Signal Is a Government Op | Hacker News Reader

Signal Is a Government Op

yasha.substack.com

11 pointsrobgibbons7 comments

Those who are technologically illiterate, like Levine is, must look elsewhere if they want's to make sense of it. If you read the article it has no substance.

Levine just writes out of his ass as usual. His writing style uses insinuating. If you read this piece uncritically you feel that Marlinespike is shady character for no reason whatever.

Well this escalated so quick, why would Snowden use it when he was running away from the US in these past years. Also Appelbaum used to be a serious hacktivist who was against NSA surveillance but pro-Signal, something is missing for me : why would early adopters like cryptographers, cypherpunks and security engineers advocate for a technology funded by FBI. Signal seems to be a spinoff of Whatsapp(Brian Acton) more than Radio Free Asia, simply because of their medium. To what extent can we use products that are Government Op, for instance the internet was a military government project, as long as we are able to have secure encryption that is transparent, I think that's way better than the Facebook monopoly. The best scenario here is not to use any of them of course.

> The best scenario here is not to use any of them of course.

"We also say don't trust anyone who offers you protection, whether it's the U.S. government or anybody else. That's a story they put out. It's repeated to people who are a little nervous. They think they can always find someone to protect them. No, you can't. You've got to protect yourself. You know where I learned that? From the cypherpunks." [0]

Related to [0]:

"Kill metadata and other crypto-issue-overdone diversions.

Metadata and other crypto-workarounds resulted from the crypto wars of the 1990s which were bragged to be won rather than faked out.

The fake-out was orchestrated by some of the very same crypto warriors claiming to be against gov-controlled crypto.

A way to identify them is to note who rose to prominence and wealth in crypto com-edu-org. Still at it, ratcheting up the need for ever more crypto, acknowledging the workarounds but, but, but: Let's Encrypt, HTTPS-HTS everywhere, secure drops, freedom of the press and courage foundations, Snowden talks and tweets, FISC amicus curiea, POTUS and TLA advisories, industry lobbyists, dual hats riding the crypto gravy train and more likely, the subway out of sight.

The money and prestige to be gained by working all sides of the crypto phony war is, as Greenwald crows of Omidyar's $250M bribe, irresistable."[1]

[0] http://www.cnet.com/news/wikileaks-estranged-co-founder-beco...

[1] https://cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2015-December/01125...

JWZ doesn't think much of it either, but you'll have to copy-paste this since he doesn't think much of HN either:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2017/03/signal-leaks-your-phone-num...

Completely out of context but TIL from his blog:

>Today is day 10,000 of The September That Never Ended.

Rob Graham called this out as the off-the-rails conspiracy theory that it is: https://twitter.com/ErrataRob/status/1350328882050711553

Pure FUD.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com