340
Time to get serious with E2E encrypted messaging
(techcrunch.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
340 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
61916 readers
1822 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I’ve honestly found signal better than matrix.
Matrix is just not there yet in terms of features UI etc and is less private than signal because it collects way more metadata and stuff. I know the idea of federation is cool, but Signal works better for the privacy aspect.
The downside of Signal is that it's centralized, and thus at the whim of those who run it. Structurally, it's not really different from Whatsapp or Telegram except for who owns it.
That's not true. WhatsApp is fully proprietary and Telegram doesn't use E2EE by default. And even if you enable it, they use a weak encryption protocol.
I don't think that's a fair comparison, simply because their structures are quite different. Signal is FOSS run by a 501(c)3 non-profit, whereas Whatsapp is obviously run by Meta and data mines its users; Telegram is also a nonprofit, but privacy was never their goal or mission.
They're all centralized, which I agree is a negative, but if something must be centralized, being run by a nonprofit foundation whose mission is privacy and E2EE is about the best option you could hope for in that scenario.
There should be a difference between using Whatsapp while in a county with good privacy laws (like one of the EU member) or one without.
As far as I know Meta only collects and abuses data it get’s from people where there are now laws in place to prevent it (so why wouldn’t they do it).
We should normalise the audits on security and privacy that are done by proper accountants. It doesn’t help that a lot of people call bookkeepers accountants which isn’t correct, but a signature from an accountant (CPA/AA/RA or whatever) should have some impact to prove the services are secure or private.
Unfortunately, in practice, the laws don't seem to mean much to the wealthy.
Like other gigantic companies that have billions of dollars, it's easier and more profitable to ask forgiveness than permission; paying legal fines that are 0.01% of their overall profits is just the cost of doing business. Zuck has been caught on multiple occasions skirting the law (see the most recent revelation of them surreptitiously leeching scores of books from Anna's Archive and a previous one of partnering with Cambridge Analytica, for example).
I'm all good with having companies submit to hostile financial audits, but I'm not sure how a CPA would be qualified to validate security or privacy. Code security audits should be done by cryptographic experts, and I think you would need both.
Perhaps one day, we'll have Certified Public Cryptographers that have a fiduciary duty to ensure people are secure or private.
I'm using simplex :3
Interesting—I feel like I see Matrix touted as more private than Signal b/c of Signal's phone number requirement. What compromising metadata does Matrix require that Signal does not?
Sorry I’ll let someone more knowledgeable answer about metadata, but signal does allow you to set a username and hide your phone number (so people add you with username instead if f number)