The Battle Inside Signal

https://www.platformer.news/p/-the-battle-inside-signal

by tchalla • 5 years ago

100 144 5 years ago

Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25911568

dannyw• 5 years ago

Dear Signal: please don’t moderate speech. You should never see my speech, or be in a position to enforce any content policy.

The same way USPS doesn’t go around opening letters and getting rid of whatever they don’t like.

swirepe2• 5 years ago

The same way USPS doesn’t go around opening letters and getting rid of whatever they don’t like.

Bad news...

etaioinshrdlu• 5 years ago

The USPS is prohibited from opening mail between US people. I guess there are exceptions and warrants, but it’s generally true.

They scan the outside and sometimes X Ray the mail though...

tdeck• 5 years ago

I'm surprised that none of these comment threads are addressing the scenario posed in TFA:

During an all-hands meeting, an employee asked Marlinspike how the company would respond if a member of the Proud Boys or another extremist organization posted a Signal group chat link publicly in an effort to recruit members and coordinate violence.

Like it or not, something like this will happen eventually and Signal will become aware of it, if only through the press. It only makes sense to have a policy framework to deal with these things rather than flying by the seat of your pants. Perhaps the policy will be "we won't take down group chats without a court order", or perhaps it will be something else. But to just punt until a link to some folks planning a lynch mob arrives in press@signal.org is irresponsible both to the platform and to the society.

dleslie3• 5 years ago

So don't make the chats public and linkable. Make group chats invite-only.

robjan• 5 years ago

There's little they can do since the idea of "group" is stored on the users device. Groups don't exist on Signal servers and they can't see when a message is sent to a group.

ac29• 5 years ago

The CEO agrees, per the article: "Marlinspike’s response, he told me in a conversation last week, was rooted in the idea that because Signal employees cannot see the content on their network, the app does not need a robust content policy."

bigiain• 5 years ago

It would have been good if that had then continued with something like@:

“what we do need is good tools for users to be able to control who gets to communicate with them on Signal”.

Which it quite likely did, but the author chose to take only the first bit out of context to fit their chosen narrative...

I don’t want Signal to moderate my chats in any way at all. I do want my friends/family to easily be able to only choose to receive messages sent by people they wish to hear from. Which is, at least so far, exactly how things are. I guess these new “group chat links” make a difference, but it’s not like you are ever forced to click and join such a group. I don’t want the internet to be censored or shut down just because some people choose to participate in 4chan/8kun...

garmaine3• 5 years ago

The same way USPS doesn’t go around opening letters and getting rid of whatever they don’t like.

Bad example because the USPS can and does use x-rays, Geiger counters, and sniffing dogs to inspect packages without actually opening them. No analogous tooling exists for encrypted messages.

dleslie3• 5 years ago

There's routing information, payload size information and temporal information; without reading the message, an adversary could determine where (possibly who) the message is going/coming from, and when it was in transit, and how big it was.

That's enough to start modelling.

minitech• 5 years ago

No risks analogous to the ones detected by those tools exist for encrypted messages.

jerry19793• 5 years ago

There's always peeking into sgx enclaves...

gcblkjaidfj• 5 years ago

>> https://element.io/

mc325• 5 years ago

Oh, dear.

I really can't believe it. I can see any commercial application like What's App or FB or TWTTR being coy about speech and not having the privacy of their users in mind, and bending to prevailing winds --not having fast principles.

But Signal? Signal? Do these idealist engineers not envision the comms that can happen on e-e encrypted systems? They don't think criminals, hooligans, spies, unsavory people, sex criminals, drugs dealers, arms dealers, etc. would use the network?

Oh, but boy, wait, what if people in whose politics we don't believe in use it? Oh, noes. In this case we have to be careful and raise concerns --but those other things, no, that's why we believe in freedom of speech and e-e encryption.

Sigh.

They believe in things, until they don't. Which means they don't truly believe in the principles they said they believed in.

