Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by antisocialist 1111 days ago
Okay, let's think about this:

- Signal has stated they'll withdraw from the EU rather than cooperate

- That means the app won't exist in the official EU app stores (iOS, etc.). Users will have to load the app on their own (which 95% of users won't do)

- Next, because Signal is no longer providing services, Signal's EU gateways will not be operational. Now your messages are encrypted, but I've no idea if your Signal connects at all, and where (Signal gateways in some Five Eyes country, perhaps?).

tldr; you're still leaking metadata, and now to a country that has no obligation to not track your metadata (your IP, when you sent message, who received message around the same time, etc).

My suggestion would be get a proper decentralized messenger rather than spend time on these workarounds of questionable value.

I always get down-voted for "shilling", so I won't even make any suggestions this time. DYOD!

4 comments

A significant amount of people will go "huh, Signal will only work when my Netflix VPN is on, I wonder why that is". Signal won't just disappear.

In fact, Signal has a network of volunteers running special proxy services[1] to access Signal from countries with oppressive governments. Signal the company may leave, but Signal the app will try to stay relevant for as long as possible.

[1]: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-TLS-Proxy

> - Signal has stated they'll withdraw from the EU rather than cooperate

I'm trying to read more about this but am coming up short. Did you mean the UK? Signal has https://www.signal.org/blog/uk-online-safety-bill/ up, but nothing that I can see on the EU.

I can't find any references to 2022/0155(COD) ("Chat Control 2.0") on the Signal website. However, I'm sure their response will be very similar. The EU is being as malicious and deceitful with its proposal as the UK, if not more, and the implications for E2EE are very much the same.
What are "Signal's EU gateways"?
what are your thoughts on SimpleX?