Notices by pixelschubsi (pixelschubsi@troet.cafe)

@puppygirlhornypost2 @signalapp @dalias @monocles @kkarhan

For legal reasons, I can't speak about a bunch of internals of Play Services. This page https://developers.google.com/android/guides/overview?hl=en clearly shows that Google has the power to issue automatic updates to the part that is not inside the embedded library. I leave it up to your imagination that for technical reasons, some play services features (including Google Maps) had to replace IPC with dynamic loading.

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

If you are saying, Signal is doing a better job in ensuring that big tech doesn't get rich with the data of its users than WhatsApp, I'll happily sign that.

But to me - and also how Signal advertises itself - it's not only against big tech, but also against state actors. And then this becomes a whole different story.

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

As far as I know, this is turned off by default and even then only visible if people look at the details of a message (which they don't do, realistically). Remember that this only has to happen for a single message to create the link in the contact graph. So if any, this is a red herring, not a mechanism that prevents Signal servers from creating a contact graph, if e.g. forced by the crazy government of the country they are located in.

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

Honestly, "RCE" is the whole purpose of the library embedded here. That's not an issue, it's a feature, Google sells this as dynamically updating your dependency. This is why Signal cannot be made available in the F-Droid store.

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

As is described in the issue, the fallback to revealing the sender when sealed sender fails is not in any way communicated to the user and happens fully automatically. In fact, it randomly happens to users every now and then and that is by design. If it were to notify users when this happens, it would be very confusing.

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

Mastodon removes the line number from the shared link in the nice preview.

In the shared file, line 123 is the reference to a proprietary and obfuscated library that is included as part of the build process. This library was never audited, but it is known to, when used, dynamically load and execute code without any additional sandboxing (thus inheriting all the permissions and access to the private files of the app calling into the library).

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

Contact graph is who you are sending messages to. Signal servers can always see who receives a message and they can trivially see who sent a message if sealed senders is turned off (which, as is shown, can be done by the server). So Signal in fact has access to your contact graph.

They also have access to a bunch of other metadata, like the Apple/Google push token that is known to be used to spy on people: https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments-spying-apple-google-users-through-push-notifications-us-senator-2023-12-06/

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

And I'm not even talking about Signal directly uploading the numbers in your device's phone book (although encrypted in a way that they likely have no direct access to it, but others likely do).

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

Here's the link to the Signal source code dependency file importing a proprietary, obfuscated library that is known to dynamically load and execute arbitrary code from a server in the context of the calling process, thereby granting it access to everything that happens inside the app: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/main/gradle/libs.versions.toml#L123

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

How do you know that Signal company does not share their metadata and contacts graph with Facebook. You make this assumption and you are probably right, but you have no way to verify.

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

Users, to a large degree, download the Signal app from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The apps shipped through this can hardly be verified by endusers. A modified version of the app could be delivered to selected users.

The official Signal app for Android is not fully open source and in its non-free parts does have a mechanism built-in that allows the code to be changed at runtime without allowing external auditors to review it.

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

Specifically for this context, sealed-senders is one of the few features of Signal that differentiates it from WhatsApp, which uses largely the same crypto. If the few extra privacy features of Signal are just best-effort and it's fine they only work if the server does not misbehave, Signal becomes almost the same as WhatsApp - except that the one company that controls everything has a different name.

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

People always go with "Signal has the best crypto" to argue why Signal and only Signal. However, crypto alone is not the only thing in the world.

Good crypto might be necessary for good privacy and security, but it doesn't alone solve the problem. If Signal would send a clear test backup of all messages to their servers, all this great crypto would be worth nothing.

@dalias @kkarhan @signalapp @monocles @lauren

Some people like to make bold statements without verifying first.

The server *can* do malicious things (even targeted, so it maybe already is happening without anyone known) that result in exactly an "undetected breakage of privacy properties". Here's an issue about this, closed with the comment that privacy features are only best-effort with no guarantee: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/13842

@ArneBab @janboehm
Da ging es um zwei Sätze auf der ZDF-Webseite:

> Schönbohm steht wegen möglicher Kontakte zu russischen Geheimdienstkreisen über den umstrittenen Verein 'Cyber-Sicherheitsrat Deutschland' in der Kritik

und an einer anderen Stelle:

> Er soll Kontakte zu russischen Geheimdienstkreisen gehabt haben

Beides m.M.n. recht neutrale Berichterstattung und macht sich die Behauptung nicht zu eigen, aber sieht das Gericht wohl anders.

Siehe https://www.lto.de/recht/nachrichten/n/lg-muenchen-i-26o1261223-arne-schoenbohm-zdf-jan-boehmermann

@jwildeboer That's not how this works. @kiwix is registered as a Swiss company and thus is not a data subject in the sense of the GDPR (only natural persons can be data subjects).