popular choice for encrypted messaging and people trying to avoid government censorship, and the blocks appear to be part of a crackdown on internal dissent in both countries…”

  • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    blocks appear to be part of a crackdown on internal dissent in both countries.

    Or… you know… at least for Venezuela, the USA constantly fucking around with their elections and politics and local assets using Signal or something. Maybe, I dunno?

    • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Yeah. Telegram, should be next, there’s a huge risk with it too. And email! Social networks too, just in case. And postal mail, we can’t forget that. We should crack down any form of uncensored communication.

      All for the benefit of the people, of course. \s

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          The current president of Signal is also still happy to do interviews with US-defense-oriented think tanks like Lawfare.

          They probably still are funded by USIntel, considering how interested RFA was in pushing Signal in privacy-oriented spaces.

        • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Unrelated to what the previous person is saying (banned because it was used by dissidents), but still, we have the source code. If you’re arguing they are somehow accessing the data, what’s encrypted and what isn’t is known.

          • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            Signal knows who you are taking to. You can build a network of contacts based on that information. When you send messages your phone number is protected but your ip address is not, and the receivers phone number is not protected. So you can find two people chatting based on that information. The app automatically sends a delivery receipt when a message is received to the other user, exposing the senders phone number and IP address.

            However, opposition in the country is backed by western agencies and NGOs, and likely their primary means of communication is signal since it’s backed by western intelligence, meaning, western actors believe it to be safe from external interference.

            I’m not arguing that the west is reading messages. I’m arguing that they believe it’s a safe haven for their agents because they pay money to ensure it’s safe for their agents. If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t use it. Its the same reason why the intelligence community in the west is a large supporter of the tor network. They use it in the field and operate their own exit nodes to protect their operations.

            • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              That’s what you fail to understand. It’s open source, it has been audited. Venezuela and any other country can check and crack the encryption if has holes in it. The long first paragraph is something that’s not a secret, but widely known.

              You know what’s also safe? Encrypted emails. VPNs. Matrix.

              If you think this is a movement against foreign agents, you should think it’s useless too. For a sufficiently motivated agent, this will be trivial to overcome. For the general population? Not so much.

              Unless next all forms of private communication re forbidden, of curse. Surely what people on a privacy community advocate for.

                • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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                  3 months ago

                  Which ones? Signal? Likely. Secure mail and VPN? For sure. Can “foreign agents” use them? Certainly.

                  Who will have a hard time to use them? General population. Signal is the privacy communication service with the lowest barrier to entry, in terms of cost and setup complexity. Not a tool for spies, but for average Joe.

                  What service do you recommend BTW? That ensures government cannot snoop and prevents “foreign agents”. It seems that any privacy is a risk, so I’m curious what a privacy minded person thinks should be OK.

                • fira959@lemmy.ml
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                  3 months ago

                  Funded by the US? Well thats the entire internet, including Tor, Linux and Matrix…

                  Amazing how much BS is spread here

                  The only relevant part is the client, which as always been open source.

                  • ☭ Comrade Pup Ivy 🇨🇺@lemmygrad.ml
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                    3 months ago

                    The server is arguably more important, that is where the data and meta data itself are stored. Linux has never hid its source code for a year, and matrix can be self hosted.

                    I mean if you want to trust a honey pot go right ahead

      • Novman@feddit.it
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        3 months ago

        In UK don’t ban them, but jail you if they don’t like your posts, more democratic.

        • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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          3 months ago

          While I don’t live in the UK I do believe they have protections on free speech.

          If you are concerned you can always hide your identity.

          • Novman@feddit.it
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            3 months ago

            I’m not living in uk, i live in italy. I saw every kind of comment written on italian social networks and i have never seen a conviction. When the police had taken the names of protesters, ( not arrested ) we had a public outcry. We had arrest for direct call for violence, not simply rants. So seeing people jailed for rants on twitter scares me. We have actual fascists and communists, both parties were strong, and we had an actual civil war. We have strong linguistic minorities and regional parties. So a lot of people hating each other. Who decide the right speech in such a situation?

            • ivn@jlai.lu
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              3 months ago

              Are people really jailed for rants in the UK? I’ve only seen stories of actual call to violence.

