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‘Encryption is deeply threatening to power’: Meredith Whittaker of messaging app Signal
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: August 5th, 2024
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/18/e...
Meredith Whittaker practises what she preaches. As the president of the Signal Foundation, she’s a strident voice backing privacy for all. In 2018, she burst into public view as one of the organisers of the Google walkouts, mobilising 20,000 employees of the search giant in a twin protest over the company’s support for state surveillance and failings over sexual misconduct. The Signal Foundation ... exists to “protect free expression and enable secure global communication through open source privacy technology”. The criticisms of encrypted communications are as old as the technology: allowing anyone to speak without the state being able to tap into their conversations is a godsend for criminals, terrorists and paedophiles around the world. But, Whittaker argues, few of Signal’s loudest critics seem to be consistent in what they care about. “If we really cared about helping children, why are the UK’s schools crumbling? Why was social services funded at only 7% of the amount that was suggested to fully resource the agencies that are on the frontlines of stopping abuse? Signal either works for everyone or it works for no one. Every military in the world uses Signal, every politician I’m aware of uses Signal. Every CEO I know uses Signal because anyone who has anything truly confidential to communicate recognises that storing that on a Meta database or in the clear on some Google server is not good practice.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
