it’s not really different from Whatsapp or Telegram
That’s not true. WhatsApp is fully proprietary and Telegram doesn’t use E2EE by default. And even if you enable it, they use a weak encryption protocol.
Comment on Time to get serious with E2E encrypted messaging
hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 4 days agoThe downside of Signal is that it’s centralized, and thus at the whim of those who run it. Structurally, it’s not really different from Whatsapp or Telegram except for who owns it.
Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Telorand@reddthat.com 4 days ago
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison, simply because their structures are quite different. Signal is FOSS run by a 501©3 non-profit, whereas Whatsapp is obviously run by Meta and data mines its users; Telegram is also a nonprofit, but privacy was never their goal or mission.
They’re all centralized, which I agree is a negative, but if something must be centralized, being run by a nonprofit foundation whose mission is privacy and E2EE is about the best option you could hope for in that scenario.
Vinstaal0@lemmy.world 3 days ago
There should be a difference between using Whatsapp while in a county with good privacy laws (like one of the EU member) or one without.
As far as I know Meta only collects and abuses data it get’s from people where there are now laws in place to prevent it (so why wouldn’t they do it).
We should normalise the audits on security and privacy that are done by proper accountants. It doesn’t help that a lot of people call bookkeepers accountants which isn’t correct, but a signature from an accountant (CPA/AA/RA or whatever) should have some impact to prove the services are secure or private.
Telorand@reddthat.com 3 days ago
Unfortunately, in practice, the laws don’t seem to mean much to the wealthy.
Like other gigantic companies that have billions of dollars, it’s easier and more profitable to ask forgiveness than permission; paying legal fines that are 0.01% of their overall profits is just the cost of doing business. Zuck has been caught on multiple occasions skirting the law (see the most recent revelation of them surreptitiously leeching scores of books from Anna’s Archive and a previous one of partnering with Cambridge Analytica, for example).
I’m all good with having companies submit to hostile financial audits, but I’m not sure how a CPA would be qualified to validate security or privacy. Code security audits should be done by cryptographic experts, and I think you would need both.
Perhaps one day, we’ll have Certified Public Cryptographers that have a fiduciary duty to ensure people are secure or private.
Vinstaal0@lemmy.world 2 days ago
A CPA is required to higher other professionals when their knowledge doesnt reach to the subject in question, so yeah they would get a security or privacy specialist to help them. The upside of using a CPA is that they would look at the entire process. The rapport of a CPA is going to be a lot more expensive though.
In the US people defend that companies don’t publish their annual reports, plus some people also defend these companies regardless of what they do. It’s almost religion. But if you would require companies to at least publish some figures and require bigger companies to have a statement signet by a CPA then more of these companies would have issues. Since a CPA can generally get in a lot of trouble if they mess up (at least here in NL)
They don’t need to be hostile audit’s, heck that’s probably the worst way of doing it. Work together with the company and help them to pass the audit and they will be more transparent .