Another article, much better and presents in more detail that Olvid was audited on an older version and chosen because it was French and they applied for it (French) https://www.numerama.com/tech/1575168-pourquoi-les-ministres-vont-devoir-renoncer-a-whatsapp-signal-et-telegram.html
Google translate link original post : https://www-lepoint-fr.translate.goog/high-tech-internet/les-ministres-francais-invites-a-desinstaller-whatsapp-signal-et-telegram-29-11-2023-2545099_47.php?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=wapp
The translation has some mistakes but good enough to understand the context.
Here is a short summary :
Olvid passed a 35d intrusion test by Anssi (French cybersecurity state organisation) experts or designated experts, with code examination without finding any security breach. Which is not the case of all other 3 messaging apps (either because they didn’t do any test, or because they didn’t pass).
This makes WhatsApp, signal and telegram unreliable for state security.
And so government members and ministerial offices will have to use Olvid or Tchap (French state in house messaging app).
More detail in the article.
They had Tchap that may not be perfect but is open source (based on matrix/element), hosted in France and already used by 400 000 ppl from the public services… Why pay for a new app? Don’t get it…
It’s not open source…big no no for me 🤷♂️
Looks like it is: https://github.com/olvid-io/olvid-android/blob/main/LICENSE
Yup I did see they were on GitHub but when I looked the iOS repository is months (and several releases) out of date.
I’d expect an open source project to be working in public…not in private and updating their public repositories later down the line
Signal isn’t much better in this regard. They certainly don’t work directly in the public repos - they have internal repos that they work from and they push updates from them to the public repos after the fact.
I’m not sure about the current state but when I looked into it a couple years ago, their client side repos were around a year behind. I recall reading some issues stating that the client was so far behind that the server was refusing to communicate with builds of it.
sorry sir, we didn’t realize the world revolves around you. we’ll change it to your liking at once. We’ll run the code by you before we even think of it first
Another article, much better and presents in more detail that Olvid was audited on an older version and chosen because it was French and they applied for it (French) https://www.numerama.com/tech/1575168-pourquoi-les-ministres-vont-devoir-renoncer-a-whatsapp-signal-et-telegram.html
Honestly at the security level, critical infrastructure, which messaging is, is something every country should have independently. So it makes complete sense for the French government to set up their critical messaging infrastructure inside of France with a French company who cannot be compelled by external intelligence agencies.
Olvid 26, rue Vignon 75009 Paris France
Lmao big surprise.
I don’t know much but what I do know is when a government endorses a secure messaging service, it’s definitely not secure.
