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There’s two big issues with iMessage that Signal solves:

1. iMessage only works with iOS devices

2. iMessages are end to end encrypted, BUT, they are stored in readable format in iOS backups, and since most people tend to use iCloud backups, which by default are not end to end encrypted, this is used as a back door to defeat the protection. The option to encrypt iCloud backups, Advanced Data Protection, is new and only came out a couple months ago — prior to this, there was no way at all to encrypt iCloud backups. Importantly, as a sender, you have no idea if your recipient is taking the proper precautions, and no way to enforce it.

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Nice thanks.

If it’s e2e encrypted then by definition no middle man can access the unencrypted data, only the two ends. No matter how much the server/government/anyone listens in. Of course they can still get the data after the decryption on one end, so the sending device has to be trusted itself.

I want a hanging/ folding machine to dry your clothes, sort them, fold them and put away! To pair socks too!

You can actually read out the public key from Whatsapp and use that to verify the encryption scheme.

But that would be of little use if they could extract private keys or plaintext messages from the device.

I don't understand this law really.

Where sites like Facebook are taking elements of the content, and displaying it to users, in a manner which means they won't go to the news website (so the news website has no chance of making revenue / displaying an ad / getting a new sign up. For example, a post which contains a headline and a summary of its content (not just the first line). Then yes Facebook/Google/Whoever should pay.

But if the site is doing nothing more than showing a link to the news article in search results, with perhaps at most one sentence which is just the first few words of the article. That encourages users to access the website to read more, and is favourable to the news site. Google should not pay for that. That is driving people to the news website, where they can show ads to users.

Reading this article - it sounds like they are wanting them to pay for search results (correct me if I am wrong?). If that is the case I don't blame google, that seems ridiculous.

Google is actually moving to a 2 days in office instead of previously sent notice of 3 days.

The only thing that has really been grinding my gears is the lack of love for Android tablets.

You can download Signal for iPad, Linux, etc. and link it as a regular secondary device. But try with an Android tablet and it refuses.

Multiple tickets and even a PR and the dev team seems to be giving less of a shit than ever.

I know there's only a few of us, but I refuse to use iOS devices (or non-rooted Android devices) and feel like a second class citizen.

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I mean, you went straight for "Google being a bro" and assumed they were actively interfering with police investigations and deleting evidence all just to protect poor criminals, so... you're not really one to judge here.

Like honestly, I'm struggling to wrap my head around how you could 1) be this naive about Google, 2) assume they give a single shit about poor criminals, 3) assume any big tech company, let alone Google, would go out of their way to delete evidence of ongoing investigations for anyone other than themselves, and 4) not automatically assume that the investigations were about Google, the multi billion dollar tech company with a looong history of lawsuits for things just like this.

Google hasn't been a "bro" for nearly 20 years now, and the only thing they care about you is collecting your data and stuffing more and more targeted ads into your life to profit off of you. If they care at all about poor criminals, it's only because they can't collect their data and make ad money off of them when they're locked up.

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The military uses encryption that follows the same rules as other encryption.

They are generally more careful to make sure their crypto systems are secure. In theory.

The German military had a really good crypto system in WW2, and it was broken partly because humans made mistakes.

Glad I ditched Google, even if I had to go to a different company.

A back door literally means a third party can read your message.

In theory, it's a good third party, but there's no way to be sure of that.

We're officially in a recession, normal ppl don't have the money for scammers and hackers take from, the scammers and hackers are just extra mouths to feed in the underground world right now.

Using Signal for SMS is like trying to have your cake and eat it too. Eventually, the curtains had to drop; but, that also means either getting EVERYONE YOU KNOW to use Signal or fragmenting your messaging clusters. It sucks that they dropped support, even if I understand the spirit of the decision.

you're probably thinking of the partnership of Sony Ericsson that made cell phones back in the day

Pour out a Covfefe for your homies.

I feel like this is one of the funner uses of chatgpt.

“Write me a resume based on this experience that DOESN’T include any reference to crime.”

You make good points here. Multiple, actually. Using any software or hardware means putting your trust in whoever made it. Extrapolating that into something of a strawman argument/fallacy that is still completely true, using any device you didn't personally manufacture and write all the firmware/software for is opening yourself up to insecurity. The real question is, as you allude to, "who do you trust, and how far?"

However, I'd argue the semantics of, "if anything, it means people will overly trust it."

People will overly trust anything that sells them the message they want. That includes using products from big name companies. That also means believing their IT friend Bob who says anything open source is the way to go. Little do they know, Bob also happens to be making a dollar a day on their open source but rarely scrutinized app for dog memes using your phone for cryptomining.

Apple's image of privacy for the iPhone is a mirage built on believable efforts and misleading reports. People still gulp it down eagerly. Signal's image of privacy is built on throwing themselves to the lions by being well known and showing their code; anyone and everyone with the capacity to look will look if it matters to them. It doesn't mean Signal is perfect, but it does mean they're putting everything on the line to prove they're doing the best they and every other contributor can. Both teams have track records, but only one is willing to show you what happened along the way.

That said, I find it very surprising that Signal has not gone the way of Lavabit. How have they evaded U.S. government gag orders while honoring their commitments? I assume no big company has; that's rather perposterous, honestly. Several have canaries for these situations.

Find me the quote from an official source, not a third party.

You haven't heard about military grade encryption, apparently;)

Why is this not a movie deal yet? Or at least a parks and rec style show.