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Comment by Arbalest | Hacker News Reader

That's a tad unfortunate. Signal was just low profile enough that my wife and I could use it in China. This raises the profile of it just a bit higher than I'd like. Further, with the likes of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22202110 having a higher profile makes the organisation more vulnerable to harassment from the government.

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That's a pretty selfish view. On the other hand such a serious backer means political clout and attention in case there are attempts to compromise it. E.g. Whispers Systems could quickly relocate to Estonia or Germany if US law becomes untenable.

Not so much selfish as realistic: now intelligence agencies like NSA can justify spending much more resources to exploit potential vulnerabilities in Signal, so—with Wikileaks in mind—it practically makes Signal less safe long-term.

I believe signal had been on the radar of NSA since it has been the main topic of secure communications for few years already.

it is realistically selfish. Also Signal app/server is open-source. Anyone could churn up a server and fly under the radar.

It's not selfish to want to talk to your s.o. Sure, it's better if the CCP doesn't go around censoring reasonable communications, but given that they are, people are entitled to want whatever reasonable alternatives they can get.

My understanding is that US Senators already use it. At least there was a headline on HN ages back. The main issue with apps like Signal in my opinion comes from apps that snoop on your screen. I wouldnt be surprised if there are rogue custom keyboards that do this.

I would be more worried if only communist / socialist nations (you all know the ones I am talking about, not sure of a better name so calling them what they claim to be) were using it. If the NSA advises against Signal that might be another concern. It might mean a foreign intelligence has access somehow.

> "communist / socialist nations (you all know the ones I am talking about, not sure of a better name so calling them what they claim to be)"

"Totalitarian" would be a better word, I think. This isn't specific to economic systems, it's about governments wanting to control the communication of their citizens (or subjects, I guess).

> "If the NSA advises against Signal that might be another concern. It might mean a foreign intelligence has access somehow."

Or it could mean the NSA does not have access. They do have a history of wanting access to encryption systems.

Well I'd need to hear their reasons for it, but yeah. I should of phrased it better: in the event that the NSA advises people to upgrade Signal versions or something of the sort. Though this is much less likely than them advising something as much more mainstream as Windows.

Totalitarian is probably closer to the word I was trying to think of.

It would be more likely that the NSA would advise against Signal if it doesn't have access and want to scare people to use something they do have access to.

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