this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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If this is passed, would this only apply to people in France? Like Signal and WhatsApp, etc, could they make a different version of the app / backend that's unencrypted just for them? Is that even possible? I can't imagine Signal adding a backdoor for everyone in the world.
Or would they just outright pull their software / apps from being used in France? But then what's stopping someone in France from sideloading the app and using a VPN?
Signal has already threatened to pull out of both Australia and the UK when they were talking about passing similar laws.
And Sweden, just this week.
Yeah, if Signal is pulling out of your country, you dun goofed.
This is yet another way tying accounts to phone numbers can come back to bite you! I guess pulling out means denying registration from the country's numbers as well? So that would mean either a constant additional expense (which might be significant for poor people), or constantly risk getting the account deleted if you tied it to one-time rental.
The need for a phone number and SMS verification to create an account. Signal should do something about that.
There are ways around that, but the goal isn't to stop everyone from using E2EE; it's to make E2EE non-mainstream.
Nothing technically stops you. But if the government can prove you have been using Signal, all of a sudden you can be in a lot of trouble. This could be used for political oppression. Plus, the fewer the number of countries allowing E2EE, the less incentive there is to make or distribute such software. As it becomes harder to find, most people will end up using sanctioned, backdoored software, which makes the few that don't stand out even more.
I don't think the current proposal in France sanctions individuals for using E2EE; it sanctions service providers for providing it.
It is possible to do, to some extent. Everything's possible. But then, when people that are on both side of this encryption barrier wants to talk, then both must use unencrypted messages. You'd also have the obvious case of someone having a phone/device/account from country A temporarily crossing through country FuckingFranceOrUK, so what do you do in that case?
You'd need to implement that, add UI features to know if you're using encryption or not, and above all, it's fucking stupid and against what most sane messaging solutions wants to do.
I'm sure it's possible to find people that would gladly do all that. Hopefully those people are not in the business of making all the useful communication services we currently use.