Signal Is More Than Encrypted Messaging. Under Meredith Whittaker, It’s Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong
Signal Is More Than Encrypted Messaging. Under Meredith Whittaker, It’s Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong
On its 10th anniversary, Signal’s president wants to remind you that the world’s most secure communications platform is a nonprofit. It’s free. It doesn’t track you or serve you ads. It pays its engineers very well. And it’s a go-to app for hundreds of millions of people.
You're viewing a single thread.
Yeah, Signal is more than encrypted messaging it's a metadata harvesting platform. It collects phone numbers of its users, which can be used to identify people making it a data collection tool that resides on a central server in the US. By cross-referencing these identities with data from other companies like Google or Meta, the government can create a comprehensive picture of people's connections and affiliations.
This allows identifying people of interest and building detailed graphs of their relationships. Signal may seem like an innocuous messaging app on the surface, but it cold easily play a crucial role in government data collection efforts.
Also worth of note that it was originally funded by CIA cutout Open Technology Fund, part of Radio Free Asia. Its Chairwoman is Katherine Maher, who worked for NDI/NED: regime-change groups, and a member of Atlantic Council, WEF, US State Department Foreign Affairs Policy Board etc.
Yeah, Signal is more than encrypted messaging it’s a metadata harvesting platform. It collects phone numbers of its users, which can be used to identify people making it a data collection tool that resides on a central server in the US. By cross-referencing these identities with data from other companies like Google or Meta, the government can create a comprehensive picture of people’s connections and affiliations.
This allows identifying people of interest and building detailed graphs of their relationships. Signal may seem like an innocuous messaging app on the surface, but it cold easily play a crucial role in government data collection efforts.
Strictly speaking, the social graph harvesting portion would be under the Google umbrella, as, IIRC, Signal relies on Google Play Services for delivering messages to recipients. Signal's sealed sender and "allow sealed sender from anyone" options go part way to addressing this problem, but last I checked, neither of those options are enabled by default.
However, sealed sender on its own isn't helpful for preventing build-up of social graphs. Under normal circumstances, Google Play Services knows the IP address of the sending and receiving device, regardless of whether or not sealed sender is enabled. And we already know, thanks to Snowden, that the feds have been vacuuming up all of Google's data for over a decade now. Under normal circumstances, Google/the feds/the NSA can make very educated guesses about who is talking to who.
In order to avoid a build-up of social graphs, you need both the sealed sender feature and an anonymity overlay network, to make the IP addresses gathered not be tied back to the endpoints. You can do this. There is the Orbot app for Android which you can install, and have it route Signal app traffic through the Tor network, meaning that Google Play Services will see a sealed sender envelope emanating from the Tor Network, and have no (easy) way of linking that envelope back to a particular sender device.
Under this regime, the most Google/the feds/the NSA can accumulate is that different users receive messages from unknown people at particular times (and if you're willing to sacrifice low latency with something like the I2P network, then even the particular times go away). If Signal were to go all in on having client-side spam protection, then that too would add a layer of plausible deniability to recipients; any particular message received could well be spam. Hell, spam practically becomes a feature of the network at that point, muddying the social graph waters further.
That Signal has
- Not made sealed sender and "allow sealed sender from anyone" the default, and
- Not incorporated anonymizing overlay routing via tor (or some other network like I2P) into the app itself, and
- Is still in operation in the heart of the U.S. empire
tells me that the Feds/the NSA are content with the current status quo. They get to know the vast, vast majority of who is talking (privately) to who, in practically real time, along with copious details on the endpoint devices, should they deem tailored access operations/TAO a necessary addition to their surveillance to fully compromise the endpoints and get message info as well as metadata. And the handful of people that jump through the hoops of
- Enabling sealed sender
- Enabling "allow sealed sender from anyone"
- Routing app traffic over an anonymizing overlay network (and ideally having their recipients also do so)
can instead be marked for more intensive human intelligence operations as needed.
Finally, the requirement of a phone number makes the Fed's/the NSA's job much easier for getting an initial "fix" on recipients that they catch via attempts to surveil the anonymizing overlay network (as we know the NSA tries to). If they get even one envelope, they know which phone company to go knocking on to get info on where that number is, who it belongs to, etc.
This too can be subverted by getting burner SIMs, but that is a difficult task. A task that could be obviated if Signal instead allowed anonymous sign-ups to its network.
That Signal has pushed back hard on every attempt to remove the need for a phone number tells me that they have already been told by the Feds/the NSA that that is a red line, and that, should they drop that requirement, Signal's days of being a cushy non-profit for petite bourgeois San Francisco cypherpunks would quickly come to an end.
Anyone who has any experience with centralized databases, would be able to tell you how useless sealed sender is. With message recipients and timestamps, it'd be trivial to discover who the senders are.
Also, signal has always had a cozy relationship with the US (radio free asia was it's initial funder) . After yasha levine posted an article critical of signal a few years back, RFA even tried to do damage control at a privacy conference on signal s behalf:
Libby Liu, president of Radio Free Asia stated:
Our primary interest is to make sure the extended OTF network and the Internet Freedom community are not spooked by the [Yasha Levine’s] article (no pun intended). Fortunately all the major players in the community are together in Valencia this week - and report out from there indicates they remain comfortable with OTF/RFA.
