cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/71321898

Netzpoltik details that police are able to gain access in this way either through physical access to someone’s phone or by intercepting verification codes via a state-sanctioned phishing attack or intercepting SMS messages via telephone surveillance

  • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    It’s a vulnerability precisely because people always swarm to defend Signal in stories like this, as though using Signal means the authorities can’t read your messages. Seems like every six months there’s some story involving Signal users getting hacked, and every time there’s a rush of wellacshuallys explaining why it wasn’t really Signal’s fault. (that last one is particularly egregious because I remember people defending it as “it wasn’t Signal, it was their partner who they subcontracted and gave your personal data to”, which is crazy levels of mental gymnastics.)

    Security is more than just encryption. If you flag something up as “hey use this if you want to hide from the Government” and have a personal phone number attached to it, that’s like a red rag to a bull.

    • FauxLiving@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      as though using Signal means the authorities can’t read your messages.

      Nobody who understands the topic thinks this.

      Signal exists to prevent the contents from being read off the wire and from having the capability of compelling Signal’s parent company from turning over stored messages.

      It doesn’t exist to hand hold you so you don’t get phished, or prevent you from running it on a vendor phone full of spyware. You’re responsible for making sure your hardware is secure and that you’re not socially engineered.

    • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      IT DOESN’T ADVERTISE ITSELF AS A SECURE PLATFORM!!!

      It says PRIVACY. If you are dancing ass naked inside your house but you have your windows open… guess what?

      • imminent_nebula@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        A lot of these types use ‘perfect being the enemy of good’ as their attack vector. If it’s not private and anonymous why bother? If you can’t cut out all big tech companies, if you can’t stop buying any American goods, if you can’t feed all the poor or house all the homeless, etc. It’s an effective way to attack progression by making people believe they should just stop fighting, they’ll never win. You nailed it, Signal is private, it doesn’t claim to be anything else.

      • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        lol, the block caps three exclamation marks aren’t doing much to dispel the “rabid fanboi” image of Signal supporters

        • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          A rabid fan of a message application? Just for trying to point out that if the police get your unlocked phone then they have compromised your messages?