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Then provide useful, technically complete, secure alternatives that are vetted by the government. The expectations of your employees are changing, so the techno

Then provide useful, technically complete, secure alternatives that are vetted by the government. The expectations of your employees are changing, so the technology you provide should change along.

rapsey 6y ago
Unfortunately the agencies in charge of vetting this kind of software work in timespans of 2-3 years (not just Germany in most other countries as well).
raverbashing 6y ago
Gov IT departments are a couple of years behind (average) company IT departments which are a couple of years behind what people use.
- jeltz 6y ago
  The French government uses Matrix so it does not have to be like that. And the German military is looking into moving to Matrix too.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    My statement was a bit generalizing, sure, but good to know things are moving faster in times of need. Compare with this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21435572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21435572
rad_gruchalski 6y ago
The article says: The Düsseldorf newspaper Handelsblatt said Kelber, previously a Social Democrat (SPD) federal parliamentarian, was reacting to complaints from citizens about the use of WhatsApp by unnamed federal authorities. It seems some „authorities” used it as a citizen communication channel for official contact.
mtgx 6y ago
I don't understand why the EU members aren't working on such projects together. For instance, it doesn't make sense for an EU country to develop its own Linux distro (as Germany has tried to do in the past). If anything, there should be an EU-wide Linux distro that is used by all EU members' institutions, including government agencies, local agencies, schools, etc. It's not just about the development costs and time/R&D spent on that particular variant, but also the fact that training gets much cheaper in the long term if government employees across the EU nations know how to use the same system. Same for any other open source project, including messengers. France built its own Riot-based end-to-end encrypted messenger, but they should open it up to the whole EU and then the whole EU should contribute to it and used it for its government workers. There should also be severe penalties for any EU member that tries to backdoor it, etc (even if the code is open source, it could still happen as a backdoor could be hidden within "badly written code", too): https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed-as-the-basis-for-frances-secure-instant-messenger-app https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed...
anoncake 6y ago
Banning WhatsApp actually accomplishes that by creating demand for these alternatives.
- VMG 6y ago
  nope, people will use SMS and email
  - anoncake 6y ago
    Temporarily. Unless SMS and email actually fulfill everyone's needs, which would be quite surprising.

Then provide useful, technically complete, secure alternatives that are vetted by the government. The expectations of your employees are changing, so the technology you provide should change along.

rapsey 6y ago

Unfortunately the agencies in charge of vetting this kind of software work in timespans of 2-3 years (not just Germany in most other countries as well).

raverbashing 6y ago

Gov IT departments are a couple of years behind (average) company IT departments which are a couple of years behind what people use.

jeltz 6y ago
The French government uses Matrix so it does not have to be like that. And the German military is looking into moving to Matrix too.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  My statement was a bit generalizing, sure, but good to know things are moving faster in times of need. Compare with this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21435572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21435572

rad_gruchalski 6y ago

The article says: The Düsseldorf newspaper Handelsblatt said Kelber, previously a Social Democrat (SPD) federal parliamentarian, was reacting to complaints from citizens about the use of WhatsApp by unnamed federal authorities. It seems some „authorities” used it as a citizen communication channel for official contact.

mtgx 6y ago

I don't understand why the EU members aren't working on such projects together. For instance, it doesn't make sense for an EU country to develop its own Linux distro (as Germany has tried to do in the past). If anything, there should be an EU-wide Linux distro that is used by all EU members' institutions, including government agencies, local agencies, schools, etc. It's not just about the development costs and time/R&D spent on that particular variant, but also the fact that training gets much cheaper in the long term if government employees across the EU nations know how to use the same system. Same for any other open source project, including messengers. France built its own Riot-based end-to-end encrypted messenger, but they should open it up to the whole EU and then the whole EU should contribute to it and used it for its government workers. There should also be severe penalties for any EU member that tries to backdoor it, etc (even if the code is open source, it could still happen as a backdoor could be hidden within "badly written code", too): https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed-as-the-basis-for-frances-secure-instant-messenger-app https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed...

anoncake 6y ago

Banning WhatsApp actually accomplishes that by creating demand for these alternatives.

VMG 6y ago
nope, people will use SMS and email
- anoncake 6y ago
  Temporarily. Unless SMS and email actually fulfill everyone's needs, which would be quite surprising.