These are high-up US government employees trying to further spread signal.
You can read more about this here.
Incidentally, this explains why Signal insists that the app has to be installed through the Play store as opposed to f-droid.
Strictly speaking, you can download it directly from their website, but IIRC, the build will still default to trying to use Google Play Services, and only fall back to a different service if Google Play Services is not on the device. Signal really, really wants to give Google insight into who is messaging who.
exactly, vast majority of users will be going through Google's store when installing it
A really excellent writeup!
Law enforcement doesn't request data frequently enough in order to build a social graph. Also they probably don't need to as Google and Apple likely have your contacts.
Saying that it is somehow a tool for mass surveillance is frankly wrong. It has its issues but it also balances ease of use. It is the most successful secure messager out there. (WhatsApp doesn't count)
Sure it has problems. I personally don't understand there refusal to be on F-droid. However, phone numbers are great for ease of use and help prevent spam. You need to give your personal information to get a phone number. Signal also has very nice video calls which no other messager can seem to replicate.
Law enforcement doesn’t request data frequently enough in order to build a social graph. Also they probably don’t need to as Google and Apple likely have your contacts.
They don't need to request data. They have first-class access to the data themselves. Snowden informed us of this over a decade ago.
Saying that it is somehow a tool for mass surveillance is frankly wrong.
Signal per se is not the mass surveillance tool. Its dependence on Google is the mass surveillance tool.
However, phone numbers are great for ease of use and help prevent spam.
And there's nothing wrong with allowing that ease-of-use flow for users that don't need anonymity. The problem is disallowing anonymous users.
Signal is not dependent on Google. Also to my knowledge Signal isn't part of AT&T
If that were the case Molly FOSS wouldn't exist
If that were the case Molly FOSS wouldn’t exist
I'm not speaking of hard dependence as in "the app can't work without it." I'm speaking to the default behavior of the Signal application:
- It connects to Google
- It does not make efforts to anonymize traffic
- It does makes efforts to prevent anonymous sign-ups
Molly FOSS choosing different defaults doesn't change the fact that the "Signal" client app, which accounts for the vast majority of clients within the network, is dependent on Google.
And in either case -- using Google's Firebase system, or using Signal's websocket system -- the metadata under discussion is still not protected; the NSA doesn't care if they're wired into Google's data centers or Signal's. They'll be snooping the connections either way. And in either case, the requirement of a phone number is still present.
Perhaps I should restate my claim:
Signal per se is not the mass surveillance tool. Its
dependence on Googledesign choices of (1) not forcing an anonymization overlay, and (2) forcing the use of a phone number, is the mass surveillance tool.
Katherine Maher is a very busy beaver. She’s a major figure in the contemporary manufacturing of consent.
2020: Meet Wikipedia’s Ayn Rand-loving founder and Wikimedia Foundation’s regime-change operative CEO
2024: Web Summit CEO jumps ship to head up NPR after just 3 months
Ahh classic can't question loyalty to the genocide state lol
It collects phone numbers of its users, which can be used to identify people making it a data collection tool that resides on a central server in the US. By cross-referencing these identities with data from other companies like Google or Meta, the government can create a comprehensive picture of people’s connections and affiliations.
That's fuck up. I always found bad to have the phone number as requirement but that's make a lot of sense.
Indeed, the fact that the phone number is a requirement is a huge red flag for any platform that claims to care about privacy.
Phone numbers are no longer required iirc
Phone numbers are no longer required iirc
Phone numbers are still required to register and maintain an account. Only difference now is you can choose to hide it from other users and give people a 'username' to look you up with instead.
Yog is gettin downvoted by dotworld feds but as usual is undefeated in the comments.
😄
So no Tor either bc started by US Naval Research Lab?
If Tor leaks data about you then yes you should also be concerned about that.
That has nothing to do with the team behind it. Also it is the best tool right now even if it isn't perfect. You just need to be aware of its limitations. (For the love of god turn off JavaScript)
I hate to break it to you but the internet itself was created by the US.
The team behind it very much does matter because you can infer the motivations from knowing who develops a particular piece of technology. However, my point was that the question with both Signal and Tor is what data they leak based on their technical design. That's what people should be concerned with first and foremost.
Meanwhile, the internet was created by CERN https://home.cern/science/computing/where-web-was-born
the www, the lsd, first flag on on moon, and then the mdma 🇨🇭😜
Wait until you here about DARPA
I use the Molly-FOSS fork, do you know if that removes the metadata collection? I know it doesn't use any Google Play Services and it comes with its own notification bubble though.
It doesn't because you're still talking to the same server.
I see. Thanks.
Signal does not collect metadata.
that amounts to trust me bro since nobody actually knows what the server does with the data
You don't have to trust the server and shouldn't have to trust the server if the client is doing proper E2E because you know the maximum amount of metadata it's got.
