Hacker News Reader

Yes. The crew pushing for this is 100% bad faith, it’s pretty contemptible.

It is kind of too late at that point. Good security requires proactive measures.

Um, yes. When the “place that some people don’t like” is all sorts of CIA-connected NGOs and you’re a member of group defined by its paranoia about privacy, then absolutely this becomes disqualifying.

AFAICT Signal is collateral damage in this disinformation campaign. The original attack seems to be aimed at the CEO of NPR, coming from an assortment of right wing (and some Russian-aligned) voices. She happens to also be on the board of Signal which, through the prism of conspiracy theory, now extends their crusade. Given that Telegram is commonly understood to be aligned with the Russian government, this maps neatly on the US/left vs Russia/right axis through which such people already understand the world.