Can’t you guys tell your MPs to get that shit out of here?
Oh believe me we will, but we have to wait for them to call an election (likely autumn 2024). They’re roundly despised and they know it. They’re just milking as much as they can before they’re flung out of Parliament.
They’re a disgrace.
Which makes you wonder what the point in this bill even is. They will barely get an opportunity to make use of it.
Is there any indication that Labour would be any better on this particular issue?
Tell me that pushing this sort of 1984 inspired stuff wasn’t one of the reasons for Brexit.
Apple has said they’ll pull out of UK if required. I won’t use any software that abides.
Apple are operating in China by caving in to the government. I don’t think they’ll be more radical with the UK.
I might be cynical af but I believe China is a market they can’t ignore, but the UK, well…they can afford to send a message there. With some quick google-fu it looks like Apple sells more iPhones about every 8 days than it sells in the UK in a year. That’s comparing 2023 numbers for China to 2019 numbers in the UK for the record, I’m too lazy to look past the first few links really, and doubt that math would change enough to ruin the point.
They also wouldn’t pull out of the UK, they would likely just revert to SMS there in the messages app rather than give the UK a back door into their encryption.
Of course they could ignore China, they just choose not to because they want more money.
This is why I’m worried about Signal. Signal is designed as a central service, which means its easy to block/kill. If similar laws are brought to the country Signal operates from then it could be shutdown. Centralized applications are easy to monetize and easy to kill.
Alternatives that aren’t so obscure you can’t get your family/friends to switch?
Perfect doesn’t have to be the enemy of good. Signal is Good, it could be better. There is a architectural weakness. There will be some other messenger that ticks all the boxes in the future, hopefully they will take what signal has done and continue to improve it.
Signal is the easy for adoption because of the phone number as identity, but its weak because of the centralization. Its currently the best option. I don’t want to spend effort moving normal people to Briar or Session until its absolutely necessary, or those applications improve the onboarding experience.
You can’t send voice messages and videos or any type of file except for photos on Briar. I don’t have a problem with that myself, but it uses a lot of battery power.
Is there anything we can do about it?
Keep using software that doesn’t bow. Let them struggle to enforce any encryption ban. Safety in numbers.
Aye. The logical conclusion to this if left unchecked is restriction all the way down to the OS level. Don’t let them take this first step. If they do, the others will follow.