              • Novman@feddit.it
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                3 months ago

                And normaly it is very difficult to be comdemned for a generic rant. It is easier in case of insults or defamtion, but it is mostly an high fee. Jailing a political adversary for a speech ( when we had a lot of political/mafia killing in the past ) is a big no. We had actual people killed for their speech.

        • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          I’m not aware of the kingdom of whataboutistan. Is it related to this post somehow?

          • Novman@feddit.it
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            3 months ago

            Yes, different kind of censorship in the world. A more broad vision.

            • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Keep going, then. Any other country to mention, seeing how it’s important to you? Russia? China? Italy? India? Pakistan?

              I somehow feel your “broad” is actually quite narrow. Usually happens with the whatabautisms

              • Novman@feddit.it
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                3 months ago

                Why going so long when we have a near, english-speaking , clean example of a country famous for the free speech. If you have the highest example of human rights why check the rest.

                • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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                  3 months ago

                  So much from broadening… As soon as I mention any other suddenly there’s no point checking other countries.

      • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Self defense is self defense, would we expect some different behavior from a country being attacked from outside interests with publicly accessible end to end encryption services?

        • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Publicly accessible: reviewed and audited by hundreds of teams that confirmed there’s no backdoor. Venezuelan, Russian and Chinese governments didn’t find the holes, even having access to the code. If they did, they would be exploiting it to… reeducate.

          Yeah, I would expect to trust that. Still, you said yourself, the problem is that is used by dissidents. And we can’t have that, right?

          • ☭ Comrade Pup Ivy 🇨🇺@lemmygrad.ml
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            3 months ago

            Open source, except when they do not publish it. Funded incredibly heavily buy the United States Intelegency Agencies. That would be more than enough to raise red flags for any nation that is not on the best terms with the United States.

            Signal in all likelyhood is a honey pot

            • fira959@lemmy.ml
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              3 months ago

              Funded by the US? Well thats the entire internet, including Tor, Linux and Matrix…

              Amazing how much BS is spread here

              • ☭ Comrade Pup Ivy 🇨🇺@lemmygrad.ml
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                3 months ago

                The server is arguably more important, that is where the data and meta data itself are stored. Linux has never hid its source code for a year, and matrix can be self hosted.

                I mean if you want to trust a honey pot go right ahead

                • fira959@lemmy.ml
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                  3 months ago

                  Your claim about it being a honey pot is entirely baseless. There is a significantly better chance you are working for the US to prevent people from using signal…

                  • ☭ Comrade Pup Ivy 🇨🇺@lemmygrad.ml
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                    3 months ago

                    Yes because the US does not want you useing a central server in its jurisdiction so it can force the organistation to give out all the meta data while not being alowed to alert anyone. How dare you use something that could give the US so much information in one easy package

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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        3 months ago

        We can’t have individual thinkers running around can we. We need a shared vision that is dictated from the top down.

        • ImmortanStalin@lemmygrad.ml
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          3 months ago

          Like literal genocide being pushed from the top down as a pesky single issue vote? Our individual thinkers are too busy working 80hr weeks, btw.

        • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          For their own good. Individual thinkers tend to have short lives. Just look how many people thinked themselves of a window in Russia on the last year.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      I’m pretty sure Venezuela was unstable before the US started getting involved.

      Anyway Signal is secure so that shouldn’t be the problem. It has more to do with the government working to crush civil liberties and independent thought.

      Same story in all authoritarian countries

      • ☭ Comrade Pup Ivy 🇨🇺@lemmygrad.ml
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        3 months ago

        First no Venezuela was stable before US medeling.

        Second, “is secure” is quite a leap, it is funded to a sickening extent by the United States government, has gone about a year before opening up its source code, and is in the US where there is a law that says if the US government says show us everything and keep quiet, they have to do that. There are real concerns

        Or you can uncriticaly say “Athoritarian Country” with no defineing term there, or real understanding of Athoritarianism and disreguard all concerns from these countries.

        • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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          3 months ago

          The US government funds it because they use it heavily. I think you should pay for software you use.

          Also Venezuela has never really been stable. You could argue that the US made it worse but honesty the problem is everyone getting involved.