Comment by spwa4 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spwa4 | Hacker News Reader

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The problem with these efforts is always the same: organizations make their own messenger, and the fact that these organizations then have control over their own messenger ... means their employees won't use it. And that's ignoring that you can bet your firstborn they cut corners developing these messengers, so they're not pleasant to use to boot. In 2026 you still hear complaints of government employees that they only have 200 mb of mailbox space ... sigh

People "don't trust" in the very abstract sense, Mark Zuckerberg. But in a very real sense they don't trust their manager at all, and they know their own manager can see their messages on the "sovereign" messenger. Zuckerberg wants to sell them stuff they don't want on occasion. Their manager ... well they're cheating their manager.

Oh and it doesn't even buy extra security: the platform owners can spy directly through hardware backdoors, they can "update" any app on the phone, and they have the root keys to the secure element, and so it isn't secure to them. And if you look under the covers ... the backend is on AWS? No? Must be on Azure then.

So annoying lots of people, reducing functionality, for no actual security.

Sure sounds like EU governments are behind this ...

Well, on the work messenger, you talk about work.

For private discussions, you do that on your private device, with a private messenger.

I would say that the digital sovereignty is more about "Entity X doesn't want the US to have access to all of their internal communications". Typically a non-US company or a non-US government should care about that.

That doesn’t really apply in the EU, because your manager or even your org don’t have any right to read your messages, that would constitute a crime actually.

I suspect the reason would be far simpler - people use what they are used to, and WhatsApp is the de-facto standard Messenger app all over Europe.

> organizations make their own messenger, and the fact that these organizations then have control over their own messenger ... means their employees won't use it

Legally mandate its use for official communications.

And they'll keep doing what Boris Johnson was doing when in power: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-covid...

They'll do it anyway.

This is helpful because it makes the criminality stand out.

Because, yes, in democracies we have public records laws.

So the managers also demand their employees don't use it you mean? Because then it can be used against them in court? (cfr. email "retention policies" legal departments demand these days?)

In most European countries we don't have this extensive discovery thing that the US has. It's not really a problem.

Yes, you do. First of all, in UK, it's almost exactly the same. In Europe under Napoleon law (most of the continent), it's the judge who decides to assign someone who gets to do discovery.

Which means in practice the state (police, Tax service, ministries, ...) get to do any discovery they want, including things that would never fly in the US (e.g. have you ever known a judge to allow discovery on a bank account and blocking it for the duration of the case?) And in private cases, usually there is very limited discovery, and only by an independent lawyer, not on either side, assigned by the judge.

It's very different, with different pros and cons. Given that large companies keep leaving the EU, and I bet this is a (granted, minor) factor in that.

> the fact that these organizations then have control over their own messenger ... means their employees won't use it.

Not sure what you mean here; I happily use whatever work email and messenger systems are provided for work. Most people do. I don't actually mind that IT services have access; they are in any case covered by GDPR.

In some cases there has been a legal crackdown on back channels: https://www.ft.com/content/68c26cf6-52d5-11e3-a73e-00144feab...

The Boris Johnson problem remains, but it can at least be made against the rules for normal work purposes.

(Remember not to type crimes into a computer, people)

https://youtu.be/9Klj0H6YMLQ?si=L7DrQgF0pI07zLE9

“Videotaping this crime spree is the best idea we ever had!”

> (Remember not to type crimes into a computer, people)

Please ignore that. It’s daft talk. Definitely record your abuses of power.

I've always found it ironic that people who distrust software from Mark Zuckerberg instead trust software from... 3 guys in a garage.

"Those 3 guys in a garage would never sell us out! They are paragons of virtue!"

"We shall trust 27 different sets of 3 to 10 guys in garages and ensure they never become large enough to blackmail a large percentage of the world's governments safe in the knowledge we can in fact arrest them for illegal bs" does have an appeal however.

It's more trusting something you can audit and control (e.g. open source) vs trusting something you cannot audit and control (e.g. proprietary service by BigTech).

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