Your phone number is the metadata that's not encrypted, that's literally the whole problem here. Signal server is able to harvest graphs of phone numbers that interact with one another.
With 'sealed sender' your phone number, or any other identifying information, is not included in the metadata on the envelope, only the recipient's id is visible, and it's up to the recipient's client to validate the sender information that is inside the encrypted envelope. It looks like a step in the right direction, though I don't use signal enough to have looked into auditing it myself.
Again, this is a trust based system because you don't know what the server is actually doing. The fact is that the server does collect enough information to trivially make the connection between phone numbers and the connections on the network. If trust me bro from Moxie is good enough for you, that's of course your prerogative.
You're correct that if you use the system the way it used to work they can trivially build that connection, but (and I know this is a big assumption) if it does now work the way they say it does, they do not have the information to do that any more as the client doesn't actually authenticate to the server to send a message. Yes, with some network tracing they could probably still work out that you're the same client that did login to read messages, and that's a certainly a concern. I would prefer to see a messaging app that uses cryptographic keys as the only identifiers, and uses different keys for different contact pairs, but given their general architecture it seems they've tried to deal with the issue.
Assuming that you want to use a publicly accessible messaging app, do you have any ideas about how it should be architected? The biggest issue I see is that the client runs on your phone, and unless you've compiled it yourself, you can't know what it's actually doing.
Again, everything you say is based purely on faith. As you acknowledge, the design of the system is such that people operating the server can trivially build out graphs of user connections. All the same arguments people apply to no trusting server side encryption equally apply to metadata.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of examples of messaging apps that don't require phone numbers. Matrix, Wire, SimpleX chat, are just a few examples. Being able to build your own client is also important, and there is a concept of reproducible builds which allows people to be reasonably sure that a binary being shipped is compiled from the source that's published. These are solved problems, and there is no technical reason for Signal to do what it's doing.
I agree that them having users' phone numbers isn't ideal. There are other identifiers they could use that would work just as well. However, both the client and server are open source, so you can build, at least the client, yourself. If you can content yourself that it does not leak your ID when sending messages, then you don't need to trust the server as it does not have the information to build a graph of your contacts. Sealed sender seems to have been announced in 2018, so it's had time to be tested.
Don't get me wrong, the fact they require a phone number at all is a huge concern, and the reason I don't really use it much, but the concern you initially stated was addressed years ago and you can build the client yourself to validate that.
I'm talking about the information the server has. The encrypted envelope has nothing to do with that. Your register with the server using your phone number, that's a unique identifier for your account. When you send messages to other people via the server it knows what accounts you're talking to and what their phone numbers are.
Whilst I absolutely agree it's correct to be skeptical about it, the 'sealed sender' process means they don't actually know which account sent the message, just which account it should be delivered to. Your client doesn't even authenticate to send the message.
Now, I'm just going on what they've published on the system, so either I could be completely wrong, or they could be being misleading, but it does look like they've tried to address the very issue you've been pointing out. Obviously it'd be better if they didn't have your phone number at all, but this does seem to decouple it in a way that means they can't build a connection graph.
The problem is that there is no way to verify any of this. You're just putting trust into people operating this service. That's not how security is supposed to work.
Strictly you're having to trust the build of the client rather than the people running the server. If the client doesn't send/leak the information to the server, the people running the server can't do anything with it. It's definitely still a concern, and, if I'm going to use a hosted messaging app, I'd much rather see the client built and published by a different group, and ideally compile it myself. Apart from that I'm not sure there's any way to satisfy your concerns without building and running the server and client yourself.
first comment to provide a decent counterpoint.
Looks like signal and email use both. but it still does not answer
AI said:
The server knows who initiated the communication (they handed over their lockbox first), but not the direction of individual messages within a conversation.
'Sealed sender' seems to avoid this by not actually requiring the client to authenticate to the server at all, and relying on the recipient to validate that it's signed by the sender they expect from the encrypted data in the envelope. As I mentioned in another reply, I’m just going on what they’ve published on the system, so either I could be completely wrong, or they could be being misleading, but it does look like they’ve tried to address this issue.
I’m just going on what they’ve published on the system, so either I could be completely wrong, or they could be being misleading
same here overall. thank you for responding.
The identifier is unavoidable for push notifications to work. It needs to know which phone to send it after all, even if it doesn't use Google's services, it would still need a way to know which device has new messages when it checks in. If it's not a phone number it's gonna be some other kind of ID. Messages need a recipient.
Also, Signal's goal is protecting conversations for the normies, not be bulletproof to run the next Silk Road at the cost of usability. Signal wants to upgrade people's SMS messaging and make encryption the norm, you have to make some sacrifices for that. Phone numbers were a deliberate decision so that people can just install Signal and start using E2E texting immediately.
If you want something really private you should be using Tor or I2P based solutions because it's the only system that can reasonably hide both source and destination completely. Signal have your phone number and IP address after all. They could track your every movements.
