https://www.city-journal.org/article/signals-katherine-maher-problem
U.S.-supported Color Revolutions abroad.
This is 100% Russian propaganda language and the whole article is built on this narrative 🤮
The problem is that the article does not point to any specific surveillance or backdoor issues in Signal code which, as we all know, is open-source. It does not even point to any specific legal or organisational issues which could lead to tampering the software. And because the author does not have any such arguments, the whole premise of the article is built on top “look, she worked there” and the rest is left to the reader and their personal paranoias 🤷
And these references to “regime changes” and “color revolutions” only confirm author’s own political bias and highly insulting to everyone in these countries where people fought for their own freedom.
Adding Durov’s quote on top of that is rather ironic, as the messenger is known to cooperate with FSB requests and completely opaque as it comes to its operations and server-side code.
@thatguyoverthere @kravietz @feld
They might be, but in this case it might be simply impossible to tell, what part of it is being manipulated and what comes of acting on their own accord. It might sound absurd, but for people living in non-free regimes, CIA might be way more trustworthy than any domestic entity. CIA (and their friends belonging to other states) might indeed be skilled manipulators, but it doesn't mean that people would do whatever they want.
@thatguyoverthere @kravietz @feld
Imagine me fighting for trans rights (just for the sake of example) — CIA probably might think of just using this agenda to undermine local government, but would it be my motivation? No, I genuinely believe what I fight for. Would I do this to undermine my own government — when it comes to non-free countries, my answer would probably also be "yes". Do I do this to hurt my own people? CIA doesn't really care, but me — I probably don't want that.
@thatguyoverthere @kravietz @feld
The real questions is: if I'm someone who is willing to cooperate with CIA and I'm actually capable with their help of achieving success — who is using whom? And the second one: if someone so capable prefers to work with foreign government rather then pursuing public policy career in their own, is such a state/government even worth preserving?
@thatguyoverthere @kravietz @feld
Yes, but as individuals become leaders of movements, they get more ambitious and harder to keep on the leash. E.g. it was discovered that Lech Wałęsa had ties with domestic intelligence — if anyone is surprised, it's not me 🤷 In the end it was him who had the last laugh: it was him who fucked the system over and succeeded, not the other way around as it usually happens, so who am I to judge?
@thatguyoverthere @kravietz @feld
And when it's foreign intelligence, it's even less control and I'm pretty sure that a lot of the money they are pouring into it might be yielding no return at all and goes into drugs and cheap booze for "very perspective" young political activists, journalists, some — probably into more expensive booze for professors of who-the-fuck-knows-what from a plethora of high-brow think tanks 😂
@thatguyoverthere @kravietz @feld
So does it matter if CIA was involved?
Of course shit might ALWAYS go sideways — TP AJAX something-something. But did CIA want THIS outcome? Probably not — it became a total clusterfuck, no matter the angle you look at it. But this only proves once again that not everything goes according to their plan — they are also not always in control.