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by ChuckMcM 1872 days ago
It is one of those situations where the excuse is really out there and much more complicated than the simple, "we 'need' the ability to modify your app before it ships." Since the article gives a plausible scenario where that would occur (could be totalitarian regime, could be an NSL letter from the FBI[1])

Here is a time where having a history of doing the "good and correct" thing would help reassure people that you aren't being nefarious, sadly with the lack of such a history, I don't very many believe anything Google says any more.

It is sad really but there isn't anything App developers can do except leave their platform.

[1] I know, some consider them equivalent.
1 comments
rodgerd 1872 days ago
Yes, I think this will be the way that Google satisfy e.g. the Australian government's mandate to aid intelligence and law enforcement agencies to surveil in a targeted way. Not "everyone gets a subverted copy of Signal", but "these three people get a subverted copy of Signal."
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smartbit 1871 days ago
And also the European anti-encryption proposals [0]

Lawfull intercept was done on IronChat, PGP-SAFE and Ennetcom that gave direct access to the communication of criminals which are now successfully used in court. In the most recent case, the tacktic of subverting all copies was successfully used by the police to decrypt Sky ECC and get access to .5 billion messages used primarily by criminals.

In this comment [1] regarding Sky ECC the question was raised

> How could I get a court order to get blanket access to Signal?

To which we now know the answer: On Android you don’t, you ask a court order for a list of specific phones you want to listen onto.

I’m baffled that Human Rights & Cilvil Liberty organisations are not standing up more fiercely against the new Play Store policy.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25940566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25940670

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26468437#26483634

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heavyset_go 1871 days ago
> I’m baffled that Human Rights activists & Cilvil Liberty organisation are not standing up more fiercely against the new Play Store policy.

They might not be aware. Can't hurt to send some of those organizations emails about this.

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