Signal is drawing a hard line on the federal government’s proposed surveillance legislation: comply with Bill C-22 or leave the country. The secure messaging app says it would rather ditch the Canadian market than be forced to weaken the privacy protections it has built its reputation on. In an interview with The Globe and Mail

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[+] reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca -18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Could be a bait and switch. Say they resist publicly and to the media, but accept the terms behind the scenes.

Government gets what they want and provider keeps clients and probably picks up a few more.

But what do I know.. it’s unheard of for this kind of deception in the real world.. right?

[–] DrBob@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 day ago

And maybe my Aunt is really my uncle and about to transition into a bicycle.

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I can see this happening with other companies, but for signal

they have a consistent track record of loudly fighting against similar laws and threatening to pull out of markets if the law is passed
the client app is open source and so they can't make any secret deals

[–] reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

Yeah. I agree I can’t see signal doing it.

I messed up and commented in the wrong post. My original comment was really directed at WindScribe on another post where they apparently followed suit with signal. I have had dealings with them in the past and am happily not a customer anymore.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

The server is also open source. (No guarantees the actual server is running that codebase, as is always the case with servers, but the codebase is out there)

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago

Seems like a huge risk. You either lose a part of your userbase by leaving the country, or you risk losing your reputation internationally if it's discovered that you are complicit in spying, and reputation is everything in the world of encrypted messaging.