Signal lämnar Sverige om regeringens förslag på datalagring klubbas
www.svt.se
Den krypterade meddelandeappen Signal växer – nu använder till och med Försvarsmakten appen. Men regeringen vill tvinga bolaget att införa en teknisk bakdörr åt Polisen och Säpo. – Om det blir verklighet så lämnar vi Sverige, säger Signals chef Meredith Whittaker, i en exklusiv intervju med SVT.

Swedish government wants a back door in signal for police and ‘Säpo’ (Swedish federation that checks for spies)

Let’s say that this becomes a law and Signal decides to withdraw from Sweden as they clearly state that they won’t implement a back door; would a citizen within the country still be able to use and access Signals services? Assuming that google play services probably would remove the Signal app within Sweden (which I also don’t use)

I just want the government to go f*ck themselves, y’know?

  • Mio@feddit.nu
    0·
    2 months ago

    Stop this!

    Would anyone accept if the government installed a door into your house that only they have the key to?! Just in case they need to come in and avoid kicking the normal door when I am not home…

      • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        Increased censorship, increased support for military expansion, broad political support for genocide, increasing support for anti-immigrant policies, increasing government spying and authoritarianism, escalation against leftists by the authorities… along with more & more European politicians openly aligning themselves with Nazis.

        What am I missing?

        • doodledup@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          You can’t just use any unrelated topic to post this. Are you a Russian troll? If not, you’re in the wrong thread.

          • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 months ago

            In what way is this unrelated? The increase in government authoritarianism across Europe is inextricably tied to their escalation in tech-enabled government authoritarianism.

            I don’t understand how opposing the spread of Nazism across the globe isn’t at the top of everyone’s priority list. And I’m not sure why anyone would take issue with me calling it out, unless they’re sympathizers/collaborators.

            • doodledup@lemmy.world
              0·
              2 months ago

              This is completely unrelated to the topic at hand. You should look up the definition of nazism.

                • doodledup@lemmy.world
                  0·
                  2 months ago

                  Nazis might do surveillance. But surveillance doesn’t make you a nazi. You’re confusing correlation with causation.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Governments have long wanted backdoors on secure private communication, and so long as we have an ownership class, they always will.

    And backdoors will always be more useful to hackers, industrial spies and terrorists than they are these departments of state looking to ensure national security (or watch for proletariat unrest. We’re already pissed.)

    And the private sector will always route around these backdoors, possibly by modding the client or offering new services that are still secure.

    States should get used to disappointment. Investigation bureaus should prepare for going dark. Once upon a time they had to rely on detective work rather than asking Google whose phones were near the incident or what web-surfers were asking questions about the circumstances pre-hoc.

    • icmpecho@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      it always bugs me how governments who demand backdoors continuously fail to realize that even if they backdoor the encryption of Signal: PGP, or more similarly to Signal, Pidgin+OTR and/or OMEMO all still exist, are well maintained and are designed to work on top of insecure channels. This isn’t gonna be the way to catch actual bad actors, they’ll all just get SimpleX or Pidgin or any other number of things and continue communicating and “going dark”.

      …not to mention that Signal’s source code is open, so even if they compromise the Signal client, you can just switch to Molly or build an older version - or if the server is compromised, you can run your own with the backdoor disabled or stripped out. This is a zero-sum-game all the way down.

  • ryedaft@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Before any politician asks for a backdoor into an encrypted service they should be required to explain Project Rubicon

  • 0x0@programming.dev
    0·
    2 months ago

    Signal’s american and their infrastructure’s based on american Amazon, so there’s that…
    You could use a VPN i guess.

  • りん〜@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    How does this even make sense? The criminals would just move to another platform like SimpleX or use a VPN.

    Whole article in English:

    The encrypted messaging app Signal is growing - now even the Swedish Armed Forces use it.

    But the government wants to force the company to introduce a technical backdoor for the police and Säpo.

    • “If this becomes a reality, we will leave Sweden,” says Signal’s CEO Meredith Whittaker, in an exclusive interview with SVT.

    If the government gets its way, the bill will be passed in the Riksdag as early as March next year.

    The bill states that companies such as Signal and Whatsapp will be forced to store all messages sent using the apps. Leaving Sweden

    Signal - which is run by a non-profit foundation - has now told SVT Nyheter that the company will leave Sweden if the bill becomes reality.

    • “In practice, this means that we are being asked to break the encryption that is the basis of our entire business. Asking us to store data would undermine our entire architecture and we would never do that. We would rather leave the Swedish market completely,” says Signal’s CEO Meredith Whittaker.

    She says the bill would require Signal to install so-called backdoors in its software.

    • “If you create a vulnerability based on Swedish wishes, it would create a path to undermine our entire network. Therefore, we would never introduce these backdoors.

    But don’t you have a responsibility as a supplier to support anti-crime efforts?

    • Our responsibility is to provide technology that upholds human rights in an era where those rights are being violated in more and more places. In today’s digital world, there are very few places where we can communicate privately or whistleblow. Armed forces critical

    Whittaker cites the 2024 attack by the Chinese state actor Salt Typhoon on several internet service providers in the US, where text messages and phone calls were leaked. She argues that a Swedish backdoor would open up for the same thing.

    • “There are no backdoors that only the good guys have access to.”

    The aim of the bill is to allow the Security Service and the police to request the message history of criminal suspects after the fact. Both authorities were positive in the consultation.

    • “The ability of law enforcement authorities to effectively access electronic communications is crucial,” said Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer (M) earlier at a press conference.

    But the Swedish Armed Forces are opposed and recently urged their personnel to start using Signal to reduce the risk of interception.

    In a letter to the government, the Swedish Armed Forces wrote that the bill could not be implemented “without introducing vulnerabilities and backdoors that could be exploited by third parties”.

    • Libb@jlai.luEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      How does this even make sense? The criminals would just move to another platform like SimpleX or use a VPN.

      Next move (and not just from Sweden): make the use of a VPN (and any fully encrypted service) illegal for the average citizen—who needs a backdoor when the law makes it a crime to simply use full E2EE? Let those be used with trust by the army, the press, organizations and people like that just not by common people that should have no privacy at all.

      Politician incompetency and dishonesty will finish to ruin what little of Europe remains and what the word democracy was supposed to mean (which is not to consider your citizen like clueless children that can’t understand shit and that can’t be trusted).

      But in exchange of ruining that they will get some more power and/or money, so that’s fine I suppose.

    • pmk@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      2 months ago

      The current government promised they would be “tough on crime” but have been largely unsuccessful in reducing gang related criminality. Now they are trying to find new tools to get to the leaders of those gangs. Sadly, they don’t understand technology.

  • serenissi@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    People host signal proxy for countries where it is banned already. The primary impact of this law is on non technical people and new users thinking to switch to.