Most people don't need protection against who they talk to, they want privacy of their conversations and their content. Solutions with perfect anonymity between users are hard to understand and use for the average person who's the target audience of Signal.
The identifier absolutely does not need to be your phone number, and plenty of other apps are able to do push notifications without harvesting personal information from the users.
Meanwhile, normies don't need Signal in the first place since e2ee primarily protects you from things like government agencies snooping on your data.
Just a side note but both Simplex Chat and Briar are free of unique identifiable IDs.
For Simplex Chat it uses hash tables. It still has a centralized server (which you can self host) but you can use the built in Tor functionality to hide your IP.
For Briar it is totally decentralized. All messages go directly over Tor but it also can use WiFi and Bluetooth. It supports group content types such as Forms and blogs. The downside is that you need a connected device. You can also use Briar Mailboxes on a old phone to receive messages more reliably.
Signal has been forced by court to provide all the information they have for specific phone numbers [0][1]. The only data they can provide is the date/time a profile was created and the last date (not time) a client pinged their server. That's it, because that's all the data they collect.
Feel free to browse the evidence below, they worked with the ACLU to ensure they could publish the documents as they were served a gag order to not talk about the request publicly [2].
[0] https://signal.org/bigbrother/
[2] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/open_whisper_documents_0.pdf#page=8
Once again, even if this is the way things worked back in 2016 there is no guarantee they still work like that today. This is the whole problem with a trust based system. You are trusting that people operating the server. It's absolutely shocking to me that people have such a hard time accepting this basic fact.
Once again, even if this is the way things worked back in 2016 there is no guarantee they still work like that today.
You have to trust someone. You're not building all your software and reading every line yourself are you?
While there's no guarantees, Signal continues to produce evidence that they don't collect data. Latest publication August 8th, 2024: https://signal.org/bigbrother/santa-clara-county/
The code is open has had a few audits: https://community.signalusers.org/t/overview-of-third-party-security-audits/13243
This is the whole problem with a trust based system
Can you point me to a working trustless system? I'm not sure one exists. You might say peer-to-peer systems are trustless because there's no third party, but did you compile the code yourself? did you read every last line of code before you compiled and understood exactly what it was doing?
It's absolutely shocking to me that people have such a hard time accepting this basic fact.
What's shocking to me is the lack of understanding that unless you're developing the entire platform yourself, you have to trust someone at some point and Signal continues to post subpoenas to prove they collect no data, has an open source client/server, provides reproducible builds and continues to be the golden standard recommended by cryptographers.
I would recommend to anyone reading this to rely on the experts and people who are being open and honest vs those who try to push you to less secure platforms.
You have to trust someone. You’re not building all your software and reading every line yourself are you?
No, you don't have to trust anyone. That's literally the point of having secure protocols that don't leak your personal data. 🤦
Signal made an intentional choice to harvest people's phone numbers. The rationale for doing that is very thin, and plenty of other messengers avoid doing this. The fact that Signal insists on doing that is a huge red flag all of its own.
The code is open has had a few audits
Only people who are actually operating the server know what's running on it. The fact that Signal aggressively prevents use of third party clients and refuses to implement federation that would allow other servers to run is again very suspect.
Can you point me to a working trustless system?
SimpleX, Matrix, Briar, and plenty of other chat systems do not collect personal data.
You might say peer-to-peer systems are trustless because there’s no third party, but did you compile the code yourself? did you read every last line of code before you compiled and understood exactly what it was doing?
The discussion in this thread is specifically about Signal harvesting phone numbers. Something Signal has no technical reason to do.
What’s shocking to me is the lack of understanding that unless you’re developing the entire platform yourself, you have to trust someone at some point and Signal continues to post subpoenas to prove they collect no data, has an open source client/server, provides reproducible builds and continues to be the golden standard recommended by cryptographers.
Kind of ironic that you've exposed yourself as being utterly clueless on the subject while accusing me of lack of understanding.
I would recommend to anyone reading this to rely on the experts and people who are being open and honest vs those who try to push you to less secure platforms.
I would recommend anyone reading this to rely on rational thinking and ignore trolls who tell you to just trust Signal. Privacy and security are not based on trust, and if you ask any actual expert in the field they will tell you that.
No, you don’t have to trust anyone. That’s literally the point of having secure protocols that don’t leak your personal data. 🤦
Unless you're reading all the code, understand the protocols, and compiling yourself you are placing your trust in someone else to do it for you. There's no way around this fact.
You suggest SimpleX, Matrix, and Briar (which I believe are great projects btw, I've used them all and continue to use SimpleX and Matrix) but have you read the code, understand the underlying protocols, and compiled the clients yourself or are you placing your trust in a third party to do it for you? Be honest.
I will agree though, if you absolutely do not trust Signal, you should use Briar or SimpleX, but neither are ready for "every day" users. Briar doesn't support iPhones so its basically dead in the water unless you can convince family/friends to switch their entire platform. SimpleX is almost there but it still continues to fail to notify me of messages, continues to crash, and the UX needs significant improvement before people are willing to put up with it.