What's that old saw, I believe in freedom of speech for the people I agree with?

Moxie should get up there next time and say: "If you only believe this product should be used by people you agree with, then you took the wrong job".

It's like the Komsomol have come to town.

edgyquant• 5 years ago

This was my thinking as well. Their concerns were ridiculous and echoed what we heard a couple years ago when politicians were looking for mandatory back doors. What did they think the point of encryption was other than to allow people to have discussions without interference. I get it, I’m not a fan of the groups they’re discussing by a long shot, but I’m also not working at a non-profit dedicated to providing the world with safe, encrypted, messaging.

ironman14782• 5 years ago

I mean, people's views on things should change based on evidence. This isn't 'i disagree with their politics so I need to change the platform to silence them'. There was an insurrection on the US capitol due to extremists and online communication tools were a big part of this (though it was social media mostly). Let's not abstract away what happened to downplay how serious the event was. I don't know what signal should do, but it's strange to be surprised that given a new understanding of the world people would revisit their principles. That's what people should do. People should not be intransigent.

Also, personally I don't think signal should compromise the quality of their product though. E2E is too important.

mc325• 5 years ago

Don't call a bunch of selfie taking hooligans insurretionists. That's not how insurrections happen. It's a media blown overreaction because it helps their narrative. Look at how insurrections happen elsewhere. It's not done by selfie taking shamen.

I mean WTF do they think? Only "their" revolutionaries can use the app, but others can't?

It's like TOR. It can be used by dissidents but it can also be used by enemies of the state, yet the state believes on balance TOR does good.

SpicyLemonZest2• 5 years ago

I'm very sympathetic to the view that emergency action was justified at the time in response to the urgent threat. But if we're talking about permanently refactoring the principles of free speech, I'm not sure that a single bad event is really enough evidence to make any decisions on.

spijdar• 5 years ago

Hasn't the internet and communication tools like signal been used for many years now to coordinate far worse attacks? Not to mention the various crimes it will inevitably be used for. Surely the people involved are aware it will inevitably be used for child pornography, sex trafficking, arms trade, and a litany of other crimes.

It's just the nature of true encryption. You take both the good and the bad, we've known this for a while now.

tailspin20192• 5 years ago

I agree with you.

All I see here is evidence of a sensible team pondering about the future of their product in light of recent events, both the potential for their platform to be abused, and let’s face it, the potential for their platform to disappear off the face of the internet if it becomes the platform of choice for an unsavoury audience. Neither of which they have much control over.

I would be more worried if people at Signal were not thinking about this, debating the issues and reflecting on the direction of their product.

I thought the article (despite the over-egged headline) was interesting and not particularly hysterical.

What I don’t see here is anyone actually suggesting they compromise E2E or any of the fundamentals of the product that we like in Signal.

I feel strongly that Signal needs to stay moving in the direction it’s heading - which is to be a no-bullshit, secure, E2E encrypted, reliable and open platform with none of the data-hoarding of its rivals.

I do not see any harm in Signal self-reflecting in particular in light of recent events.

A “head in the sand” approach seems worse. I’m surprised by the cynical comments here so far. How about we take a charitable read of this?

stickfigure• 5 years ago

There was an insurrection on the US capitol due to extremists and online communication tools were a big part of this

...which was handily rebuffed. You're overstating it.

The question is: How much liberty and privacy are you willing to give up to prevent that from happening again?

For me, the answer is zero. The next batch of idiots are welcome to come and take their turn getting arrested next week. It is offensive and disturbing yes, but not a real threat to democracy. And there's no 8chan in prison, so this problem will sort itself out eventually.

etempleton• 5 years ago

Freedom of speech, like any ideal or philosophy eventually reaches practical limits. Everything is bad in absolutes. Tech, particularly social tech, began with noble yet naive absolutist ideals surrounding speech which has led to ham-fisted over corrections and contradictory take-downs.

