Meredith Whittaker Profile picture
Dec 11 6 tweets 1 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
PSA: We've received questions about push notifications. First: push notifications for Signal NEVER contain sensitive unencrypted data & do not reveal the contents of any Signal messages or calls–not to Apple, not to Google, not to anyone but you & the people you're talking to. 1/
In Signal, push notifications simply act as a ping that tells the app to wake up. They don't reveal who sent the message or who is calling (not to Apple, Google, or anyone). Notifications are processed entirely on your device. This is different from many other apps. 2/
What's the background here? Currently, in order to enable push notifications on the dominant mobile operating systems (iOS and Android) those building and maintaining apps like Signal need to use services offered by Apple and Google. 3/
Apple simply doesn’t let you do it another way. And Google, well you could (and we've tried), but the cost to battery life is devastating for performance, rendering this a false option if you want to build a usable, practical, dependable app for people all over the world.* 4/
So, while we do not love Big Tech choke points and the control that a handful of companies wield over the tech ecosystem, we do everything we can to ensure that in spite of this dynamic, if you use Signal your privacy is preserved. 5/
*(Note, if you are among the small number of people that run alt Android-based operating systems that don't include Google libraries, we implement the battery-destroying push option, and hope you have ways to navigate.) 6/

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Meredith Whittaker

Meredith Whittaker Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @mer__edith

Nov 2
I did not sign this statement, tho I agree “open” AI is not the enemy of “safe” AI

I can't endorse its premise that “openness” alone will “mitigate current+future harms from AI,” nor that it’s an antidote to concentrated power in the AI industry 1/

open.mozilla.org/letter/
This is esp true in an ecosystem where the term “open”, in the context of AI, has no clear definition, leaving it ripe for abuse + instrumentation by firms like Meta (who signed on + are currently brandishing this same statement to promo their ersatz "open" AI offerings). 2/
As coauthors & I show (paper👇), “open” AI can, in some forms, ensure transparency+ reusability+ extensibility. This is good. But it *does not* level the playing field in the concentrated AI industry: the resources needed to create/deploy AI remain in the hands of a few firms. 3/
Read 6 tweets
Sep 20
UK Home Office's recent attack on e2e encryption moves into the realm of baseless propaganda, diverging significantly from much of the rest of UK gov & from established expert consensus, complete w media salvo

Let's review, it's important to recognize what they're doing...1/ Screenshot of guardian headline that says "Meta encryption plan will let child abusers hid in the dark, says UK campaign"
After starting w emotionally upsetting statistics about child abuse, which work to activate our frontal cortex and evoke distress, they then characterize e2ee as tech that "overrides current controls in place that help to keep children safe." 2/ Screenshot from home office site, saying, "End-to-end encryption End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a secure communication system where messages can only be seen by the sender and receiver.  Technology companies currently use encryption positively to keep your bank transactions and online purchases safe and secure. Encryption has many other uses throughout everyday life, but some social media companies such as Meta are proposing to implement or already have implemented E2EE in private messaging spaces.  E2EE overrides current controls in place that help to keep children safe and potential...
Subsequently, they engage in a specious rhetorical move common to this latest anti-encryption wave: they conflate social media broadcast platforms with messaging services, and imply that e2ee messaging will stop efforts to mitigate the sharing/broadcast of CSAM. This is false. 3/ Screenshot from the Home Office site that says, "E2EE and child safety At the moment, social media companies scan their platforms to find and report child sexual abuse material (such as images, videos, and grooming conversations) to The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC pass these referrals to the relevant law enforcement agencies, so that abusers are arrested, and children are protected.  The implementation of E2EE, without robust child safety measures in place, poses a catastrophic risk to the safety of children online, social media companies will no l...
Read 9 tweets
Aug 21
Dear Lord Bethell, thank you for being willing to engage. I'm providing my reply here, in a thread & a linked letter, given that the public is clearly interested in this topic. I am hopeful that we can find common ground.

Here, then, is the letter: 1/ signal.org/blog/pdfs/LBRe…


Image
Image
2/ And here in the thread, I've added alt-text and provided each paragraph one by one, to enable people here to read and engage more easily. Dear Lord Bethell,   Thank you for your willingness to engage. I’m going to provide my perspective here, given that voters and the public are clearly interested in this topic. Please know that I am sincere, that I have worked on these issues for nearly two decades, and that I am no champion of Big Tech, as my background makes very clear. Indeed, I am opposed to Clause 122 (formerly 111), and similar measures, in large part because I see them as extending the pernicious surveillance power of large tech firms under the guise of providing “accountability.”
3/ You assert that Parliament would not have passed these measures if it was concerned that the measures were undermining the UK’s safety and security. I believe you are right. The issue is that the Online Safety Bill has been in process for a number of years, is now very bloated, and contains a multitude of provisions, some good and some bad. Clause 122–the part that Signal and the vast majority of the technical expert community is alarmed by–was only added to the Bill in September 2022, during a very chaotic and unstable time in the UK government.
Read 17 tweets
Aug 17
📢NEW PAPER!

Where @davidthewid, @sarahbmyers & I unpack what Open Source AI even is.

We find that the terms ‘open’ & ‘open source’ are often more marketing than technical descriptor, and that even the most 'open' systems don't alone democratize AI 1/

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

Image
Image
To ground a more material view of 'open' AI, we carefully review the resources required to create AI at scale, enumerating what can be 'open' (to scrutiny, reuse, and extension), and what constitutively remains 'closed'. 3/
We find that while a handful of maximally open AI systems exist--offering transparency, reusability, and extensibility--the resources needed to build AI from scratch, and to deploy large AI systems at scale, remain in the hands of a few large companies. 4/
Read 9 tweets
May 30
If ethical surveillance isn't possible (reader it is not), then neither is ethical AI.

Who's ready for THAT convo?
This got a vibrant and fractious conversation going! I don't have time to reply and unpack, today of all back to back days. So I'll say here that I think a lot hinges on the definition of surveillance (which ≠ all information created about our shared reality)...
...but IS a very a broad category that requires us to recognize the relationships of domination encoded in most data creation practices, even if the pretext of these practices is "good", alongside the constitutive characteristic of data to escape the intentions of its author...
Read 5 tweets
May 25
📢NEW ARTICLE!!!

In which I connect Charles Babbage & his 19th c. blueprints for digital computation to industrial labor control & the creation of a regime of denigrated, disciplined "free" labor.

All of which has its roots in plantation slavery. 1/

logicmag.io/supa-dupa-skie…
Labor division, worker surveillance & record keeping are techniques that emerged on plantations as ways to extract as much labor from enslaved workers as possible. Well before they were deployed in industrial factories. 2/
Babbage was both the early co-designer of digital computing & an influential theorist of labor discipline. Both Babbage's "engines" & his labor theories repackage, expand on, and encode plantation techniques, particularly labor division and worker surveillance. 3/
Read 11 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(