Notices by Meredith Whittaker (mer__edith@mastodon.world)

@brayd @signalapp We will never weaken encryption, add a backdoor, bow or scrape, etc. We would rather shut down or leave a market. Our position does not change based on jurisdiction.

I remember Google+, and the idee fixe and mad hype around it. (Google was afraid of Facebook.) G+ was a ghost town. But for the first year or so the G+ team reported astronomical engagement numbers. Huhh?

Finally we learned they were counting every G+ notification dropped at the top of Gmail as an "engagement."

Anyway, I wonder how they're measuring this...

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-earnings-q3-2024-new-code-created-by-ai-2024-10

Case in point: there's no way to build a backdoor that only the "good guys" can use.

When the entire technical community says that the EU's ChatControl legislation + similar pose serious cybersecurity threats, we're not exaggerating for effect.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/u-s-wiretap-systems-targeted-in-china-linked-hack-327fc63b?st=byoB7m

📣NEW paper! Don’t believe the hype: bigger AI ≠ better AI. @SashaMTL, @GaelVaroquaux and me on how the race to bigger, and bigger AI has bad consequences and isn't necessary.

1. Smaller AI models often perform better than big models in context

And

2. Obsession with bigness has severe collateral consequences, from climate costs, to concentrated power, to more surveillance, to the capture of AI research.

All of this, and what we can do instead 👇

https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.14160

@apicultor @x_cli @briankrebs

That Flatpak package, linked above in this thread, is unofficial.

Our official download instructions for Linux tell people how to install our APT key, and every release is signed.

I'm assuming Brian Krebs' original is referring to macOS. Our releases are signed on macOS and Windows too.

💐

Catching up on some of the "Little Tech" rhetoric from a16z. A lot more to say here.

But one thing that stands out as a rhetorical flaw in the pitch: curbing Big Tech startup acquisitions is listed as bad for little tech. Even as little tech is presented as the enabler of competition and innovation, contra Big Tech's market consolidation. Consolidation that is, of course, facilitated via acquisitions.

https://pmarca.substack.com/p/the-little-tech-agenda

This is why we're seeing dumb AI everywhere, and self owns like MS's Recall

Recouping revenue from massively expensive AI development is urgent, market fit's unclear, so corps are shoving "AI" into everything to please investors/hope for fit/keep the bubble inflated

IMO this also explains the lockstep turn to military contracting (OAI, et al). A good way to sell tech that "doesn't actually work" via lucrative contracts whose efficacy won't be assessed w trad. metrics.

https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/ais-600b-question/

📣Official statement: the new EU chat controls proposal for mass scanning is the same old surveillance with new branding.

Whether you call it a backdoor, a front door, or “upload moderation” it undermines encryption & creates significant vulnerabilities

https://signal.org/blog/pdfs/upload-moderation.pdf

@svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer We would not comply. Then what would happen would happen, which per the law would amount to somehow being prevented from operating in the EU. Likely through app store deplatforming but who knows.

Signal strongly opposes the newest #ChatControl proposal in Europe.

Let there be no doubt: we will leave the EU market rather than undermine our privacy guarantees.

This proposal--if passed and enforced against us--would require us to make this choice.

It's surveillance wine in safety bottles.

See more: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/majority-for-chat-control-possible-users-who-refuse-scanning-to-be-prevented-from-sharing-photos-and-links/ @echo_pbreyer

Ignoring expert consensus, feeling no shame following exposés showing tech lobbyists shaping these EU surveillance proposals, EU politicians are at it again

So, we'll reiterate: Signal would rather leave the EU market than subject our users to mass gov surveillance. FULL STOP

https://netzpolitik.org/2024/internes-protokoll-belgien-will-nutzer-verpflichten-chatkontrolle-zuzustimmen/

Most lives could be much shorter, too, if we insisted on measuring their worth against brutal, joyless utilitarian metrics.

I have a lot more to say, but I'll hold it for now and simply wonder aloud...

Which BigTech clouds are the "Lavender" & "Where's Daddy?" AI systems running on? What APIs are they using? Which libraries are they calling?

What work did my former colleagues, did I, did *you* contribute to that may now be enabling this automated slaughter?

(Also, content warning. This is some of the sickest shit I've ever read.)

https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

📢 My @NDSSSymposium keynote is up!

On how we lost the crypto wars, why surveillance advertising must be understood as the foundation of "AI", & why the tactics of the past won't serve us in defending privacy today.

Text: https://signal.org/blog/pdfs/ndss-keynote.pdf
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA2fRRO4qug&t=2s

📢 New from me!

On why "privacy for me but not for thee" amounts to "privacy for no one," and how a German Military comms leak demonstrates that mass private comms services, like Signal, are the only way to ensure privacy--for anyone and everyone.👇

https://netzpolitik.org/2024/taurus-leak-when-it-comes-to-privacy-its-all-or-nothing/

What?

Govs hire consultants daily to write whatever. Often, they produce trash. Here, a v small consultancy wrote a report for USG amplifying discredited X-risk ideologies + prescribing bad policy. AFAICT it's based based on ~5 ppl's hunches?

Why're we taking this seriously?

https://time.com/6898967/ai-extinction-national-security-risks-report/

Usernames...for everyone!!!

Usernames are now out of beta and available for anyone using the latest version of the Signal app--≥7.0.

🎁❤️

@aral ❤️

The election year focus on 'deep fakes' is a distraction, conveniently ignoring the documented role of surveillance ads--or, the ability to target specific segments to shape opinion. This's a boon to Meta/Google, who've rolled back restrictions on political ads in recent years.

Put another way, a deep fake is neither here nor there unless you have a platform + tools to disseminate it strategically.

MS--Open AI's ~parent company--already has massive US military contracts. This is the biz model.

This news is also one more alarm re. the current AI paradigm, its reliance on concentrated corp power, & the undemocratic decision making power this gives these (primarily) US-based corps.

https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/