0x262d2• 5 years ago

It's clear that some people have done some bad things, and they used the internet (mostly facebook but whatever) to communicate.

There are 2 approaches to fixing this.

1 is to undercut the roots of radicalism and polarization. I would say to do that by radically redistributing wealth and democratizing government. Yes, the capitol stormers mostly weren't poor, but Trumpism is in large part a reaction of horror by small business owners at being squeezed by monopolies, and what popular support they have would evaporate if the government fixed things instead of being run as the public relations firm and personal military of all the large companies put together.

2 is to instead double down on physical repression (by funding police) and digital repression of dissenting viewpoints by abolishing any right to privacy. This seems to be the direction we're heading. It already happened in large part under the last few presidents but Signal is obviously in the crosshairs.

I'm not mad at you. But I am frustrated that this obviously bad approach has support - of not dealing with root causes and material problems, but committing to suppression of beliefs on both the right and left that are obviously a reaction to those root causes.

otabdeveloper43• 5 years ago

There was an insurrection on the US capitol due to extremists and online communication tools were a big part of this

Would you be taking this principled stance if this was an insurrection on the Iranian parliament?

throwaw4ybio• 5 years ago

It's like the Komsomol have come to town.

You don't think this is over-egging the custard a bit?

mc325• 5 years ago

I wish you were right. But, it doesn't seem like it. This is Signal we're talking about having a discussion about censoring speech --their whole premise was to NOT be aware of the speech users engaged in from the get go.

mrzimmerman3• 5 years ago

During an all-hands meeting, an employee asked Marlinspike how the company would respond if a member of the Proud Boys or another extremist organization posted a Signal group chat link publicly in an effort to recruit members and coordinate violence.
Oh, but boy, wait, what if people in whose politics we don't believe in use it?

Coordinating violence and recruiting people to participate in that violence isn’t a political stance.

otabdeveloper43• 5 years ago

being coy

Not really. It's weaponized privacy. Freedom of speech for thee (when it's expedient to my political goals) but not for me.

mrzimmerman3• 5 years ago

Except coordinating violence, which is specifically what the employee asked about, isn’t a “political goal”.

Breaking US law isn’t covered by the First Amendment and coordinating violence is breaking US law.

Merman_Mike• 5 years ago

So the laser beam of outrage has reached Signal. We knew this day was coming.

There are people out there who fundamentally believe that no one should be able to think or speak free from their scrutiny.

cal5k• 5 years ago

But - what if the Proud Boys can drink from the same water supply? Something must be done!

The American media is a fantastic machine for manufacturing a bogeyman then discarding it once it is no longer useful for narrative purposes.

swirepe2• 5 years ago

I have a list of communists here...

um_ya• 5 years ago

Say what you want about Trump, but at least he didn't come up with some new "Patriot Act" given the opportunity coronavirus provided.

Never let a good disaster go to waste.

Seems like free speech is on a tight rope after the "insurrection". Sure didn't waste any time.

ekianjo4• 5 years ago

So the laser beam of outrage has reached Signal. We knew this day was coming.

Next, I seriously expect Amazon and Google at some point to turn on the microphones on all Echo and Home devices and make sure that nobody ever says anything outrageous in their private homes. Failing that, report them to the authorities, or better, doxx them with social media mobs.

stanmancan• 5 years ago

Or you know, cellphones.

blahblahblogger• 5 years ago

I don't use my Home device ever, but its been plugged in for so long. The other day while walking by it, I decided to just unplug it.

Why not? I put a cover over my laptop cam.

analyte1232• 5 years ago

Disinformation experts are increasingly concerned with misuse of a private platform called Airvibe, known to be used for many extremist activities including the 9/11 attacks and the Columbine killings. “Airvibe lets domestic terrorists communicate without any moderation whatsoever, completely out of the reach of standard, widely accepted, peer-reviewed trust and safety committees” said Vox news correspondent Casey Newton.

