We shall not see them relit in our lifetimes:
Signal CEO Meredith Whittaker says her company will withdraw from countries that force messaging providers to allow law enforcement officials to access encrypted user data, as Sweden continues to mull such plans.
Whittaker said Signal intends to exit Sweden should its government amend existing legislation essentially mandating the end of end-to-end encryption (E2EE), an identical position it took as the UK considered its Online Safety Bill, which ultimately did pass with a controversial encryption-breaking clause, although it can only be invoked where technically feasible.
Basically the Sweden.Gov is asking Signal to get pregnant, but only a little bit pregnant. But vulnerabilities (and that's exactly what a government mandated encryption backdoor is) don't work that way.
And from the Department of Irony, the Swedish military oppose this:
The Swedish Armed Forces routinely use Signal and are opposing the bill, saying that a backdoor could introduce vulnerabilities that could be exploited by bad actors.I guess this is just Exhibit 14,543,928 that Europe is fundamentally unserious about their own defense.
This follows hard on the heels of Apple turning off encryption in the UK.
Looking at what's going on over there, it makes me think that maybe we should just cut the whole of them loose, to sink or swim on their own. Unwilling to defend themselves, increasingly despotic to their subjects at home, maybe JD Vance is right after all that we no longer have shared values.