The discussion in this thread is specifically about Signal harvesting phone numbers. Something Signal has no technical reason to do.
Let me give you a history lesson, since you seem to have no clue about where Signal started and why they use phone numbers. Signal started as an encryption layer over standard text/SMS named TextSecure. They required phone numbers because that's how encrypted messages were being sent. In 2014, TextSecure migrated to using the internet as a data channel to allow them to obscure additional metadata from cell phone providers, as well as provide additional features like encrypted group chats. Signal continued to use phone numbers because it was a text message replacement which allowed people to install the app and see all their contacts and immediately start talking to them without having to take additional action - this helps with onboarding of less technical users. Fast forward to today and Signal is only using phone numbers as a spam mitigation filter and to create your initial profile that is no longer being shared with anyone unless you opt into it.
Now, you can say they're collecting phone numbers for other nefarious purposes but they publish evidence that they don't. Will they ever get rid of phone numbers? Unlikely unless they figure out a good alternative to block spam accounts.
Privacy and security are not based on trust
You're 100% right. If you read the code, understand the protocols, and build the clients from source, you don't have to trust anyone 😊
Unless you’re reading all the code, understand the protocols, and compiling yourself you are placing your trust in someone else to do it for you. There’s no way around this fact.
That's why you have a lot of eyes on the code and security experts who dedicate their research to finding flaws and breaking algorithms. It's certainly a very different scenario from simply trusting people who run a server. The fact that this even needs to be said is frankly phenomenal. There's also a concept of reproducible builds, so even if you're not compiling everything yourself you can be reasonably sure that what's package in the binary was in fact compiled from the source. Again, these are solved problems.
SimpleX is almost there but it still continues to fail to notify me of messages, continues to crash, and the UX needs significant improvement before people are willing to put up with it.
If people genuinely care about privacy then it's important to promote apps that actually care about privacy by design and invest in improving these apps instead of just perpetuating the problem by recommending Signal. Even Matrix is far better in terms of privacy and it's plenty mature at this point.
Let me give you a history lesson, since you seem to have no clue about where Signal started and why they use phone numbers.
I'm well aware of the history, and the justifications. The fact remains is that I simply do not trust Signal knowing where it originates.
Fast forward to today and Signal is only using phone numbers as a spam mitigation filter and to create your initial profile that is no longer being shared with anyone unless you opt into it.
The correct statement is that Signal claims to do this, there is no way for an outside party to verify that this is actually the case, hence why it comes down to you taking what people operating Signal say on faith.
You’re 100% right. If you read the code, understand the protocols, and build the clients from source, you don’t have to trust anyone 😊
Trusting countless researchers an security experts to read the code, understand the protocols, and provide reproducible builds, is a lot better than trusting a sketchy US company that was started by the CIA and NED. I guess that's a concept that's difficult for some to wrap their head around though.
Even Matrix is far better in terms of privacy and it’s plenty mature at this point.
I would disagree, this guy's been finding issues and reporting them to Matrix for a while now and appears to find them every time he glances at the project. I LOVE Matrix. I would recommend it over Discord, Telegram etc, but I would not recommend Matrix over Signal.
The fact remains is that I simply do not trust Signal knowing where it originates.
This is fair. No critique against this stance.
Trusting countless researchers an security experts to read the code, understand the protocols, and provide reproducible builds,
I agree! Trust the countless researchers, security and cryptography experts.
... is a lot better than trusting a sketchy US company that was started by the CIA and NED.
You're gonna have to cite your sources.
True but I find the opposite end of the spectrum hard to believe. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
What is known is that government agents from countries like Iran, China and Russia actively are spreading misinformation. Not to say that you are a government agent but you should doubt the argument on both sides. For instance, using Signal is way better than not using an audited encrypted messager. Often times I see people jump to worse platforms. I think it is important to understand the problems with Signal.
It's well known that the US and other western countries actively spread misinformation. It's also known thanks to Snowden that the US regime harvests personal data aggressively. Anybody who puts blind faith into a US based security company is frankly an imbecile.
Sad but true. It's definitely concerning.
True, however your claim lacks evidence. They have your phone number and a few time stamps. That isn't going help much.
My claim is that privacy should not be based on trust. This appears to be a very difficult concept for people in this thread to understand.
You always will have to trust something at some level.
Yeah, you trust that the encryption algorithm is designed correctly and that it doesn't leak data because many people have audited it and nobody found a flaw in it. You absolutely will not have to trust people operating servers however. If you can figure out why e2ee is important then I'm sure you'll be able to extrapolate from that why metadata shouldn't be seen by the server either.
I'm not very tech-savvy, and that article looks very nice, but it's kind of old and it's true that they haven't been as transparent (and frequently audited) as other services and they still require a phone number to set up an account, even if you can switch to only using a username later. Also, they removed encrypted database, and Molly brings that back which is the main reason I use it. Another thing I don't like about Signal is how ferociously they've tried to shut down forks in the past, and how they don't say that you need Google Play Services for it to work properly. Sadly it's the only "privacy-conscious" service I've managed to make most of my family and friends use, after trying for years.