However, new tools for combatting abuse on the Airvibe network are being researched, including implantable vocal modulators and persistent environmental smart home microphones. For parents concerned about what their kids are hearing on Airvibe, CBS News recommends substituting Airvibe time with safe platforms monitored for misinformation like Facebook or Youtube.

artificialLimbs2• 5 years ago

Well so far it looks like Signal is doing a good job of routing around this damage.

tacitusarc4• 5 years ago

Airvibe is, apparently, a sex toy.

na854• 5 years ago

There are people out there who fundamentally believe that no one should be able to think or speak free from their scrutiny.

I think this is what the Republicans would have you believe, but I think the left extremists are more about simply pursuing people who they believe as toxic to wherever they retreat.

a254613e5• 5 years ago

no one should be able to think or speak free

Who says that? People, myself included, don't want specific harmful for society groups to be allowed to speak free, not that nobody's allowed to say anything.

Yes, nazis should not be allowed to speak free. And no ramblings about privacy here on HN will ever change my mind.

In fact, I'd be happy to sacrifice my own privacy if we can root out the evil of racism, nazism, terrorism, and other things that absolutely everybody agrees are bad.

That being said, I think the frameworks used to prevent that at the moment have a lot of potential for abuse, especially from private companies. And it's something that should be improved upon, and normal people should have privacy as much as possible.

xyzzy123• 5 years ago

Ok. I'm not sure that "speaking free" is a useful concept. I think it's more useful to discuss controls on public vs private speech.

I believe that two consenting "nazis" should be able to speak privately on e2e platforms, mainly because this is the same mechanism that will let consenting marxists, christians, muslims, satanists, pro-life advocates, pro choice advocates... escape mainstream outrage.

I realise this is a security risk, in the same way that not having microphones everywhere in public spaces is a security risk.

Child exploitation and plotting terrorist acts are the "biggest hills to die on" in this space, but investigators have always had "targeted" means to deal with these without resorting to mass surveillance. I believe existing powers are adequate to investigate these crimes.

I'm also generally ok with mainstream censorship of broadcast or social media. Public speech is a different animal.

fourthark• 5 years ago

There are no things that "absolutely everyone agrees are bad", kind of by definition.

So, who decides, or is there a cutoff on what percentage of people must believe an idea for it to be allowed to be communicated?

thu21114• 5 years ago

Yes, nazis should not be allowed to speak free. And no ramblings about privacy here on HN will ever change my mind.

That's why the left constantly describe anyone who isn't on the left as Nazis, even though they clearly aren't. Free speech requires absolutism - the moment you make an exception of the form, "well ... but not for them" suddenly the term is redefined and huge swathes of people are being dumped in that bucket regardless of reason or evidence.

I'd be happy to sacrifice my own privacy if we can root out the evil of racism, nazism, terrorism, and other things that absolutely everybody agrees are bad.

The people who talk about racism the most are by far the most racist people in society. They manage to be racist whilst claiming to hate racism by redefining it to not be about race, but perceived "power" where "power" is entirely subjective. Hence they can hate on white people whilst claiming to be fighting racism.

Again, the lesson is simple. All free speech must be protected to the absolute end. The moment you make an exception, leftists will en-masse attempt to redefine the word used to delimit the exception to encompass anyone who isn't on their side.

The right isn't above this sort of behaviour either, see the abuse of "terrorist" to mean random people in Afghanistan in the first years of the millenium. But I haven't seen much of that lately. As of 2021 this behaviour is definitely more common on the other side of the hall.

avsteele• 5 years ago

This article is a lot of hot air interleaved with 'concerns' of anonymous people worried that they won't have control over people's speech. It boggles the mind that you could work at Signal and not know that goes with the territory.

More cynically, this is may just be battle space prep for the run up to legislation giving the gov a backdoor into any E2E systems. The pretext being 'something something terrorism'.

