this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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125
The French government doesn't consider WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram secure enough, replaced by Olvid (Google translate link in post text) (www.lepoint.fr)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by Tibert@jlai.lu to c/technology@lemmy.world
38 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Another article, much better and presents in more detail that Olvid was audited on an older version and chosen because it was French and they applied for it (French) https://www.numerama.com/tech/1575168-pourquoi-les-ministres-vont-devoir-renoncer-a-whatsapp-signal-et-telegram.html

Google translate link original post : https://www-lepoint-fr.translate.goog/high-tech-internet/les-ministres-francais-invites-a-desinstaller-whatsapp-signal-et-telegram-29-11-2023-2545099_47.php?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=wapp

The translation has some mistakes but good enough to understand the context.

Here is a short summary :

Olvid passed a 35d intrusion test by Anssi (French cybersecurity state organisation) experts or designated experts, with code examination without finding any security breach. Which is not the case of all other 3 messaging apps (either because they didn't do any test, or because they didn't pass).

This makes WhatsApp, signal and telegram unreliable for state security.

And so government members and ministerial offices will have to use Olvid or Tchap (French state in house messaging app).

More detail in the article.

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[–] spiderkle@lemmy.ca 48 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (7 children)

Well that was the dumbest explanation ever, that's basically just political pretext to give the government contract to some french company. Potentially there has been some lobbying going on.

Signal doesn't store it's encryption/decryption keys in the cloud, so you would need the devices and then you would still have to decrypt content if the user doesn't give you access manually.

To crack a 128-bit AES key, it would take 1 billion billion years with a current supercomputer. To crack a 256-bit AES key, it would take 2^255 / 2,117.8 trillion years on average.

So until some amazing quantum computer comes along, this is pretty safe. Fuck Olvid.

[–] dotMonkey@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm sure there are more attack vectors than that though

[–] themusicman@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

Exactly. "Security assuming nobody fucked up" isn't enough

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