3 ms·

I think he refer to this https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-crypto-keepers-levine https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-crypto-keepers-levine

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
What a bizarre article!! The author can’t seem to tell his story without tossing attacks at the NRA and guns - while admitting that there is a point to everyone having the same level of access to things the government might use against you (be it encryption or guns). The author seems to embrace that the unbelievable idea from the media that “Trump won, now you need to encrypt your email”... while that sentiment ignores it was Obama admin that was prosecuting whistleblowers more than anyone before, using the NSA to unmask citizens in political oppsoition, the IRS targeting, and under Clinton pushed the “Internet freedom” policies... I feel like the article was gaslighting itself. And then finally at the bottom, Signal is funded by a company that is associated with a government group. Which is concerning, no doubt. Just what a strange and often seemingly self-arguing article! Maybe I just don’t understand the author at all.
geofft 8y ago
That article (accurately) points to Signal's initial funding by the Open Technology Fund, an program that gives grants to internet freedom technologies that line up with US interests and is funded by Radio Free Asia, which is under the State Department. Radio Free Asia was previously CIA-funded, many many years before the creation of the Open Technology Fund. (Also, Radio Free Asia, both in the past and in the present, is working on problems where being secure against large governments is much more useful than having back doors.) It has never been NSA-affiliated (unless you count "being part of the US government" as NSA-affiliated). The relationship between Signal and the State Department is solely one of funding, not of technical interaction, let alone technical endorsement.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Further: a bunch number of open-source crypto projects received OTF funding. It was the policy of RFA to fund improvements and assessments in secure messaging and privacy technologies in general.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

What a bizarre article!! The author can’t seem to tell his story without tossing attacks at the NRA and guns - while admitting that there is a point to everyone having the same level of access to things the government might use against you (be it encryption or guns). The author seems to embrace that the unbelievable idea from the media that “Trump won, now you need to encrypt your email”... while that sentiment ignores it was Obama admin that was prosecuting whistleblowers more than anyone before, using the NSA to unmask citizens in political oppsoition, the IRS targeting, and under Clinton pushed the “Internet freedom” policies... I feel like the article was gaslighting itself. And then finally at the bottom, Signal is funded by a company that is associated with a government group. Which is concerning, no doubt. Just what a strange and often seemingly self-arguing article! Maybe I just don’t understand the author at all.

geofft 8y ago

That article (accurately) points to Signal's initial funding by the Open Technology Fund, an program that gives grants to internet freedom technologies that line up with US interests and is funded by Radio Free Asia, which is under the State Department. Radio Free Asia was previously CIA-funded, many many years before the creation of the Open Technology Fund. (Also, Radio Free Asia, both in the past and in the present, is working on problems where being secure against large governments is much more useful than having back doors.) It has never been NSA-affiliated (unless you count "being part of the US government" as NSA-affiliated). The relationship between Signal and the State Department is solely one of funding, not of technical interaction, let alone technical endorsement.

tptacek 8y ago
Further: a bunch number of open-source crypto projects received OTF funding. It was the policy of RFA to fund improvements and assessments in secure messaging and privacy technologies in general.