France bans ministers from WhatsApp, Signal; demands French alternatives
France bans ministers from WhatsApp, Signal; demands French alternatives
‘These digital tools are not devoid of security flaws,’ government document says.
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French here. It is all about the IT sovereignty (souveraineté numérique). The idea is to use French solutions in order to limit leaks if confidential information and dealing with other country without worrying about threat of limiting, stopping critical services. Also it is easier to apply EU laws like GPDR. That is why all the French private company dealing with sensitive information (military, cyber security..) are only using French solutions.
I get it, but I just don't get why wouldn't they just follow other govs' steps and just set up a matrix server instead. It's already available and proven.
💶 Money.
French companies will now get contracts and profit off of taxpayer dollars.
That’s good. Domestic spending is the best way for a government to stimulate the economy.
It's not good if it doesn't result in a better deal for the public.
How is this a bad deal for the public? Tax dollars go directly to the local market and the only people who have to change their behavior are those voluntarily seeking employment in the government.
It’s a complete win.
Because sometimes that only results in worse features with more overhead. Not everything is interchangeable with the press of one button.
The harm is negligible and the benefit massive. This is an obvious win for the French people.
You have no idea how complex it is to develop E2EE software. At least they could go with self hosted Matrix (in fact they already do in some departments!). Matrix is even designed to be extensible!
Because they could be paying more money for a worse product or service.
It's not beneficial to take a worse deal just because you're making domestic people richer instead of foreign ones.
That's actually what they're doing. They built their own messenger based on Matrix.
Yeah I mean you’re not exactly shedding some deep insight here, it’s very obviously that. While there’s merit to banning WhatsApp, it’s just foolish to ban signal. It’s the best in class for a reason, and it’s open source. France should devote resources to auditing and supporting signal if they really want to throw money to developing secure software.
You say it is obvious but yet you still talking about using Signal.
The logic is simple, is it French ? Yes, ok we can use it if it is secure. No, we won't use it.
I am not endorsing this logic, this is just the logic the politician are using. So no, financing Signal won't be a solution here.
And of course what is the simplest way to spy your citizens, control the main way of communication.
Why is it that signal users are so... obsessive? it's just an encrypted messaging app. Not the second coming of christ.