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TFA says: > The switch to Signal will also allow the Conservative party to stem the flow of leaks emerging from its inner circle. How will it do that? > Like
by ttctciyf 7y ago
TFA says:
> The switch to Signal will also allow the Conservative party to stem the flow of leaks emerging from its inner circle.
How will it do that?
> Like WhatsApp, Signal has end-to-end encryption baked in, preventing a foreign power or individual from accessing sensitive conversations. In addition, it also includes settings, which, when enabled, self-destructs messages after a period of time.
> Unfortunately, Signal doesn't allow group moderators to block individuals from taking screenshots, which would frustrate the process of leaking a conversation to the press.
But if you look at the Buzzfeed stories referred to, they are based on insider leaks of Whatsapp traffic, often in the form of screenshotted group messages.
So while it's good for the Reg to poke fun at the implied encryption hypocrisy, they do their readers a disservice by not highlighting the discrepancy between the claimed cure and the actual disease.
In fact framing the Buzzfeed "whatsapp leak" stories as a security exploit issue is downright misleading.
If you look a little closer, they are all authored by ex-Breitbart journalist Alex Wickham and seem to have dried up around the time the previous PM Theresa May resigned. I think there's an obvious inference, which I will leave to the reader ;)
- panarky 7y agoTFA does not state that Signal is more secure than WhatsApp. They're switching to Signal because WhatsApp has a hard cap of 250 members per group, while Signal's group size is unlimited. With the Conservative Party's recent election win, they now must communicate with much larger groups. If WhatsApp isn't an option, then Signal is certainly better able to "stem the flow of leaks" than alternatives like email or Slack. Naturally, none of these prevent screenshots, so that's irrelevant.
- ttctciyf 7y agoA direct quote: > The switch to Signal will also allow the Conservative party to stem the flow of leaks emerging from its inner circle. which implies there's some security advantage over whatsapp (viz. the word "also".) But no evidence is provided to that effect.
- blackearl 7y agoAnd none of these things will prevent a camera, or someone else with a phone's camera. It's funny for anyone to insinuate a group of 250+ will ever be safe from leaking information.
- philjohn 7y agoI know we hate government IT contracts, but why isn't there a requirement to use something that saves a paper trail.
- benwad 7y agoIndeed, apparently the real reason they switched was so that they can have conversations bigger than WhatsApp's limit of 256 people. Good luck preventing leaks from a group that size!
- nexuist 7y ago> Unfortunately, Signal doesn't allow group moderators to block individuals from taking screenshots, which would frustrate the process of leaking a conversation to the press. Right, because there are unfortunately no longer any journalists with cameras anymore.