0x262d2• 5 years ago

Completely agreed. Honestly, I despise the superficially objective and neutral concern troll approach to this. I can't see this article as anything but a dishonest way to say: "what if someone used private communications to do something bad? let's get rid of private communications". Except it doesn't own up to the fact that that's ultimate what it's proposing. It stops at fearmongering.

Also, I commented this above, but there's a different way to solve the problems of polarization and radicalism. It involves solving people's material problems, and the US has been slowly getting worse at this and decaying for a while now. Instead, the political establishment is doubling down on surveillance, the silencing of dissent off of any platform with reach, and ultimately physical repression, through the increased funding and militarization of police.

Right now this is claimed to be targeted at the far right.. but it doesn't take a genius to compare the police reaction to BLM vs the capitol riot to see where it is going.

vagrantJin• 5 years ago

I concur.

What is surprising to me is that the politicians and bureaucrats seem to think bad actors are supreme idiots. They aren't. The overt nature of a criminal mind whose cloaks themselves in church going taxpayer in suburbia is the reason why no agency in the world can predict tragic acts of domestic terrorism.

If someone is going to plan a Charlie hebdo-esque operation, no intelligence can help you. They can just meet at the park for a cold drink and discuss which weapons they are going to use. Intel agencies rely very much on tip offs from civilians and private interests like banks and shops/malls "guy came in looking dodgy and bought a ton of slightly dangerous stuff" kind of thing.

veeti• 5 years ago

Good riddance. As an user these people leaving is a win win. I'm sure they can find a well paid job at $FAANG abusing user data

followthesmell• 5 years ago

I wondered when the censors would come for Signal.

I'm glad to see Signal is aiming to just be privacy-oriented law-abiding infrastructure.

rzz32• 5 years ago

There is no battle, one employee may have left. Also this is completely horrifying. Signal with a content policy?! It’s end to end encrypted. Wtf are people trying to do here.

thu21114• 5 years ago

Right, one guy who isn't even that sure about his own beliefs. I was worried when I read the headline, but the more important thing is that Acton is screening employees to ensure they actually agree with the goals of the organisation. He is clearly able to articulate his own philosophical position on this (focus on bad people, not neutral technologies), and Signal is financially totally dependent on him, which suggests that Signal's philosophy will remain aligned with Acton for the forseeable future.

The primary risk to Signal at the moment seems to come from Google and Apple, not internal employee dissent.

diveanon2• 5 years ago

So just out of curiosity for those in defense of unmoderated e2e encrypted coms:

When terrorists and cp distributers are using your platform which of your ideals will take precedence?

babesh4• 5 years ago

You mean we should ban encryption on the physical hardware of the Internet? Once there is a mechanism to verify the identity of the other party, those two parties don’t need the platform to do end to end encryption. Each party generates a public/private key pair, does some double encryption magic, and it’s all over. The platform doing this is a convenience. The platform storing this is just giving the government a convenient place to decrypt it once they have coerced the keys from one or more of the parties. I wonder how that would fly with the citizens of other countries that use Signal? Would they be comfortable with the US government reading their messages?

Why is the left now so into policies that they decry when done in other countries: social scoring, travel bans, censorship? What is going on? Is the US going through it’s version of China’s Cultural Revolution?

approxim8ion3• 5 years ago

Has GP indicated that they are on "the left"?

There is a growing idea especially among Americans that all "left" people are authoritarians. It's even funnier because the idea of "terrorists and cp distributors" using encryption to bypass regulation was floated in your Congress was almost verbatim the reasoning behind the EARN IT act, introduced in Senate by Lindsey Graham, whom I hope you don't think is on the left. It went on to receive bipartisan support as well.

diveanon2• 5 years ago

So just to be clear, as a platform you would be willing to facilitate those types of communications on the principle of "they could just do it themselves"?

approxim8ion3• 5 years ago

What are moderated e2ee comms?

