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EPA Officials May be Using Signal to “Spread Their Goals Covertly”

posted by janrinok on Thursday February 16 2017, @11:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the are-we-for-encryption-or-against? dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Two Republican members of Congress sent a formal letter Tuesday to the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of the Inspector General, expressing concern that "approximately a dozen career EPA officials" are using the encrypted messaging app Signal to covertly plan strategy and may be running afoul of the Freedom of Information Act.

The open source app has gained renewed interest in the wake of the election of President Donald Trump.

As Ars has reported previously, all Signal messages and voice calls are end-to-end encrypted using the Signal Protocol, which has since been adopted by WhatsApp and other companies. However, unlike other messaging apps, Signal's maker, Open Whisper Systems, makes a point of not keeping any data, encrypted or otherwise, about its users. (WhatsApp also does not retain chat history but allows for backups using third-party services, like iCloud, which allows for message history to be restored when users set up a new device. Signal does not allow messages to be stored with a third party.)

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/house-members-epa-officials-may-be-using-signal-to-spread-their-goals-covertly/

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @06:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @06:18AM (#468106)

    Okay, I was about to install this app on my android phone. It basically wants every permission my phone is capable of giving, including access to: Identity, Calendar, Contacts, Location, SMS, Phone, Photos and Media, and Camera. I'd think an app that wanted to respect my privacy by default would rather not have that sort of information in the first place.

    Should I install it anyway just because Snowden says I should?

    At this point it seems like even WhatsApp respects my privacy more, permission for access to location / camera / microphone are not needed to use whatsapp to just send texts and can be granted on a per instance basis when I explicitly try to use functionality that requires those permissions.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @06:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @06:22AM (#468107)

    Should I install it anyway just because Snowden says I should?

    This is AC here, replying to his (our? my?) own question.

    If you read open whisper's website, you'll see their chief engineer is a famous hacker, so like why would you worry?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @08:14AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @08:14AM (#468131)

    Not the same AC here - dude, I'm logging in from your account! U need 2 get serious abotu security.