Well yes and no. You can compile a client yourself but you can’t use it with the official server, you have to use the binaries they put out for that. So there’s a bit of a gap there.
It doesn’t matter how many back doors they have on the server side. As long as the clients are open source (and end-to-end encrypted), the only thing they can tell is that two people communicated.
That’s not how it works when you have a messaging platform where the server provider can secretly pair additional devices. Send PGP encrypted mails if you want it differently.
Signal is a paid contractor for Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and others since many years.
They openly talk about this on their own blog: https://signal.org/blog/allo/
While this may be true, I don’t understand what this has to do with a tool that peaches privacy requiring a tool that violates all aspects of privacy.
EDIT: ah I believe you are saying that I never should have expected such purism in the first place.
What I’m saying is that Signal have a conflict of interest when it comes to Google and other customers.
Hey, at least their clients are open source so you know that their chats are actually encrypted.
Well yes and no. You can compile a client yourself but you can’t use it with the official server, you have to use the binaries they put out for that. So there’s a bit of a gap there.
Their clients are but they sell proprietary licenses, so when they proclaim that There is no WhatsApp ‘backdoor’, you have to take their word for it.
It doesn’t matter how many back doors they have on the server side. As long as the clients are open source (and end-to-end encrypted), the only thing they can tell is that two people communicated.
That’s not how it works when you have a messaging platform where the server provider can secretly pair additional devices. Send PGP encrypted mails if you want it differently.