How do you moderate content you are not expected to have any access to by design? And if the answer is to not have encryption, then when activists or groups that are being actively targeted and threatened need secure communications but find none, who is that on?

girvo4• 5 years ago

If it’s E2E encrypted how do you propose finding out about it?

And frankly it’s a near certainty they already do. I know drug dealers do at least.

autoexec3• 5 years ago

I dumped signal less over the data collection they've started doing and more for the fact that they've been less than transparent about it. Nearly a year ago their forums were filled with objections, security concerns, and questions and for months they went ignored. When they finally made setting a pin optional they were equally unclear that it would just set a random one for you and that this didn't prevent your data from being uploaded to the cloud.

I took it as a sign that they were telling us not to trust them as clearly as they were allowed. For secure communications I'm using Jami now and I've been very impressed. For SMS/MMS in general I'm still looking. I've tried a few alternatives and frankly I'm not really happy with any of them.

rzz32• 5 years ago

They’re trying to unwind Signal from phone numbers. Also who uses SMS anymore?:)

autoexec3• 5 years ago

The phone number is not even the worst part really. Signal's privacy policy says they don't collect and store sensitive info, but how is a list of everyone you've been in contact with not sensitive?

Sadly I've had very little luck getting my family to move to Signal and less luck getting them to use Jami. The bulk of my communications are unsecured SMS/MMS. It's such a basic function that I'm surprised open source solutions aren't better. Whatever they've become Signal had a pretty great interface.

laretluval• 5 years ago

They've been trying since 2014. Somehow it never seems to happen.

ekianjo4• 5 years ago

“The response was: if and when people start abusing Signal or doing things that we think are terrible, we'll say something,” said Bernstein, who was in the meeting, conducted over video chat. “But until something is a reality, Moxie's position is he's not going to deal with it.”
Bernstein (disclosure: a former colleague of mine at Vox Media), added, “You could see a lot of jaws dropping. That’s not a strategy — that’s just hoping things don’t go bad.”

So what's the alternative, exactly, when you are supposed to keep things encrypted between users? Either you are a conduit or a publisher, you have to choose.

analyte1232• 5 years ago

They could put virality limiters on content, for example limiting the number of times a message can be forwarded. WhatsApp is known to have done this. They could also let people report users (and unmask their content) and ban them if they get enough reports. They could also push out clientside hash checking of controversial content once they’ve received reports and stop it from propagating there - just get the database from GIFCT. If group membership can be seen by others in the group, they could also take reports of group membership from NGO or government observers and ban everyone in the group. One does not simply chat online.

artificialLimbs2• 5 years ago

Yep, they could pull a Whatsapp.

dleslie3• 5 years ago

I'd start by keeping groups private and invite-from-contacts only.

Then Signal is no more culpable than any other chat service over which OTR or similar could operate.

kr99x4• 5 years ago

Again I lament the falling respect for and understanding of free speech as a principle that helps us all. Only when communication between two willing parties is unhindered is it even possible to build a just world. The power to clamp down on voluntary communication is a power no authority should ever be trusted with, because there are no examples in the history of mankind where that power is only used for good - arguably there can be no such examples, what with power being a vector for corruption.

PaulDavisThe1st3• 5 years ago

Back when radio was the only mass medium that you could reach entire populations on, would you have argued that anyone with a POV should be able to broadcast over the air, "because free speech" ?

Back when there were only 3 TV networks that reached the whole of the US, would you have argued that anyone with a POV should be able to get some time (how long?) on one of those networks, "because free speech" ?

Free speech never meant the ability to demand the use of any mechanism or any resource to reach a real or hypothetical audience. Changing the definition because lots of people chat on social media doesn't cut it, I think.

kr99x4• 5 years ago

You are badly misunderstanding the situation. A world with 3 TV networks is a world of limited airtime, so of course people will not give their slots up freely for others. That is not the world we are in now. It costs no "space" to let messages of any kind go through your platform. It costs (nearly) no bandwidth. It is generally profitable. The only reason messages are being restricted is because those who control the platform don't like them. A TV network wouldn't give airtime to any old wacko because it was a limited resource. Signal choosing not to give use of their platform to somebody they don't like is categorically different.

hacknat• 5 years ago

How can one even develop a content-policy for something like Signal? Isn't supposed to be impossible for them to ever see your messages anyway?

