this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025

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304

Signal no longer cooperating with Ukraine on Russian cyberthreats, official says (therecord.media)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 190 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

First off, Signal hasn't said anything, this is an accusation made at a conference in Kyiv. So - who knows, they're behind, they don't have billions to support an army, who knows.

IF they have chosen to not help Ukraine where at all possible, that would be bad.

All of that said, if I was running a modern army using an encrypted chat app, I'd fucking have all that shit in-house, wtf. It's 2025. Ukraine already has a bunch of l337 h4X0rs. I'm sure they could slap something together in days and have it in the field in weeks.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 2 months ago (1 children)

not to mention the Signal protocol is open source so they could literally build something in days and ensure the same encryption

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago

Maintaining and testing such an app has costs and risks. They may think it’s more secure that signal does this. It is also harder to attack all of signal.

They are also significantly resource constrained, everything they have goes towards defence. The effort building the app could be deployed on developing weapon systems they can’t buy.

Your right nations should have their own independent systems for secure communications for military, politicians and civil service.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Moreover, its not like Ukraine hasnt been pushing for localized tech stack since at least 2016-2018 ish.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah they are slowly moving to matrix afaik

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Really? Could you provide some sources? I'm curious to learn more.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Simplex is probably ready now. It's self-hostable, and has strong encryption.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I wish. SimpleX has a notification/delivery issue on iOS—it's not reliable at all over there.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I’m sure they could slap something together in days and have it in the field in weeks.

We make a lot of assumptions about how other people live, and what they have available.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 2 months ago (2 children)

What exactly is the cooperation that Signal was doing beforehand? Signal claims to collect very little data so I'm not sure how exactly they help?

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Russia was caught running a bunch of side channel and phishing attacks using malicious QR codes. Presumably signal could help track these patterns in terms of time and place, to help isolate where espionage activity was occuring.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Except Signal should not have that data. They claim they do not log that information, so it should be impossible for them to do that.

Unless signal is lying, that's not something they can do.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Malicious QR codes were used to establish a separate device as a 'linked device' which would allow the attacker to receive and read Signal messages sent to and from the target

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

This tracks. Signal claims to have your phone number and logs on the last time that number accessed the service.

They could not generate new access codes via Twilio when certain patterns are detected and still be within that known data.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

so I’m not sure how exactly they help?

I would say yes, that you are not sure how exactly they help, if I'm answering your question as written.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Did it ever respond to those "requests"? What would Signal have anyway other than phone number to login association.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago

This seems to be the only source for this information, while on the other hand I'm seeing this;

Wired: A Signal Update Fends Off a Phishing Technique Used in Russian Espionage

Google warns that hackers tied to Russia are tricking Ukrainian soldiers with fake QR codes for Signal group invites that let spies steal their messages. Signal has pushed out new safeguards.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Give it time. Before long you'll see articles about how we need to ban encryption to help Ukraine fight Russia & Democrats will support it cause that is how clueless many of them are.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Dude fuck off.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why? He's right...

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not even close, but okay.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

While I personally think a removal of encryption tends be on the other side of this conflict, I have been called a nonce several times by otherwise leftist folks because of my support for strong encryption(ie the only people who want encryption have something to hide ergo you’re a nonce). This is all anecdote so YMMV.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

why aren't they using the matrix?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What's the difference in this context? Can't their enemies send dodgy links and QR codes on Matrix?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The app?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Damn... Hmm are they part of the US government?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The article explains everything. The gist is Russians are targeting Ukrainians with phishing attacks via Signal. There also is the suggestion they're exploiting the linked devices functionality, though I'm not sure how.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Appreciate this, I don't click links lol

Apparently if they can get you to scan some bogus qr code they can get you add their device to your account.

Why signal not cooperating tho? Following us government?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

...I don't click links...

I strongly suggest doing so if you want to understand what the article is about

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Because they can't without backdooring the software? Just like they also refuse to co-operate with Swedish government and threatened to leave the market should Sweden try to force them.

You know Russian spies can also use TOR onion routing and so on.

As for phishing there is nothing Signal can do about someone scanning a signal contact sharing QR and adding it to their contracts list beyond informative "hey are you really sure, really really sure you want to add this contact". If user trusts someone they shouldn't, no amount of app policy protections help. Or maybe they manage to shish them to scan and approve "share account to another device". Again nothing Signal can do about that.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Not sure. Might be political tension. Might be that phishing attacks are typically user error, and Signal feels like at a certain point it's not their responsibility. Hard to say beyond conjecture, and I didn't see a clear reason given in the article.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

bye bye signal just deleted it.

don't need to support a pro kremlin app

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Hope you don't use (almost) any other messaging app either. If a single unsubstantiated article is enough to make you stop using something, you should be using almost nothing anywhere.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago

There's a whole ocean between 'a single (biased) source claims Signal have stopped responding to requests for cybercrime assistance' and 'Signal is a pro-Kremlin app'.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Ok, they had choice to use Jami, app independent of anyone, but they chose centralization...

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago

The article is about Signal providing info on what the Russians are doing on the app and not Ukraine using it themselves

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Did they really? I assume they would do more research than me when choosing tech, but my initial reaction is "the fuck is a Jami?". Is this a big app in recent years?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It's a messenger backed by the GNU foundation. The last time I tried it it didn't reliably deliver messages on Android.

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