They only shut down forks that violate Signal branding. Mozilla does the same thing with Firefox.
It is libre so if you fork it there is nothing they can do. Also if they were really hostile they would of used a non libre license or made it entirely proprietary.
They have your phone number and time stamps. Nothing more nothing less. Also chances are that isn't being used to create a massive social graph or whatever the Lemmy.ml users are going on about.
For most people it doesn't matter. Signal has the benefit of being widely adopted and being easy to use. Simplex Chat is another alternative although it isn't as well funded or as well known.
Cross referenced you on the sister thread.
People there positing that this is no correct. Granted their info appears to be signal "disclosed" to the feds as part of a court proceed what it collects, which is only apparently when you connect to the server.
Doesnt answer the issue if they could collect your call logs though
My reply from the other thread. People who claim this isn't true aren't being honest. The phone number is the key metadata. Meanwhile, nobody outside the people who are actually operating the server knows what it’s doing and what data it retains. Faith based approach to privacy is fundamentally wrong. Any data that the protocol leaks has to be assumed to be available to adversaries.
Furthermore, companies can’t disclose if they are sharing data under warrant. This is why the whole concept of warrant canary exists. Last I checked Signal does not have one.
When you install Signal, it asks for access to your contacts, and says very proudly, "we don't upload your contacts, it all stays on your phone."
And then it spams all of your contacts who have Signal installed, without asking your first.
And it shares your phone number with everyone in your contacts who has Signal installed.
And then when you scream ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME and delete your account and purge the app, guess what? All those people running Signal still have your phone number displayed for them right there in plain text. Deleting your account does not delete the information that the app shared without your permission.
So yeah. Real nice "privacy" app you've got there.
Update, 2018: Subsequently.
Wow didn't even know about that, what a shit show. It's so weird how Signal has become a sacred cow in the west now, and you can't have a rational discussion about its many problems without a whole bunch of trolls piling on saying you should just put faith in Signal unconditionally.
It is a decent app, it does what it says. Daddy can't read your shit until quantum break encryption.
Real question is whether it is a honeypot to make edgelords feelz good. Strong allegation, no doubt but we are also in the grey zone it seems. Based on that, you have to assume, they are farming the info at least to the security apparatus.
That's my view as well, the only way to know that data isn't being used for adversarial purposes is not to share it in the first place. I think it's fine to use Signal as long as it's an informed choice. The primary issue I have is that people don't seem to want to accept that Signal collects phone numbers and that this could be used in a nefarious way. It seems to be an ideological stance as opposed to a rational one.
The app (locally, on your device) checks if someone from your contact list installed (became available) on Signal, and if they did, you get notified by the app.
And it shares your phone number with everyone in your contacts who has Signal installed.
Someone can get notified only if they already have you in their contact list (so they already have your phone number), and have Signal installed.
I still wish you could choose if you want others to be notified tho...
phone number isn't just any metadata; it is the anchoring data around which the rest of metadata is collected, and it is also connected to govt/corporate verified real identity.
why would anyone even claim to offer privacy around such an anchor ?
Exactly, especially when we're talking about the US government that has access to all the data from other large US based media companies like Google and Meta. We know this for a fact thanks to Snowden leaks. Once you have a phone number, you know the identity of the person, and you can trivially cross reference all the other data to see if that person is of interest. And thanks to their Signal connection graph, the government can easily tell what other people they communicate privately with.
And thanks to their Signal connection graph, the government can easily tell what other people they communicate privately with.
So what? I'm sure your neighbor couple talk privately to each other most of the time and you know that happens. The important part is that the conversation is private.
Signal is not an anonymous messenger app. It never claimed to be. It's for you to have a private conversation where your device holds the encryption keys.
Not like WhatsApp, where Meta has access to the keys of all conversations. Also 95 % of the worlds population is on WhatsApp, so why don't you go and complain to them for lack of privacy and security?
If you want an "anonymous" chat client they are out there to use. Good luck getting more people onboard other than your savy friend.
Signal's use case is "authentic communication". like when a govt person interacts with other govt person and doesn't want a second govt to snoop on the actual contents on the communication, but accepts that metadata is public.
It is whatsapp for such people, without being whatsapp.
But then why would you use whatsapp either ?
If you understand that this information is being leaked, and that's not part of your threat profile that's perfectly fine. The problem is that a lot of people don't seem to understand the implications of Signal harvesting phone numbers, and therefore make bad assumptions regarding the safety of using Signal. It's pretty clear that a lot of people aren't conscious about this in this very thread in fact.
yes most people seem oblivious what mass bulk data collection can do.
and nobody has yet to answer, if there is something to stop Signal from collecting metadata logs of its users and their groups.
it does not seem people understand this risk.
either way, nobody produced a reasonable position on this. so presumption is that signal can farm this data and sell/give it out. since best we got is Signal's responses to US courts which would also be subject to the same conditions if national security type people got involved.