3gg• 5 years ago

A nonsense FUD article. Bad actors will always find some way to communicate, and the intelligence failed even when they were doing so openly on mainstream networks. Go crack that nut first before breaking everybody's encryption, the consequences of which are far more detrimental for a free society.

Also, it does not hurt to point out that unlike Facebook, which is wired for clicks and "user engagement", Signal does not spread or profit from hate speech and disinformation, which is what got us into recent developments, but rather works like a private chat. So perhaps we have already made some progress by having these people switch over--their recruiting is likely to be severely affected if they rely on Signal for it.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 5 years ago

In an earlier era (or even today), how would this be different from asking the telephone company to drop calls that are being made by/to "bad actors". Without a warrant compelling them to do so.

One difference is tech companies, including "foundations" like Signal, are not federally regulated in the way that telephone companies are.

notadev3• 5 years ago

The mechanisms used in the earlier era - law, common sense, etc., have gone out of the window now that anyone can weaponize a social media mob into harassing targets into submission.

josh2600• 5 years ago

For change to exist as a possibility in this reality we must have privacy. Freedom of thought, of expression, of association are all predicated on privacy as the space to construct epiphanies into narrative.

Absent privacy, change in our world becomes impossible.

baryphonic• 5 years ago

How is this anything but concern trolling? Or even borderline extortion: "Nice user growth you have there, Signal. Would be a shame if your employees walked out on you."

The entire value proposition of Signal is that no one in the middle can see what's going across. The vast majority of those things will be benign or even good. A few will be bad or abusive. People use Twitter, Gmail, Facebook Messenger, Apple Messages and whatever Google is calling their chat client today for good, bad and ugly things, too.

I'd have much more respect for Casey Newton (I hope you're reading this) if he disrobed from his pretense and lectured us about Signal being a tool for Orange Man 2.0, rather than this vague whisper campaign about "abuse." And, personally, unless Newton entirely made up his quotes or took them totally out of context, Gregg Bernstein (hope he reads this, too) would have very little shot of making it past a phone screen with me. A former employee trying to stir up my workforce by attacking the core values of my company in the press is not something I look kindly on.

ngngngng2• 5 years ago

There's a chance that a group of people will walk out into the woods and talk about bad stuff without anyone able to hear them. We should make forests illegal.

ggrelet• 5 years ago

The fundamental difference being: no human actively created forests hence no one could be held responsible (legally or morally) for what's being done there.

Edit: wording.

ngngngng2• 5 years ago

So if it was a human reforestation effort then we can hold the people that planted the trees responsible for what happened?

What about the park rangers maintaining the forests?

turbinerneiter• 5 years ago

I predict that at some point there will be a case of gun violence, where the attackers used signal, and it will result in tougher crypto laws but not tougher gun laws.

draklor40• 5 years ago

Looks like full on propaganda for a smear campaign.

"Concerned "Parents" are worried that video games might cause kids to become violent murderers kind. "

This is just mainstream media and their lackeys blowing up things out of proportion just to prevent Signal from getting popular.

pensatoio• 5 years ago

You can’t moderate what you can’t see. That’s the point, fascists. For truly, this article endorses breaking E2E and subduing wrong-think.

kiririn• 5 years ago

And yet they still have no solution to backup messages, other than running the (Electron!) desktop client 24/7. I don’t want cloud backups, but going as far as force disabling encrypted local iTunes backups is terrible. People expect these to be comprehensive backups and will get a nasty surprise

Privacy should not come at the cost of data ownership

The Battle Inside Signal

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