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Today's AWS debacle is the perfect example of the reason why in the last few years I started to be less enthusiastic about Signal, and more oriented to federated or even P2P solutions like XMPP and Jami. I wrote about it already:

https://gagliardoni.net/#im_battle_2025

Signal was down for few hours today, after an aoutage that affected AWS:

https://mastodon.world/@Mer__edith/115405436746725236

Let's ignore for a second the blind reliance on AWS or any other cloud provider. In a decentralized system, this would not have happened, or at least it would have not impacted so many users.

Yes, I am a cryptographer myself, I know that Signal's encryption is the best. But encryption is not everything. Availability issues, geopolitical troubles, risk of enshittification, limitations on users' freedom to use and control the software lead to a lack of trust, even in a supersecure solution. And I say that with honest admiration for the folks at Signal, who are doing a great job.

May they prove me wrong over and over again.

#signal #im #aws #amazon #privacy #security #digitalsovereignty #selfhosting #fediverse #federation #p2p #enshittification #xmpp #jami #politics #opensource #freesoftware #libre