Hi, I have seen the article, which suggests that Great Britain wants to break the privacy code on Signal. Have you heard about it maybe?
Signal says it’ll shut down in UK if Online Safety Bill approved
Regain your privacy! Adopt /e/ the unGoogled mobile OS and online services
How can an app be banned in a country?
How can a developer of an app specify where it is used?
I understand how Google Play Store can do that, but how could the UK government or even Signal themselves stop someone from using Signal on a de-googled phone, especially one with a VPN?
The trouble is: when they achieve this in one western country the path is clear for all western countries, sooner or later.
UK government will make certain demands of Signal. Signal will refuse to comply. So UK government will force UK ISPs to block Signal traffic. They might even go so far as to demand Google blocks the app download from UK IP addresses, though this won’t really be necessary once the ISPs have implemented the instruction. Of course VPNs will be able to circumvent this but they will probably be the next target. UK is doomed & I’m too old to emigrate and start again.
…the same here in EU and germany. I promise: The day they will cancel /e/OS and my phone of freedom will be the day I discontinue using a smartphone! “Smart” is turning to “dumb” these days!
Yes, I’m with you. But try then to do online banking or something.
I wouldn’t trust anything I had such little control over to do banking. Computers are the only devices I would use for that.
Yes, of course. But in the most cases you need now an app on a smart phone for two factor authentication in the online banking account and the number of banks who still let you use a primitive phone for receiving a primitive SMS message or give you indeed a separate proprietary device for that is shrinking.
Good point. Mine still uses SMS but I suppose they will change that eventually.
An important thought, which also already frightened me! I am a few months ago already back from the app use as 2FA to the normal SMS. Still works. But I also see the general effort to force us to use a compliant smartphone.
Whether it’s 2FA for banking, digital ID systems, or digital currency, we’re all supposed to wear our electronic ankle bracelets - and pay for them ourselves!
As I said, after /e/OS (or comparable, free solutions), the attempt to live without a smartphone starts for me. I think it would be something like the “Punkt. MP02” …
I had to discuss this issue with my bank which is a very small and a very friendly one. They allowed me and a few others receiving plain SMS “as long as it works”, this means: as long as the responsible company in background and my telephone provider do still support this.
And it’s more and more without any standards. Everyone defines his own procedure.
My health insurance can’t even send proper email - they send me a HTML mail which informs me in three languages that I have a message in my inbox on their server. Then they expect indeed that I use my browser, execute two times (!) a 2FA (receive two SMS and type in two 6-digit numbers) to get on their website just to learn that they received the doctor’s bill I sent a few days before. (No need to mention that their damned website is not usable at all when you have uBlock on or come over a tor connection …)
I think blockchain with crypto will become standard
Surely there are enough encryption apps out there for this not to be an issue even if the bill does get passed? Just don’t use Signal, simple as that.
Also, Great Britain is not the same as the United Kingdom.
No, it’s part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So if Signal were to become available in the UK (a big “if” IMHO) then it will be unavailable in Great Britain.
Interesting. If it does become an issue, which apps do you suggest Signal users move to?
This is a very good question. 
Which messenger app will be a good solution in place of Signal. 
Do you think that any messenger working on Signal would be banned as well in the result, or I go too far I mean that Session, WhatsApp, they are based on Session protocol. Could it also ban them from UK?
Any messenger would be banned or practically banned via blocking if it refused the government demands. But that wasn’t my point. If Signal no longer works in UK then which operator among those that remain could you trust? They would all have to have kowtowed.
My guess is the most people will then tend to use unencrypted messaging again like it has been for years with email, chat and SMS. Except some creeps and grumblers they will not insist on better privacy. And they will be happy with that. Finally the spook, this guilt-trip, is over! Privacy is something the majority can’t imagine. But what they all know for sure is … it’s arduous. Talk to anyone, when you say you are not on Whatsapp and not on facebook and not on … they roll their eyes, and you are the evil one, not they. Technology has grown much, much faster than any awareness in our minds. And it will still take decades, especially it will need a real digital catastrophe with billions of burned money (and perhaps even killed people), until they learn what their data are and what they can be used and abused for.