• 4 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: April 27th, 2024

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  • I think the text is somewhat dubious in its arguments, but this (and the arguments built on this assertion) is just plain wrong:

    [Signals servers have] a few important pieces of data;

    Message dates and times Message senders and recipients (via phone number identifiers)

    Signal clients implement the Pond protocol. As a result, Signals servers know who a message is for (obviously, how else do you get the message) but cannot know who it is FROM.

    I’ve been playing around with implementing a secure/private messenger demo for myself, and have been consistently impressed with how privacy preserving Signal is when reading their papers and code. I wish it was selfhostable, but apart from that, it’s great.

    The server would be NICE to be OSS, but ultimately, privacy breaches are prevented client/protocol side.






  • This doesn’t make a call to government servers.

    The app (or desktop application BTW, incl. Linux) reads your national ID’s NFC tag, once. When you need to prove your age, the app locally computes a zkp that only tells the site “at least 18yo yes/no”.

    Note that every EU country has a form of national ID, and the digital capabilities of these IDs are already used for a bunch of stuff (e.g. taxes, bank account creation,…). This doesn’t worsen the privacy situation for EU citizens, but instead ensures that no privacy-unfriendly solutions emerge.