Signal is standing its ground to protect its app’s security, threatening on Wednesday to leave France if encryption backdoor requirements are enacted, just as it said it would do in Sweden.
“Those hyping this bad law have rushed to assure French politicians that the proposal isn’t breaking encryption. Their arguments are as tedious as they are stale, as they are laughable. For those catching up, let’s review the basics: end to end encryption must only have two ends—sender and recipients. Otherwise, it is backdoored,” wrote Signal CEO Meredith Whittaker in a post on X.
“Whatever method is devised to add a third end—from a perverted PRNG in a cryptographic protocol, to vendor-provided government software grafted onto the side of secure communications that allow said government to add themselves to your chats—it rips a hole in the hull of private communications and is a backdoor.”