Wire uses Signal protocol and doesn't harvest phone numbers, so I'm pretty sure we do actually know what the answer is. The fact that Signal made this design choice is very concerning to anybody who understand the implications of doing that.
i don' disagree with the thesis and i think the best we will get is not answer that tan effectively rebuke the position.
stupid AI said that server would know who start the connection but not back and forth. connection is static and is reset, so presumably longer convos would involve several timestamps.
I am not sure if signal would know who the recipient but that's the logical next conclusion.
This is really interesting. It brings two questions to mind.
-
Don't all messaging apps use phone number as a primary metadata value?
-
Are you suggesting that Signal could either not use this metadata or not collect it and yet they choose to collect it and can therefore lose it to exfiltration or warrant?
- Nope, for example Wire is based on Signal protocol and doesn't harvest phone numbers https://wire.com/en
- I'm suggesting that if metadata is being leaked then it has to be assumed that it will be used nefariously at some point
Exact same argument that applies for wanting e2e encrypted messages that aren't seen by the server also applies to any metadata associated with these messages.
-
This message is definitely giving all the vibes of a disinformation/misinformation attempt. There is no metadata to harvest from signal.
Here is an example of all the extent of data that signal has on any given user: https://signal.org/bigbrother/cd-california-grand-jury/
It involves phone number, account creation time and last connected time. That's it. Nothing more.
The cross referencing of data is just nonsense. Google and meta already have your phone number. Adding signal info to it adds absolutely zero information to them. They have it all already. They know nothing of who you talk with, which groups you are part of.
The funding of Signal did involve public grants but that's not anything bad. Many projects and nonprofits receive public money. It does not imply that there are backdoors or anything like that. And signal was purposefully designed so that no matter who owns and operates it, the messages stay hidden independently on the server infrastructure. They did the best possible to remove themselves from the chain of trust. Expert cryptographers and auditors trust signal. Don't listen to this random ramble of an online stranger whose intentions are just to confuse you and make you doubt.
It's fascinating that these kinds of trolls come out of the woodwork any time obvious problems with Signal are brought up.
Phone numbers very obvious are metadata. If you think that cross referencing data is nonsense then you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. It's not about Google or Meta having your phone number, it's about having a graph of people doing encrypted communication with each other over Signal. The graph of contacts is what's valuable.
Don’t listen to this random ramble of an online stranger whose intentions are just to confuse you and make you doubt.
What you absolutely shouldn't listen to are trolls who tell you to just trust that Signal is not abusing the data it's collecting about you. The first rule of security is that it can't be faith based.
What are you talking about? you get a phone number from signal, and what will you be able to derive from it? there is no graph. signal does not hold any "relationships" information.
Give me your phone number. I'll quickly be able to find out where you live.
The phone number is a unique identifier for your account. When you send a message to another user on Signal, that message goes to the server, and then gets routed to the other party. The server therefore has to know which parties talk to each other. Let me know if you have trouble understanding this and need it explained in simpler terms.
Youre right, thats how it works in almost all messaging apps. But signal implemented sealed sender specifically to counter this.
You can read more about it here: https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/
I encourage you to read the first paragraph, which is important in the context of our conversation.
Anyone who has worked with centralized databases can tell you how useless that is. With message recipients and timestamps, its trivial to find the real sender.
I’m talking about the information the server has. The encrypted envelope has nothing to do with that. Your register with the server using your phone number, that’s a unique identifier for your account. When you send messages to other people via the server it knows what accounts you’re talking to and what their phone numbers are. The first paragraph amounts to nothing more than trust me bro because the only people who know what the Signal server actually does are the people operating it.
You are routing your traffic over the public internet. Nothing is secure at all. That's why we implement strong cryptography
Yes, that's why we don't leak personal data. You're finally starting to get it!
Seriously, what are you talking about? The vast majority of people don't want anonymity. Obviously Signal isn't cut out for that! The fact is, most people don't care about anonymity.
And what metadata can you harvest exactly from a UNIX timestamp and phone number? Signal can tell who is communicating to who, but they cannot read your messages.
Most people, even in this very thread, clearly don't understand the implications of phone number harvesting. Also do give citations for your bombastic claim that most people don't want anonymity.
And what metadata can you harvest exactly from a UNIX timestamp and phone number? Signal can tell who is communicating to who, but they cannot read your messages.
The graph of who communicates with whom is precisely the problem. The government can easily correlate that data with all the other data they have on people, and then if somebody is identified as a person of interest it becomes easy to find other people who associate with them. So, here you just proved my point by showing that you yourself don't understand the implications of metadata harvesting.
Most
people1, even in this very thread, clearly don't [...]- Signal shill-bot personas.
Also do give citations for your bombastic claim that most people don’t want anonymity.
This is entirely dependent on the situation. Privacy is not a black or white thing where you're completely private or not private at all. Everyone lives some part of their life publicly. I don't have data on this unfortunately, but typically where I live, people share phone numbers to people they personally know.
The graph of who communicates with whom is precisely the problem. The government can easily correlate that data with all the other data they have on people, and then if somebody is identified as a person of interest it becomes easy to find other people who associate with them. So, here you just proved my point by showing that you yourself don’t understand the implications of metadata harvesting.
