this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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Privacy

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Even State Department-funded Human Rights Watch admits that authorities combine legal and illegal methods to obtain convictions: https://text.hrw.org/report/2018/01/09/dark-side/secret-origins-evidence-us-criminal-cases

Combining dragnet surveillance with device hacking is intended in the design of both tools. Hence, State Department-funded Signal dupes you into handing over your identity as part of the population-centric mapping. In custody, your phone will be hacked when it is taken away if it's important.

https://xcancel.com/hannahcrileyy/status/2034273723667161480#m

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[–] hamid@crazypeople.online 2 points 31 minutes ago

Non whites know they make up shit all the time to put people in prison, nothing new here for the shit hole country

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

They will come for all colors one by one until disliking the government is illegal.

[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

I really don't get the big "use signal" push at this point in time because even if it's private and the encryption is solid, it's a fucking American company. It's so easy for letter agencies to get information on their users from them, don't you realize that they can't refuse to give out your number if they ask for it and that once they have that your identity and location are immediately and thoroughly compromised? If you are subject to US jurisdiction and could be seen in any way as opposing its government, I really don't think you should be using it.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

i'm convinced the big push for signal is a CIA op. not that it's necessarily signal's fault, it could be and it could not, but setting signal as the defacto private alternative is weird.

better than whatsapp at least i guess, but that's a low ass bar to clear.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 1 points 40 minutes ago

We know it's an op, RFA does damage control for signal:

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 critical] 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.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

All giving out your number provides is that you have ever used Signal.

They're saying ever using a private chat service is terrorism. That's not really on Signal.

[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

All your phone number provides is that you have ever used signal? Not what tower you're connected to and therefore approximate realtime location? Your full identity via your telco? Social graph and history of your calls and texts?

I'm not saying it's their fault or that they are volunteering any information, but that's how it is for any US-based corporation (doesn't matter if it's a nonprofit, any legal entity that can be subpoenaed)

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 5 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

The government already has access to every phone number in existence. They can already track every phone to figure out who attended a protest or whatever. Filtering down to "all phone numbers who've ever connected to Signal" doesn't exactly narrow anything down. They don't have any metadata about who you were chatting with.

[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 hours ago

The government already has access to every phone number in existence

They used to publish them in big books, even

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

government already has access to every phone number in existence

that's precisely why you should not trust services that require it. phone number = identification.

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

It's not a company it's a nonprofit foundation. And they've been audited many times by independent auditors.

[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Sorry but both points are irrelevant, nonprofit foundations can still be forced to turn over user information. That is part of following the law so nothing that would need to be hidden to auditors, unless you were talking about encryption audits which is completely besides the point

[–] syzygy@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

What data is there for Signal to turn over? Can you prove that they're keeping messages or logs on their servers that have 'disappeared' from all the associated devices?

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 1 points 38 minutes ago

Your entire social network graphs, and timestamped message history.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

The audits determined they don't have any user information to provide. You can see this in previous government requests where the only thing provided was a timestamp of last connection to the network.

[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

Because its one of the only popular secure methods of communication thats app based.

[–] Ildsaye@hexbear.net 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Jitsi, Jami, and Simplex are all, I believe, peer-to-peer and don't require you to trust an intermediary.

[–] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Jitsu requires authentication from big tech companies now, or at least person hosting call.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 31 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

A reminder that your phone number is metadata. And people who think metadata is "just" data or that cross-referencing is some kind of sci-fi nonsense, are fundamentally misunderstanding how modern surveillance works.

By requiring phone numbers, Signal, despite its good encryption, inherently builds a social graph. The server operators, or anyone who gets that data, can see a map of who is talking to whom. The content is secure, but the connections are not.

Being able to map out who talks to whom is incredibly valuable. A three-letter agency can take the map of connections and overlay it with all the other data they vacuum up from other sources, such as location data, purchase histories, social media activity. If you become a "person of interest" for any reason, they instantly have your entire social circle mapped out.

Worse, the act of seeking out encrypted communication is itself a red flag. It's a perfect filter: "Show me everyone paranoid enough to use crypto." You're basically raising your hand.

So, in a twisted way, Signal being a tool for private conversations, makes it a perfect machine for mapping associations and identifying targets. The fact that it operates using a centralized server located in the US should worry people far more than it seems to.

The kicker is that thanks to gag orders, companies are legally forbidden from telling you if the feds come knocking for this data. So even if Signal's intentions are pure, we'd never know how the data it collects is being used. The potential for abuse is baked right into the phone-number requirement.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

In theory warrant canaries could have been used, but Marlinspike has an excuse for everything.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 6 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

yeah that makes the whole thing even more sketch, I love how he never replies to the EFF link too

[–] Lussy@hexbear.net 12 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

worn black to a protest

used Signal

carried a first aid kit

lol shrug-outta-hecks

The laws are made up and we’ve always been fucked. We always knew that

[–] sakuraba@lemmy.ml 9 points 9 hours ago

every goth tech nurse is a terrorist

[–] TheLastHero@hexbear.net 2 points 6 hours ago

Consider prison an organizing opportunity

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 56 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (21 children)

This is total alarmist misinformation. The "evidence of terrorism" was not "using Signal" or "carrying a first aid kit", it was taking part in an armed assault on an immigration facility where a dozen people set off fireworks and shot a police officer with an AR-15.

The prosecution used the presence of the first aid kit they carried during their armed assault, along with actual messages (not metadata) from a Signal chat to make the case that the attackers planned on using violence.

There are a lot of problems with this case, IMO the most dangerous part here is that adds legitimacy the (false) idea that "antifa" is an organization that exists. Something the Trump administration has been struggling to prove. This X post takes small details out of context.

  1. Don't trust anything ever posted to X. Especially something that discourages the use of private messaging apps.

  2. I highly recommend everyone report this this post to your admins and strongly recommend all instance admins ban/warn accounts like OP. If we want the fediverse to catch on it needs to be more factual, not knee jer.

[–] 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 48 minutes ago

along with actual messages (not metadata) from a Signal chat to make the case that the attackers planned on using violence

How did they get the actual messages? Signal chats and groups are supposed to be encrypted. I'm curious.

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 2 points 1 hour ago

Police raised their gun first.

[–] mistermodal@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 hours ago

IDK why it is alarmist misinformation to point out that the people doing this have the strongest spyware/phone cracking tools in the world, information about who owns phone numbers, access to AWS (a US military contractor currently being affected by a not insignificant missile-induced service outages), access to Firebase and Apple Websocket (latter has poor encryption and I have heard the former is also insecure), and the ability to physically bring you into custody, then lie about how they got all of these elements together in whatever order to get you behind bars. But of course the idea of actually doing something about the gestapo in your country just fills you with indignation apparently.

X is actually the only place that you can still hear from a lot of people, like Julie K Brown a Miami Herald journalist writing about Jeffrey Epstein's associates and their victims, thousands of foreign journalists. That probably isn't important to you since it isn't about Star Trek and toys. I get all of the posts through a server called RSSHub combined with numerous other websites (like this one), which are piped directly into an actually secure messaging service. I encourage any admins to get my posts hidden from their entire instance. Don't let your users come into my mentions! I wish that blocking instances actually WORKED. 💀

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