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295 points mdhb | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.193s | source
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bsimpson ◴[] No.43560742[source]
One nice side effect of Signal's importance for governmental/military use is that it helps keep it free for civilian use. They can't mandate a backdoor for something other parts of the government rely on to be secure.

I once heard a great anecdote to that effect, and to my embarrassment I can't recall the details to repeat here.

(And yes, I understand that there are limits on what is appropriate to share with civilian hardware on a civilian network, but the truth stands that part of the reason there's not a push to breach encryption in the US like there is in the UK is because Signal is relied upon even by the government when they need a private channel on civilian hardware.)

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leptons ◴[] No.43560780[source]
Sorry, but no, there is no good thing to come from government using Signal. With its auto-deleting messages, that makes it illegal for government employees to use, and destroys transparency.
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1. snowwrestler ◴[] No.43561413[source]
Auto-deleting messages are not necessarily auto-illegal. Voice conversations are also auto-deleting but obviously they’re common among government employees.

Officials are required to document decisions in an archival way. If they fail to do that, it is arguable that their failure to follow the law is the problem, not the messaging technology.

I think it is in everyone’s interest to resist the assumption that chat and text messaging is intended to be a permanent record—even for govt officials.