This is not within the vast majority of most peoples threat model.
I never suggested privacy was black and white. What I actually said was that a lot of people aren't making an informed choice. And whenever these threads come up, people pile on to dismiss legitimate problems with the way Signal works which makes it harder for people to make informed choices by spreading noise and misinformation. This very thread is full of wrong claims and dismissals.
Majority of people don't even need Signal because they're not talking about anything anybody cares about. At that point you can use whatever messenger that's convenient and your circle of friends uses. However, people shove Signal down other people's throat claiming that it's a privacy focused app which it demonstrably is not.
people share phone numbers to people they personally know.
This is about Signal having the phone numbers. I don't think anybody "personally knows" Signal..
Signal's hostility to 3rd party clients is a huge red flag.
Can you further explain? A red flag to open-source, federation and such, can't disagree. But to privacy and security? I'm not convinced.
If you backdoored your client, then you will naturally oppose anyone else who develops a client.
Third party clients are the best way to verify that the protocol works as advertised.
Its the tankies.
Honestly if they can recommend something better I'm all for it but I haven't heard anything.
Take a look here for some alternatives:
https://dessalines.github.io/essays/why_not_signal.html#good-alternatives
- Matrix
- XMPP
- Briar
- SimpleX
Also just because there are no alternatives doesn't mean your default position should be we just have to trust whatever exists now because it's good enough. Or that we can't criticize it ruthlessly, distrust it. Call it out and as a result of that build perhaps the desire for something better, a fix as it were.
The evidence and history clearly points towards Signal being very suspicious and likely in bed with the feds. This is not conspiracy thinking. Conspiracy thinking is thinking that the country/empire that gave away old German engima machines whose code they'd cracked to developing countries without telling them they'd cracked it in the late 40s/early 50s, that went on to establish a crypto company just to subvert its encryption. That's done everything Snowden revealed has in fact changed suddenly for the first time in half a century for no particular reason and not to its own benefit. That's fanciful thinking. That's a leap of logic away from the proven trends, the pattern of behavior, and indeed the incentivizes to continue using their dominant position to maintain dominance and power. They didn't back down on the clipper chip because they just gave up and decided to let people have privacy and rights. They gave up on it because they found better ways of achieving the same results with plausible deniability.
Also why is everything "tankies" with you people. Privacy advocates point out the obvious and suddenly it's a communist conspiracy. LOL
-
Matrix and XMPP are not alternatives and are worse for privacy and security
-
Simplex Chat is actually is pretty sold but isn't the most user friendly
-
Briar is very cool but its complexity makes it hard to use. It also has problems with real time communications
Matrix and XMPP are not alternatives and are worse for privacy and security
XMPP is exactly as good or bad for privacy as the servers and clients you choose. It's a protocol, not a service. Unlike Signal, which is a brand/app/service package.
The protocol is worse for privacy
Is that better?
-
There is no metadata harvesting on Signal and the use of a phone number is so convenient and helped massively with adoption from the general unaware public.
I loved that it acted as a private and secure drop in replacement for SMS (particularly before they removed that integration) that does what I needed and does it very well and easily connects me with people that already have my number. This made sharing Signal very easy. The only data Signal has to even provide to the authorities is your registration date, phone number, and time of last connection. The absolute minimum. It's fantastic. If you compare this to Whatsapp which has everything but the exact content of your messages, it's not even a contest.
For myself on Signal and everyone else I've known that that uses Whatsapp or Insta or whatever, the extra absolute anonymity of also removing phone numbers from the already small equation just isn't needed or worth it, otherwise you wouldn't be using Signal, let alone fucking Facebook.
You can believe whatever you want of course, but the reality is that Signal collects phone numbers on registration and these can be used in many ways. The fact that you chose to trust Signal to be a good actor is your prerogative, but it's based purely on your faith which is not how privacy or security works.
I don't think you're aware of how independent audits, open source, good cryptography, a non-profit, government data subpoenas, and a lack of data collection works. That is what I have faith in. If you're this concerned over someone having just your phone number, call your phone carrier, cancel your plan, and destroy your SIM card because whatever you're paranoid about happening to your phone number is already being done by countless entities that are not Signal.
I don’t think you’re aware of how independent audits, open source, good cryptography, a non-profit, government data subpoenas, and a lack of data collection works.
I think that you maybe the one who doesn't understand how any of this works. Security and privacy are guaranteed by design, and any information that is collected has to be assumed to be available to bad actors. Period. The same reason logic about trusting the server to do the encryption applies to letting the server handle metadata. No amount of audits can guarantee that people operating the server are doing it in good faith.
Meanwhile, the concern isn't just about somebody having your phone number it's about Signal server having the ability to map out relationships between these numbers. It's perfectly fine for people to reason that this is not something they're worried about, and make an informed choice to use Signal. However, it's incredibly disingenuous to pretend this problem doesn't exist.
Edit: nevermind I typed a lot but that Lemmygrad user made a far better post that I agree with.