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this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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Privacy
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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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary
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?
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.