this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2025
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  • According to Whittaker, the bill requires the encrypted messaging app Signal to install so-called backdoors in the software.
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

This law cannot go through! This is a threat to democracy in our country.

Privacy matter. You must be able to talk to your friends without needing to worry about if the government is listening to you. This will not help to catch the bad guys as they will just change to some other protocol. But it opens up the possiblity for third party doing something that they should not even be able to do. Stop this now.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The Swedish politicians tried adding backdoors to encrypted apps for at least 20 years :P I don't really understand why they still (ever) think it is a good idea

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The problem is that politicians don't understand cyber security, whta their asking is basically the equivalent of closing the front door of a house and leaving the backdoor open. It was already proven to be a bad idea, eternalblue is a good example.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 day ago

Half of the original article:

The Armed Forces, on the other hand, are negative and write in a letter to the government that the proposal cannot be realized "without introducing vulnerabilities and backdoors that can be exploited by third parties", reports SVT.

So that's covered.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

There needs to be a messaging app which provides a backdoor for every government that requests it. Every time some dumbass legislator asks for a super-giga-secure-backdoor they promise not to misuse, they should be directed to that app.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

goatse.cx used to work wonderfully for that.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Hello there, fellow Internet old-timer!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

That sounds like unencrypted communication with extra steps. Why not skip all of that and just give them an unencrypted service anyone can read and use. While we are at it, getting rid of those pesky passwords and unwieldy usernames is also a great idea. What could go wrong... I mean CLEARLY no one has anything to hide...

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Imagine the complexity of the encryption algo with 100 different custom made backdoors!

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's the secret you give them all the same backdoor.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

But each of them is special!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago (3 children)

What about Threema? πŸ€”

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I found the other Threema user! πŸŽ‰

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I use it too and am happy they finally added emoji reactions!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Next in line should be matrix. People say it's hard to use but the devs have gone through like 3 app revisions since then. Main instance requires email but a lot are fully anon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

DeltaChat makes so much more sense imho for texting. It is based on E-Mail. You can either use their e-mail service (requiring only a username) or you can use your existing imap-email account. End-End encryption is handled automatically.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Did they figure out forward security and metadata yet? Last I saw they sort of handwaved it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 142 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Is this law broad enough to also catch up Proton and its services?

This attack by governments on encryption is getting more and more concerning.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 2 days ago

They want less accountability for themselves so they can get away with more corruption.

I hope people take notes.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago

Is this law broad enough to also catch up Proton and its services?

They don't need a law, they already logged and complied on request

https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-address-of-french-activist-after-order-by-swiss-authorities/

[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 days ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago (26 children)

And gobbles Trump's knob publicly.

They won't need a law to force compliance.

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[–] [email protected] 124 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And now it starts. Programs specifically designed to be encrypted getting attacked.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 day ago (3 children)

"Now"? Apps like Signals are constantly under fire. Whitaker already told the whole EU it would just leave if they introduced the "chat control" legislation.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It’s worth noting that mullvad is based in Sweden

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Mullvad has proven time and time again that they don't log anything at all. Even if they give backdoor access, there's nothing to record.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Literally the first sentence of the article: "The government wants Signal and Whatsapp to be forced to store messages sent using the apps."

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

WireGuard protocol logs very little information by default. There is literally no way to make it log more than it does by default.

Even then, Mullvad has no customer information. You're given a customer number, which is intentional.

I stand by my initial post in that there is very little, if anything, to record on a Mullvad server. If I'm not mistaken, Mullvad recently announced they are running all VPN services through a RAM only setup, therefore, there aren't even any drives to record customer information even if they chose to.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 2 days ago (15 children)

The "if" to that "then" being that if they pass a law that would make Signal illegal in Sweden, then Signal will leave Sweden.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I'm a bit surprised that the armed forces are openly opposing this, but good for them!

[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 days ago (3 children)

That is because they just decided to switch to use it for internal communications. This means that they would have to roll back that decision.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't get how its supposed to work...they want to require messengers to include backdoors in their software? So when a program is FOSS, then you can literally just use it knowing there is no backdoor..also, what blocks you from using a server in different country? Wtf that even means...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Then politicians would simply require for "any technical measures to ensure the backdoor to be available" or something like that, meaning it would be Signals' job to ensure the backdoor works. They don't give a shit how something is done (IT is just too complex for most of them), only that it gets done somehow. For that very reason federal digital services are such a shitshow so often, they just don't understand what they even ask for so professionals always have to work around politicians' demands constantly breaking even the most basic security principles.

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