Originally published at: https://tuxdigital.com/podcasts/this-week-in-linux/twil-263/
I’m back from the Red Hat Summit, and there is a lot to talk about this week. We have a new kernel release with Linux 6.9, which sees a lot of performance perks. There’s also some new cool AI stuff from Red Hat that was announced. We’re going to unpack some messy drama related to…
Covering the “drama” angle of the dispute with telegram and signal is low value especially when you dismiss the substance of the claim without basic research to confirm any of the details. It’s not a conspiracy theory but a matter of public record that Signal was funded by US intelligence to provide tools for overseas activists attempting regime change.
Read this article, and follow the sources.
Whether this translates to a change of decision into whether to use/not use signal is a different question, but its not a conspiracy to affirm things that are a matter of public record.
First, welcome to the forum and the community!
Telegram’s claim of being an encrypted messenger is what I was dismissing. The article shared by Jack and indirectly by Pavel included language as “if this is true” which means they are not affirming anything to be fact.
Grants being provided means there is zero obligation to payback or do anything outside of what it was given for. Its the same as someone getting a grant to go to college, this does not make that person a puppet of the government. Just because OTF gave a grant to Signal doesn’t mean that Signal was built for that purpose. Signal began life as TextSecure (and Redphone) in 2010, 2 years prior to the creation of the OTF. The claim that Signal was funded by US agencies for that reason suggests thats the only reason it exists. The creation of TextSecure 2 years prior shows that there were other motivations because the fund that supposedly funded the purpose didn’t exist yet.
To be clear, I am not saying that Signal didn’t receive funds from the OTF for that reason . . . it is quite possible that the motivation to give a grant to Signal was completely that reason however, that in itself does not instantly mean that Signal’s existence was that purpose or that Signal was “funded by the US government”.
We have sponsors on our shows to make it possible to create these shows in a sustainable way . . . this means we receive funding from these companies but none of them would count as “TuxDigital was funded by ” because that phrase means that it was solely funded by a single entity.
You’re never going to hear a spy agency outright say, “We fund a project for the purpose of overthrowing governments.” You have to look at their actions and the evidence. The CIA used to openly do that until they discovered it was unpopular with Americans and so they started funding NGOs to do it for them.
You can also draw multiple points of influence, for example, by like looking at the board of directors. Katherine Maher was involved in the Arab Spring, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the World Bank. She has affiliations with both Wikipedia and NPR despite openly criticizing the 1st amendment.
It falls flat to act like these are irrelevant to the criticisms against Signal. Regardless of what you think about Signal itself, it is relevant to the story and not a conspiracy theory.